Marked for Alejandro Gutiérrez
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Squad25 Aug 2031
A fracture rules Tomás Blanco out for 19 days
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Estudiantes will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
Match23 Aug 2031
5 matches without a win for Estudiantes
The run now stands at 5, and the questions being asked around Estudiantes are no longer polite ones.
Squad25 Aug 2031
The medical room confirms 23 days on the sidelines for Federico Sena, and a plan built around him now has to be rebuilt.
Market25 Aug 2031
Only the photograph left for Julián Moretti
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Julián Moretti will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Estudiantes the goodbyes have quietly begun.
Squad25 Aug 2031
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Estudiantes this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Match23 Aug 2031
Colón left with the points after a 0‑1 defeat that will take some explaining on the terraces.
The dugout25 Aug 2031
This is not rotation. Fernando Núñez has not been in the manager's plans for some time, and nobody at Estudiantes is pretending otherwise.
Squad25 Aug 2031
200 games in these colours. Service of that kind gets rarer every season, and the crowd knows it.
Player ratings25 Aug 2031
Successful dribbles: 17. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Squad11 Aug 2031
A fracture rules Tomás Blanco out for 33 days
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Estudiantes will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
Squad11 Aug 2031
Brian Farioli and a teammate said things this week that will take longer than a week to unsay. It was not about football, and both of them play on Saturday.
Match9 Aug 2031
3 matches without a goal for Estudiantes
The chances are being made and something is happening between the making and the finishing. 3 matches now, and the anxiety in the ground arrives a little earlier every week.
Squad11 Aug 2031
“I never wanted to be anywhere else. There is unfinished business here.” Fernando Paz commits to Estudiantes for another 3 years.
The dugout11 Aug 2031
The manager makes an example of Bruno Solotar
“If you cannot run for the shirt, somebody else will wear it.” No name was used and none was needed; every player in that room knew who it was for.
Match9 Aug 2031
0‑1 to Defensores Unidos, and no complaints worth printing. The performance asked for nothing more than it got.
Player ratings11 Aug 2031
Successful dribbles: 17. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
The dugout11 Aug 2031
“The supporters are entitled to be angry. So am I. We will put it right.” 0‑1, a manager saying the necessary things, and a dressing room that heard a different version of them.
Looking ahead11 Aug 2031
Estudiantes take on the side everybody is chasing
Comunicaciones arrive as leaders. A side at the top is beaten roughly once a month, and the club that does it gets a week it remembers for a year.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad4 Aug 2031
A fracture rules Tomás Blanco out for 40 days
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Estudiantes will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
Market4 Aug 2031
“This is not anger. I have thought about it for months, and nothing that has happened lately changed my mind.” The request is on a desk at Estudiantes, and it is not being withdrawn.
Player ratings4 Aug 2031
Successful dribbles: 23. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
Squad4 Aug 2031
Brian Farioli was at the centre of it, and by the time it was pulled apart there were three or four others involved. Training grounds are small places and long seasons make them smaller.
Boardroom4 Aug 2031
Wages eat 108% of everything Estudiantes earn
There is a figure at which a wage bill stops being ambitious and becomes the reason nothing else is possible, and this club has reached it. Nothing is left over for a transfer, a stand or a rainy afternoon.
The dugout4 Aug 2031
The manager makes an example of Fernando Paz
“If you cannot run for the shirt, somebody else will wear it.” No name was used and none was needed; every player in that room knew who it was for.
Squad4 Aug 2031
A month is long enough that nobody gets in by accident. Juan Carlos Ramírez is in the division's best eleven for it, which is a quieter compliment than an award and a more reliable one.
The dugout4 Aug 2031
“A point is a point and I will take it, but we should have had all three.” Bautista Cohen after the 0‑0 draw, and the sentence every manager in the country said at some stage this weekend.
The dugout4 Aug 2031
Bruno Solotar knocks on the manager's door
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Estudiantes, and both men came out saying it was fine.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad31 Mar 2031
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Estudiantes this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad31 Mar 2031
“I never wanted to be anywhere else. There is unfinished business here.” Alejandro Gutiérrez commits to Estudiantes for another 3 years.
The dugout31 Mar 2031
The manager makes an example of Gael Suárez
“If you cannot run for the shirt, somebody else will wear it.” No name was used and none was needed; every player in that room knew who it was for.
Market31 Mar 2031
The name of Brian Farioli keeps appearing in other people's back pages. Estudiantes say nothing, which says plenty.
The dugout31 Mar 2031
Alejandro Ibáñez has become a man the manager trusts
Nobody at Estudiantes will say this on the record and the team sheets have been saying it for weeks. There is a small group in every squad who get picked when the fixture is difficult, and he has joined it.
Squad31 Mar 2031
“I did not come here to warm up in front of people.” He is out of contract eventually, he is old enough to count the weeks, and Estudiantes will have to give him a reason to stay or an exit.
The dugout31 Mar 2031
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Sergio Martínez trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
Market31 Mar 2031
Estudiantes have made Mateo Bruno available for transfer. A career at this club is over in all but paperwork.
Squad31 Mar 2031
A manager forgives a bad Saturday far more readily than a bad Tuesday, because one of them he can explain and the other one he chose. The reports this week have not been good.
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Squad3 Jun 2030
The words a physio says slowly. 17 days is what the club will announce and everybody who has heard this diagnosis before knows the number is the least of it: the knee comes back before the player does.
Player ratings3 Jun 2030
A brace, and Tomás Blanco takes the afternoon — 8.96
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Tomás Blanco provided it, and the 8.96 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
Market3 Jun 2030
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Estudiantes can pretend not to have heard.
Player ratings3 Jun 2030
A defender's goal wins it for Estudiantes — 7.84
1 for Segundo Fernández, marked 7.84, and a centre-half's name in the part of the report he normally only reaches by mistake. He will not be allowed to forget it in the dressing room for a month.
Squad3 Jun 2030
Facundo Ardiles and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Squad3 Jun 2030
Federico Sena falls out with a teammate over standards
The oldest argument in any dressing room and the only one that is genuinely about football: one man thinks another is not putting enough in. It is also the row a manager privately does not mind having happened.
Match1 Jun 2030
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Tomás Blanco. 3‑1 against San Telmo, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
The dugout3 Jun 2030
Juan Maone gets it from the manager
“Nobody here is above being told.” It was not said with a name attached, but the dressing room can count, and so can everybody who was listening.
Match3 Jun 2030
Halfway: Estudiantes sit in position 5
31 points at the turn. The first half of a season is a promise; the second is a bill, and the town is about to find out which of the two this one was.
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Market12 Nov 2029
“This is not anger. I have thought about it for months, and nothing that has happened lately changed my mind.” The request is on a desk at Estudiantes, and it is not being withdrawn.
Squad12 Nov 2029
Brian Farioli and a teammate said things this week that will take longer than a week to unsay. It was not about football, and both of them play on Saturday.
Squad12 Nov 2029
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Federico Sena was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
The dugout12 Nov 2029
It is never announced and it is entirely visible: the biggest afternoons of the season keep containing him. A press box works this out long before anybody at the club confirms a word of it.
The dugout12 Nov 2029
Vinícius Alves is still being punished for one mistake
Nobody will confirm it and the team sheets confirm it every week. One error has bought him a spell as second choice that is already longer than the error deserved.
Market12 Nov 2029
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Facundo Castelli signs something — a contract at Estudiantes or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
Match12 Nov 2029
Estudiantes have something to play for
Position 5 on 60 points, and the places that carry a European ticket are close enough to count. Seasons like this are decided by two results in April, and the club knows which two.
The dugout12 Nov 2029
Germán Soba asks for a word with the manager
“I would rather say it to his face than read about it.” The meeting was requested by the player, which tells you most of what you need to know.
The dugout12 Nov 2029
The manager plants his flag on Darío Rostagno
“Judge me on him.” Managers do not say that kind of thing by accident — it moves the pressure from Darío Rostagno’s shoulders onto his own, and both of them know it.
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Market5 Nov 2029
“This is not anger. I have thought about it for months, and nothing that has happened lately changed my mind.” The request is on a desk at Estudiantes, and it is not being withdrawn.
The dugout5 Nov 2029
This is not rotation. Lucas Aguero has not been in the manager's plans for some time, and nobody at Estudiantes is pretending otherwise.
Squad5 Nov 2029
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Federico Sena was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Squad5 Nov 2029
“I never wanted to be anywhere else. There is unfinished business here.” Alejandro Gutiérrez commits to Estudiantes for another 3 years.
Squad5 Nov 2029
Somebody has moved past him. It is not a dropping and it is worse than one, because a dropping is about a Saturday and this is about where he stands.
Squad5 Nov 2029
Vinícius Alves and a teammate said things this week that will take longer than a week to unsay. It was not about football, and both of them play on Saturday.