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.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Defensor Sporting this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
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.
33 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Defensor Sporting lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
147 appearances across 22 seasons in these colours. Careers like that are not built any more, and Defensor Sporting know what they have.
Player ratings6 Aug 2040
Sergio Araujo, 21, plays like he has been here for years — 7.75
A mark of 7.75 means one thing beside a twenty-nine-year-old's name and something else entirely beside a 21-year-old's. Nobody at the ground needed telling which this was.
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Lucas de los Santos and Defensor Sporting agree another 3 years.
Alan Torterolo 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.
At 21 he is being sung about by people twice his age, which is an affection a signing has to earn over years and a local kid gets for turning up. It is also the hardest thing in football to live up to.
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.
54 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Defensor Sporting lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
The offer from Atenas for Facundo Sanchez was heard out and sent back the same day. First bids are rarely meant to succeed; they are meant to find out how loudly the door closes.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Defensor Sporting this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Defensor Sporting they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
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.
126 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Defensor Sporting lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Defensor Sporting have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Defensor Sporting is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Germán Barrios 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.
140 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Defensor Sporting lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the team. 7 saves, several of them the sort nobody expects to see stopped, and a scoreline that flatters everybody in front of him.
Alan Torterolo 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.
Everyone has stopped pretending: Colon will make the call about Facundo Sanchez this week. Defensor Sporting have a number in mind, and the number is not shy.
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.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Defensor Sporting will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Defensor Sporting they have already started talking about him in the past tense.