The Albion Sentinel
Squad6 Jan 2031
The season belongs to Fernando Camarda
An individual honour is a strange thing in a team game, and the best of them are never argued with. He has had the sort of year that ends with his name being read out, and Albion have had the benefit of it.
Squad6 Jan 2031
Hernán Toledo in a row with a teammate
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Albion this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Transfer targets6 Jan 2031
Door shut on Michael López
Albion asked and Cerro Largo said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
Transfer targets6 Jan 2031
Pablo Ortiz stays at Cerro as time runs out
A deal that was a phone call from completion at lunchtime was dead by midnight. Albion will try again when the window opens; Cerro may not be selling by then.
Squad6 Jan 2031
Mateo Alcoba stays put
“The easiest signature of my career.” Mateo Alcoba and Albion agree another 5 years, and the manager can plan around him rather than about him.
Market6 Jan 2031
Albion sign Edwin Martinez, one for the future
Edwin Martinez is 18, and Albion have signed him for the player he will be rather than the one he is. The first team can wait; the point of a deal like this is the years it buys.
The dugout6 Jan 2031
Leandro Ávalos has become a man the manager trusts
Nobody at Albion 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.
The dugout6 Jan 2031
Juan Agustín Lorenzo knocks on the manager’s door
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Juan Agustín Lorenzo trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
Squad6 Jan 2031
Carlos Airala moves up the pecking order
Nothing is announced when this happens and everybody knows. He is a bigger part of the plan at Albion than he was a month ago, and the training ground worked that out before the team sheet said so.
In brief
- The dugout A promise honoured for Edwin Martinez
- Boardroom A $482.3K-a-year partner for Albion
- The dugout Tomás Regina has been promised minutes