Andres Rios 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.
7 signings in three months. Every one of them may be an upgrade and the team can still be worse for a while, which is the part of a rebuild that never appears in the transfer-window verdicts.
Every shape has positions in it and this one does not have his. Deportivo Colonia will either change the shape, change his job, or change his club, and he is waiting to hear which.
Lluís arrives at 39 with nothing left to prove and plenty left to pass on. Legs are a young man's currency; knowing where to stand never ages.
The dugout11 Aug 2036
The manager has not finished forgetting Andre Oyongo's mistake
Publicly it is behind everybody. It is not behind the man who picks the team, and the only place that shows is a team sheet. He will get another chance; he will get it in a match that matters less.
His past walked in ahead of him. Players who have been where he has been get a hearing in a dressing room before they have earned one, and he has it for as long as his form does.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Cristian Bentancur 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.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Ronaldo Vera trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
The dugout14 Jul 2036
The manager has not finished forgetting Andre Oyongo's mistake
Publicly it is behind everybody. It is not behind the man who picks the team, and the only place that shows is a team sheet. He will get another chance; he will get it in a match that matters less.
Every manager keeps a short list in his head of the men he wants on the pitch when the stakes rise, and it is never published. The team sheets for the big afternoons say Paolo Cartagena is on it.
23 points from position 5. The title is somebody else’s business and the drop is somebody else’s problem; what is left is the argument about passports.
In brief
SquadQuestions about Tomás Giménez on the training pitch
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Deportivo Colonia have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
“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 Deportivo Colonia, and it is not being withdrawn.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Arturo Sagal will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Deportivo Colonia the goodbyes have quietly begun.
Deportivo Colonia asked and Progreso said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Andres Rios 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 manager may talk to whoever he likes and may pay nobody. A squad survives a window like this by borrowing, by promoting, and by hoping the injuries land somewhere else.
Football clubs borrow; that is not the story. Borrowing more than the facility allows is, because from here it is the owner's money or somebody else's decision, and neither of those belongs to the board.
Deportivo Colonia have made the call to River Plate. No fee, a share of the wages, and a spare shirt in the position where the squad has been thinnest all season.
A 1‑0 win over Huracan Buceo, earned rather than given, and the sort of afternoon that sends everyone home talking about next week instead of this one.
The dugout16 Jun 2036
The view from the dugout
“We controlled it. There were spells I did not like and we will look at them, but the group showed me something.” Interim Coach, on a 1‑0 win that he was already picking apart on the walk to the press room.
“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.
The dugout16 Jun 2036
The manager has not finished forgetting Andre Oyongo's mistake
Publicly it is behind everybody. It is not behind the man who picks the team, and the only place that shows is a team sheet. He will get another chance; he will get it in a match that matters less.
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.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the team. 6 saves, several of them the sort nobody expects to see stopped, and a scoreline that flatters everybody in front of him.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Thamsanqa Jali will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Deportivo Colonia the goodbyes have quietly begun.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Andres Rios was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
“We keep meeting, and we keep leaving the room with the same numbers we walked in with.” Another round of talks at Deportivo Colonia, another week without a signature from Nahuel Fontes.
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Deportivo Colonia, and both men came out saying it was fine.
At 19 he is being measured against the rest of the division's kids and coming out in front. The senior version of this award is where the club would like this to lead.
In brief
The dugoutAndre Oyongo is still being punished for one mistake
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Deportivo Colonia they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Andres Rios was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Past the limit the bank set, which is the line between a club being financed and a club being in trouble. $13.9M is now the number every conversation about this club will start with.
“I have given this everything, but my family is not here and neither am I, not really.” A footballer can be coached out of bad form. Nobody has ever been coached out of this, and Deportivo Colonia know it.
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Deportivo Colonia, and both men came out saying it was fine.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Deportivo Colonia can pretend not to have heard.
5 boys move up, and somewhere in the building the people who coached them at twelve are quietly having the best morning of their working year. Nothing about this shows up in a result and it is why the academy exists.
There is no fee, no unveiling and no agent on the steps. Cristian Pereira has been at this club since he was a boy and is now, formally, one of the first-team squad — which for a local readership beats any signing of any size.
There is no fee, no unveiling and no agent on the steps. Daniel Fernandez has been at this club since he was a boy and is now, formally, one of the first-team squad — which for a local readership beats any signing of any size.
Clubs spend fortunes looking for players and occasionally find one down the corridor. Marcelo Valverde is that, and the reception he gets on his first appearance will be different in kind from the one any signing receives.
The club is not barred from spending; it simply has nothing to spend that it has not first raised. Every name linked with Deportivo Colonia this window arrives with a name leaving in the same sentence.
It is the quietest way a club tells you what its ambitions are. The money was asked for, the money was refused, and the people who work there every day now know exactly where they stand.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Andre Oyongo 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 words a physio says slowly. 55 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.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Deportivo Colonia will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Deportivo Colonia this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
There is no fee, no unveiling and no agent on the steps. Cristian Rivera has been at this club since he was a boy and is now, formally, one of the first-team squad — which for a local readership beats any signing of any size.
There is no fee, no unveiling and no agent on the steps. Juan Castro has been at this club since he was a boy and is now, formally, one of the first-team squad — which for a local readership beats any signing of any size.
Clubs spend fortunes looking for players and occasionally find one down the corridor. Luis Rossi is that, and the reception he gets on his first appearance will be different in kind from the one any signing receives.
The academy exists for exactly this morning. Ivan Viera 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.
The club is not barred from spending; it simply has nothing to spend that it has not first raised. Every name linked with Deportivo Colonia this window arrives with a name leaving in the same sentence.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Deportivo Colonia this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Footballers are asked about their boyhood club so often that nobody listens to the answer. Richard Uribe has just signed for Deportivo Colonia, and for once the answer mattered.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Dyohan Cabrera 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.
It happens to all of them and it is still the hardest paragraph a local paper has to write. 36 years old, 3 points down on where he was, and a body that has started charging interest on a career.
Andre Oyongo is 18, and Deportivo Colonia 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.