Marked for Facundo Hernandez
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad23 Apr 2029
Enzo Lemos 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.
Squad23 Apr 2029
Franco Rofrano 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.
Market23 Apr 2029
Bella Vista have made Mauro Alfonso available for transfer. A career at this club is over in all but paperwork.
The dugout23 Apr 2029
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Bella Vista, and both men came out saying it was fine.
Looking ahead23 Apr 2029
Next up at home: Bella Italia, who go into it in position 8. The kind of fixture a season is quietly built on or quietly loses its shape in.
Boardroom23 Apr 2029
The Bella Vista production line keeps running
35 graduates out of an academy now rated 9 out of 20. Clubs this size survive on exactly that, and the town knows every name.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
The terraces12 Feb 2029
Anger at Bella Vista spills outside the ground
It has stopped being a mood in the stands and started being something organised. Boards can ignore a bad atmosphere for a long time; they cannot ignore this stage of it for very long at all.
Market12 Feb 2029
Gerbin Silva hands in a written request
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Bella Vista can pretend not to have heard.
Market12 Feb 2029
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Bella Vista they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
Transfer targets12 Feb 2029
Bella Vista had done everything except persuade the man himself. He stays at Penarol, and the manager goes back to the drawing board with the money still in the bank.
Boardroom12 Feb 2029
5 academy players handed senior numbers at Bella Vista
The morning the pathway stops being a brochure and becomes a team sheet. Most of them will not be here in three years; all of them have already done the hard part, which was getting to today.
Squad12 Feb 2029
Gerbin Silva 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.
Market12 Feb 2029
Clubs spend fortunes looking for players and occasionally find one down the corridor. Facundo Hernandez is that, and the reception he gets on his first appearance will be different in kind from the one any signing receives.
Market12 Feb 2029
The academy exists for exactly this morning. Sergio Santos has come through every age group the club runs and has now been handed a senior number, and the people who coached him at twelve will be the proudest in the building.
Squad12 Feb 2029
Franco Rofrano 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.