Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Progreso will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Progreso have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Emiliano Álvarez 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.
Progreso have gone to Liverpool Montevideo with a bid, and the supporters have gone to the internet with an opinion about it. Whether either changes anything is up to the selling club.
The approach was made and the answer came back in a sentence. There is no number on the table because there was no number that would have been enough.
Squad2 Jul 2035
Words at Progreso training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Diego Mejías 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.
The name of Francisco Vidal has come up in conversations Progreso were not part of. Nothing formal, nothing signed — but nothing about it accidental either.
The words a physio says slowly. 16 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.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Progreso they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
A medical, a signature, a shirt held up in front of a sponsor’s board. Progreso have done the hard part with Racing Club, and the part that remains is the part supporters actually see.
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Diego Mejías and Progreso agree another 3 years.
Squad8 Jan 2035
Diego Toma 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.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Napoli have kept their man, and Progreso go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
A deal that was a phone call from completion at lunchtime was dead by midnight. Progreso will try again when the window opens; Juventud may not be selling by then.
25 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Progreso lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
Fee agreed, wages agreed, and Paysandu FC waiting with a shirt. Nobody at Progreso is pretending otherwise, and the supporters have stopped asking whether and started asking when.
Footballers are asked about their boyhood club so often that nobody listens to the answer. Kevin Morgan has just signed for Progreso, and for once the answer mattered.
The kind of year that ends with a name being read out in a hall. Progreso had the benefit of it every week and now have the problem of everybody else knowing.
Progreso have gone to Juventud with a bid, and the supporters have gone to the internet with an opinion about it. Whether either changes anything is up to the selling club.
Rodrigo Martínez 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.
The words a physio says slowly. 33 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.
The last thing about a transfer that is still about the player is his signature on his own terms, and it is there. Progreso have lost him in all but the paperwork.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Nacional have kept their man, and Progreso go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
The words a physio says slowly. 40 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.
The clubs have settled the fee and he has settled his wages. What remains is a medical and a photograph, and around Progreso people have started saying his name in the past tense.
0‑1 against Colo-Colo. Continental football is unforgiving about the things a domestic league lets a side get away with, and this was a night spent finding out which of those the club still has.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Progreso can pretend not to have heard.
He won it back and then made something of it, which is two jobs and the reason the scoreline looks the way it does. 19 combined actions and a mark of 7.08, and not one of them will make a highlights package.
The number the board signed off was not enough. It has been asked again and raised its own offer to $135.0K — a club that wants Exequiel Fernández enough to be asked twice.
There is no worse way to lose a footballer. Joao Cuenca has pre-agreed a move away, which means every appearance between now and June is made by a man the club can no longer sell, and somebody upstairs will be asked why the contract was allowed to get here.