Marked for Daniel Miranda
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Market31 Jul 2034
“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.
The dugout31 Jul 2034
“I remember the meeting. I remember exactly what was promised in it.” All Boys may remember it differently, which is precisely the problem.
Market31 Jul 2034
Every press conference now starts and ends the same way: with Santiago Apa’s future. The manager has run out of new ways to say nothing.
The dugout31 Jul 2034
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.
The dugout31 Jul 2034
Facundo Méndez 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 Facundo Méndez trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
Market31 Jul 2034
All Boys spent the window trying to move Daniel Miranda on and nobody came. He trains with a squad that has already told him he is not part of it, and both sides now wait for the next one.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad1 May 2034
Daniel Miranda damages knee ligaments — 19 days out
The words a physio says slowly. 19 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.
Squad1 May 2034
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the whole of the defence. 8 saves, several of them the kind nobody expects to see made, and ten outfield players who owe him a drink.
Player ratings1 May 2034
A brace, and Santiago Apa takes the afternoon — 8.55
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Santiago Apa provided it, and the 8.55 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
Player ratings1 May 2034
Pablo Bruno, 20, plays like he has been here for years — 7.62
A mark of 7.62 means one thing beside a twenty-nine-year-old's name and something else entirely beside a 20-year-old's. Nobody at the ground needed telling which this was.
Squad1 May 2034
At 20, Pablo Bruno is already the best thing here
An average of 7.01 in a first team he is several years too young for. All Boys have something, and by now the whole division has noticed.
Squad1 May 2034
A season average of 7.21 with 12 goals behind it. Opponents have started planning around him, which is the sincerest compliment football pays.
Match1 May 2034
Halfway: All Boys sit in position 3
21 points at the turn. The first half of a season is a promise; the second is a bill, and the town is about to find out which of the two this one was.
Match29 Apr 2034
It finished 2‑2, and it somehow always looked like it would. One of those afternoons where the table moves less than the tempers.
The dugout1 May 2034
Alejo Tabares gets picked when it counts
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 Alejo Tabares is on it.
In brief
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The dugout
The view from the dugout
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The dugout
Facundo Méndez dropped after a run of poor form
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Market
No place for Jorge Escobar in the plan
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Squad24 Apr 2034
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the whole of the defence. 15 saves, several of them the kind nobody expects to see made, and ten outfield players who owe him a drink.
Match19 Apr 2034
All Boys march on in the cup
Newell's Old Boys are out and All Boys go through, 1‑0 the final word. The bracket opens up a little, and everyone allows themselves a look at it.
Squad24 Apr 2034
A knee injury of the worst kind for Daniel Miranda
26 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. All Boys lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Match22 Apr 2034
5‑1, and Tiago Batista took the headlines on an afternoon when everything All Boys tried came off. Days like this are retold all winter.
Player ratings24 Apr 2034
A brace, and Miqueas Pintos takes the afternoon — 8.85
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Miqueas Pintos provided it, and the 8.85 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
Squad24 Apr 2034
3 goals in one afternoon from one man. The other players were also present, a witness confirmed.
Player ratings24 Apr 2034
Pablo Bruno, 20, plays like he has been here for years — 7.64
A mark of 7.64 means one thing beside a twenty-nine-year-old's name and something else entirely beside a 20-year-old's. Nobody at the ground needed telling which this was.
Player ratings24 Apr 2034
Marco Iacobellis, 34, rolls back the years — 8.06
There is an age at which every good afternoon gets described as a throwback, which is unfair and also accurate. 8.06 at 34, and nobody on the pitch was better.
Match22 Apr 2034
6 goals. Both benches spent the second half looking at each other rather than at the pitch. Purists will complain about All Boys and Maipú in equal measure; everybody else had a wonderful time.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad17 Apr 2034
A knee injury of the worst kind for Daniel Miranda
33 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. All Boys lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Match17 Apr 2034
All Boys are in among the leaders
Position 3 and 17 points on the board. Nobody at the ground will say the word out loud yet, and everybody at the ground is thinking it.
Squad17 Apr 2034
“I never wanted to be anywhere else. There is unfinished business here.” Pablo Bruno commits to All Boys for another 3 years.
Squad17 Apr 2034
Tiago Batista 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.
The dugout17 Apr 2034
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.
The dugout17 Apr 2034
The manager makes an example of Pochi
“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.
Market17 Apr 2034
Another week, another link, another denial nobody quite believes. All Boys know the market decides these things, not the back pages — but the back pages are louder.
The dugout17 Apr 2034
Facundo Méndez asks for a word with the manager
“I would rather say it to his face than read about it.” The meeting was requested by the player, which tells you most of what you need to know.
Looking ahead17 Apr 2034
Home comforts ahead for All Boys
Maipú, position 4, come to town on Saturday. Nobody will call it a big game and nobody at the club will be treating it as anything else.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad19 Dec 2033
A fracture rules Alejo Tabares out for 92 days
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason All Boys will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
Squad19 Dec 2033
The kind of year that ends with a name being read out in a hall. All Boys had the benefit of it every week and now have the problem of everybody else knowing.
Market19 Dec 2033
“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.
Squad19 Dec 2033
Words at All Boys training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Tiago Batista 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.
Transfer targets19 Dec 2033
Instituto have been asked whether they would lend him. Loans are agreed quickly or not at all, and this one will be one or the other by the weekend.
Transfer targets19 Dec 2033
Brown de Adrogué have been asked whether they would lend him. Loans are agreed quickly or not at all, and this one will be one or the other by the weekend.
Transfer targets19 Dec 2033
A loan move for Gallito is in the works
All Boys have made the call to Godoy Cruz. No fee, a share of the wages, and a spare shirt in the position where the squad has been thinnest all season.
Market19 Dec 2033
Another week, another link, another denial nobody quite believes. All Boys know the market decides these things, not the back pages — but the back pages are louder.
The dugout19 Dec 2033
Jorge Escobar has become a man the manager trusts
Nobody at All Boys 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.