Marked for Alejandro Valverde
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad29 Jan 2046
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Rentistas this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad29 Jan 2046
Yegor Kartashov 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.
Loan watch29 Jan 2046
“I watch every Rentistas game from here. That says everything about where my head is.” The loan at Racing runs its course, but his heart never made the trip.
Squad29 Jan 2046
Bassem Elneny has become a man the manager trusts
Nobody at Rentistas 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.
Squad29 Jan 2046
“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.
Market29 Jan 2046
Diego Godoy runs his contract down
1 months remain and no agreement is close. Every week without a signature costs Rentistas money.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Match8 Apr 2045
Rentistas make home a hard place to visit
23 without defeat on their own grass. The pitch has not changed; the crowd has — louder earlier, and quicker to sense when the opposition would rather be somewhere else.
Player ratings10 Apr 2045
Gabriel Mujica, 36, rolls back the years — 7.85
There is an age at which every good afternoon gets described as a throwback, which is unfair and also accurate. 7.85 at 36, and nobody on the pitch was better.
Market10 Apr 2045
“I have given everything here and I need a new challenge.” The request is formal, and the relationship will never be quite the same again.
Squad10 Apr 2045
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Rentistas this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Match8 Apr 2045
Hard to beat is not the same as winning, but 6 matches without defeat is a foundation Rentistas did not have in the autumn.
Match8 Apr 2045
A 1‑0 win over River Plate, earned rather than given, and the sort of afternoon that sends everyone home talking about next week instead of this one.
Squad10 Apr 2045
Sandi Elsnik 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.
Squad10 Apr 2045
“The easiest signature of my career.” Recep Akgun and Rentistas agree another 4 years, and the manager can plan around him rather than about him.
Squad10 Apr 2045
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Alejandro Valverde, and the manager let it.
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Squad6 Feb 2045
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Rentistas this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad6 Feb 2045
Words at Rentistas training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Sandi Elsnik is at the centre of it, and the squad will now find out whether the standard rises or the pair of them simply stop speaking.
Boardroom6 Feb 2045
$2.0M on the table at Rentistas
The board have answered with money instead of encouragement, which is the only answer a manager ever wants. Spending it well is now entirely his problem.
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Boardroom12 Dec 2044
This is the season the town will measure the next twenty against. The trophy travels home with the squad, and the route through the streets was agreed days ago.
Squad12 Dec 2044
Carlos Enciso damages knee ligaments — 49 days out
The words a physio says slowly. 49 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.
Squad12 Dec 2044
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the team. 10 saves, several of them the sort nobody expects to see stopped, and a scoreline that flatters everybody in front of him.
Match11 Dec 2044
Rentistas come up short in Europe
0‑1 away to the standard of Atletico Nacional. Nobody will pretend this was a scandal; the gap is real, it is measurable, and closing it is a project rather than a team talk.
Squad12 Dec 2044
A fracture rules Carlos Sanchez out for 31 days
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Rentistas will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
Squad12 Dec 2044
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 Rentistas have had the benefit of it.
The terraces12 Dec 2044
There is a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 22-year-old it feels ownership of. Facundo Pellistri has it now, and everything he does for the rest of his time here will be measured against the goodwill he was handed for free.
Market12 Dec 2044
The best deals are the ones the accountants never notice. Alejandro Valverde arrives at Rentistas with his wages the only cost and something to prove the only clause.
Market12 Dec 2044
Rentistas shop where it costs nothing
Agustin Mendez signs, and the fee column stays empty. Deals like this look small in July and clever by March — or they are never mentioned again.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad11 Apr 2044
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 18 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
Squad11 Apr 2044
Leandro Díaz 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.
Match9 Apr 2044
Three points for Plaza Colonia, 1‑0 the final word against Progreso in a contest settled by the finer margins.
Squad11 Apr 2044
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Sergio Gimenez, and the manager let it.
Player ratings11 Apr 2044
Successful dribbles: 18. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
Player ratings11 Apr 2044
Marked 7.28. Ask anyone leaving the ground what settled it and you will get one name, which is the only award that has ever really counted.