Guillermo Bassi 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.
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Nicolás Ponce and Quilmes agree another 3 years.
Squad19 Nov 2035
Words at Quilmes training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Nacho 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.
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.
Another week, another link, another denial nobody quite believes. Quilmes know the market decides these things, not the back pages — but the back pages are louder.
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.
0‑7 to Fénix, 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.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Quilmes is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Quilmes can pretend not to have heard.
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.
Defending was optional and nobody took up the option. 7 goals between Quilmes and Fénix, and not one of the people who paid to be there will ask for the money back.
“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 The request is on a desk at Quilmes, and it is not being withdrawn.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Guillermo Bassi was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
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.
“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 Quilmes, and it is not being withdrawn.
The chances are being made and something is happening between the making and the finishing. 5 matches now, and the anxiety in the ground arrives a little earlier every week.
The deal with Argentinos Juniors is done in every sense but the one that puts him on the pitch. Nothing goes wrong at this stage, except on the occasions when it 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 Quilmes this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
“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 Quilmes, and it is not being withdrawn.
Squad7 May 2035
Words at Quilmes training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Guillermo Bassi 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.
Matías Correa 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.
Successful dribbles: 14. 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.
0‑3 to Talleres, 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.
The chances are being made and something is happening between the making and the finishing. 5 matches now, and the anxiety in the ground arrives a little earlier every week.
Squad26 Feb 2035
Words at Quilmes training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Guillermo Bassi 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 music was off and the showers ran late. What was said in that dressing room stays there, but Saturday will publish the minutes.
The dugout26 Feb 2035
The manager’s verdict
“That is on me. I pick the team and I picked wrong.” Managers say that when they mean it and when they need to be seen to, and after 0‑3 Interim Coach left the room before anybody could ask which.
Guillermo Bassi and a teammate said things this week that will take longer than a week to unsay. It was not about football, and both of them play on Saturday.
Everybody at Quilmes saw it before anybody said it, which is how this always goes. At 36 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.
Quilmes asked and Talleres said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
“I never wanted to be anywhere else. There is unfinished business here.” Nacho commits to Quilmes for another 3 years.
Squad8 Jan 2035
A place in the month's best eleven for Gael Alonso
Four or five weekends of consistency, judged against everybody in the division doing his job. Gael Alonso has come out of that comparison in the side, and Quilmes have had the benefit of every one of those afternoons.
“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 Quilmes, and it is not being withdrawn.
Everything agreed with Atlético Tucumán, everything agreed with the player; a doctor is the only person left to persuade. The photograph is a day or two away.
$83.0K was the most the club would pay and Lanús were asking for more. Deals like this are revived in the last week of a window roughly half the time, and everybody involved knows it.
Nobody will confirm this and nothing else explains the last month of selections. A costly error buys a player a period of being second choice that is always longer than the error was.
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Agustín Bolívar signs something — a contract at Quilmes or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Juan Manuel Rojas trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
Guillermo Bassi 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.
There is no fee, no unveiling and no agent on the steps. Diego Cabrera 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. Julián Arce 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.
The academy exists for exactly this morning. Juan Martín Martínez 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.
Market9 Jan 2034
One of our own: Nacho joins the Quilmes first team
Clubs spend fortunes looking for players and occasionally find one down the corridor. Nacho is that, and the reception he gets on his first appearance will be different in kind from the one any signing receives.
A deal that was a phone call from completion at lunchtime was dead by midnight. Quilmes will try again when the window opens; Temperley may not be selling by then.
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Juan Manuel Romano and Quilmes agree another 3 years.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Carlos Alberto Moreno trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
In brief
BoardroomThe Quilmes production line keeps running