Marked for Benjamín Giménez
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Market25 Dec 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 dugout25 Dec 2034
This is not rotation. Jorge Bianchi has not been in the manager's plans for some time, and nobody at Defensores is pretending otherwise.
Squad25 Dec 2034
Gonzalo Robles 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.
Transfer targets25 Dec 2034
Defensores asked and Independiente said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
The dugout25 Dec 2034
The manager makes an example of Tomás Gutiérrez
“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.
The dugout25 Dec 2034
Matías Martínez is still being punished for one mistake
Nobody will confirm it and the team sheets confirm it every week. One error has bought him a spell as second choice that is already longer than the error deserved.
Market25 Dec 2034
Another week, another link, another denial nobody quite believes. Defensores know the market decides these things, not the back pages — but the back pages are louder.
Market25 Dec 2034
Defensores have made Samuele Baldacci available for transfer. A career at this club is over in all but paperwork.
The dugout25 Dec 2034
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Defensores, and both men came out saying it was fine.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Match4 Nov 2034
0‑4 to Flandria, and it was every bit as bad as the number suggests. There are defeats you argue about and defeats you apologise for; this was the second kind.
Boardroom6 Nov 2034
The board’s statement ran to three sentences and one of them mentioned results. Interim Coach has managed long enough to translate: win soon, or the next statement is shorter.
Boardroom6 Nov 2034
The official line will be that it was routine. It was not routine, the timing says so, and every person in that room knows what the next bad result costs.
Squad6 Nov 2034
34 days out for Matías Martínez after a fracture
A bone, which is the one injury with a calendar attached. Defensores will name a return date and, unusually for this business, will probably be right about it.
Market6 Nov 2034
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Defensores can pretend not to have heard.
Squad6 Nov 2034
Time is catching up with Alex Penoni
Everybody at Defensores saw it before anybody said it, which is how this always goes. At 34 the decline is real and measurable — 3 points — and the only question left is how the club handles somebody it owes a great deal to.
Boardroom6 Nov 2034
$545.8K of the owner's money at Defensores
The shortfall was covered from upstairs again. Supporters are entitled to be relieved and entitled to ask what happens the month it is not, and both feelings usually arrive together.
Squad6 Nov 2034
Words at Defensores training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Gonzalo Robles 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 Nov 2034
Wages eat 304% of everything Defensores earn
There is a figure at which a wage bill stops being ambitious and becomes the reason nothing else is possible, and this club has reached it. Nothing is left over for a transfer, a stand or a rainy afternoon.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad9 Oct 2034
A fracture rules Matías Martínez out for 62 days
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Defensores will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
Squad9 Oct 2034
Araña takes the match ball home
3 goals in one afternoon from one man. The other players were also present, a witness confirmed.
Squad9 Oct 2034
6 saves, and a scoreline the ten men in front of him had no right to. Goalkeepers only get noticed on the bad days; this was one of the other ones.
Player ratings9 Oct 2034
Marked 7.80 at 17, in a side that makes no allowances for age. He did not need any, and he looked the least nervous man on the pitch.
Market9 Oct 2034
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Defensores can pretend not to have heard.
Match7 Oct 2034
Three points for Defensores, 5‑3 the final word against Güemes in a contest settled by the finer margins.
Match7 Oct 2034
Araña among the goals in a wild afternoon
8 goals in one match, Araña on the scoresheet, and a scoreline that will look like a misprint. Neutrals could not have asked more of Defensores and Güemes.
Player ratings9 Oct 2034
Ninety minutes of Araña at his very best
Marked 9.43. Players have careers without a single afternoon like this in them, and he has just had one in front of everybody at Defensores.
Match7 Oct 2034
4 matches, two or more conceded in every one of them. Sides that create as much as this can live with it for a while. Nobody lives with it forever.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Match16 Sep 2034
11 matches without a win for Defensores
The run now stands at 11, and the questions being asked around Defensores are no longer polite ones.
Boardroom18 Sep 2034
The silence upstairs is getting loud at Defensores
Nobody on the board has said anything against the manager, which is the point — they have stopped saying anything for him either.
The terraces18 Sep 2034
Supporters organise against the Defensores board
A bad atmosphere can be waited out. A group of people meeting afterwards to decide what to do about it cannot, and everybody in the building knows which stage this is.
Squad18 Sep 2034
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 83 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
Market18 Sep 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.
Squad18 Sep 2034
A season average of 7.21 with 25 goals behind it. Opponents have started planning around him, which is the sincerest compliment football pays.
Squad18 Sep 2034
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the whole of the defence. 6 saves, several of them the kind nobody expects to see made, and ten outfield players who owe him a drink.
The dugout18 Sep 2034
This is not rotation. Gonzalo Gamarra has not been in the manager's plans for some time, and nobody at Defensores is pretending otherwise.
The dugout18 Sep 2034
“I remember the meeting. I remember exactly what was promised in it.” Defensores may remember it differently, which is precisely the problem.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad31 Jul 2034
A season average of 7.28 with 23 goals behind it. Opponents have started planning around him, which is the sincerest compliment football pays.
Market31 Jul 2034
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Defensores can pretend not to have heard.
Player ratings31 Jul 2034
Successful dribbles: 23. He went past people as if he had been told there was a prize for it, and by the end the full-back had stopped pretending to try.
Squad31 Jul 2034
A row about effort at Defensores
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Gonzalo Robles was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Market31 Jul 2034
There is no fee, no unveiling and no agent on the steps. Luis Alberto Lombardi 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.
Market31 Jul 2034
The academy exists for exactly this morning. Lucas Rossi 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.
Market31 Jul 2034
The academy exists for exactly this morning. Luis Costa 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 dugout31 Jul 2034
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Kevin Mosquera, and the manager let it.
Squad31 Jul 2034
The formation has left Alex Penoni behind
Every shape has positions in it and this one does not have his. Defensores will either change the shape, change his job, or change his club, and he is waiting to hear which.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Match13 May 2034
The wait goes on for Defensores
7 without a win now, and the ground has developed the special quiet of a crowd that expects the worst. One scrappy 1-0 would cure most of it; that is the maddening part.
Squad15 May 2034
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the whole of the defence. 7 saves, several of them the kind nobody expects to see made, and ten outfield players who owe him a drink.
Player ratings15 May 2034
Matías Rossi, 18, steals the show — 7.70
Marked 7.70 at 18, in a side that makes no allowances for age. He did not need any, and he looked the least nervous man on the pitch.
Market15 May 2034
“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 Defensores, and it is not being withdrawn.
Match13 May 2034
No clean sheets in sight for Defensores
6 games now with at least two against. The back line has been rearranged, the goalkeeper has been backed publicly, and the goals keep going in anyway.
Squad15 May 2034
A row about effort at Defensores
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Gonzalo Gamarra was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Match13 May 2034
Matías Rossi scored, and precious little else went right: 1‑2 to San Miguel, and a quiet walk to the dressing room.
Player ratings15 May 2034
Successful dribbles: 16. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
The dugout15 May 2034
“I could talk about decisions and I could talk about luck. I will not. We lost.” The manager, 1‑2, and a press conference that lasted four minutes.
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Squad10 Apr 2034
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the team. 15 saves, several of them the sort nobody expects to see stopped, and a scoreline that flatters everybody in front of him.
Market10 Apr 2034
“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 Defensores, and it is not being withdrawn.
Boardroom10 Apr 2034
167% of the income goes out in wages at Defensores
Every club in football pays most of what it earns to its players. Paying nearly all of it is a different arrangement, and it has ended the same way every time somebody has tried it.
Boardroom10 Apr 2034
The Defensores debt reaches $7.1M
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.
Match8 Apr 2034
1‑1, and both dressing rooms will call it two points lost. A draw that asked plenty of questions and answered none of them.
The dugout10 Apr 2034
“It is not the end of the world and it is not good enough. Both of those are true.” The manager, after a 1‑1 draw, said the honest thing and then went to say it again inside.
Squad10 Apr 2034
Words at Defensores training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Henrique Nogueira 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 dugout10 Apr 2034
The one version of being left out a player cannot argue with, and the one he takes worst. Somebody else has been better and the team sheet says so, in public, every week until it changes.
The dugout10 Apr 2034
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Jorge Bianchi, and the manager let it.