At 33 he is supposed to be managing his minutes. Instead he was marked 8.24 and looked, for ninety minutes, exactly like the player everybody remembers.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Talleres they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
Emanuel Reynoso 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.
Squad6 Oct 2031
Words at Talleres training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Santiago Fernández 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.
He is 23 and the ground already sings his name, which is a thing that happens to local boys and almost never to signings. Everything from here is measured against an affection he did nothing to earn except be from here.
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Dell provided it, and the 9.15 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Carlos Alberto Romano will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Talleres the goodbyes have quietly begun.
Emanuel Reynoso 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.
Squad29 Sep 2031
Words at Talleres training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Augusto Schott 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.
A 2‑1 win over Gimnasia y Esgrima, earned rather than given, and the sort of afternoon that sends everyone home talking about next week instead of this one.
Clubs make promises constantly and the page usually only hears about them when they are broken. This one was honoured, and the dressing room noticed that faster than any supporter did.
“The players deserve the credit. My job was easy today.” It was not, and everybody in the room knew it; after 2‑1, Interim Coach could afford to be generous.
A brace, and Diego Barrera takes the afternoon — 8.31
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Diego Barrera provided it, and the 8.31 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
“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 Talleres, and it is not being withdrawn.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Talleres 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.
Behind, and beaten by any honest reading, until minute 95. Independiente had the points in their pocket and a corner of the ground still believed, which is generally when it happens.
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 dugout15 Sep 2031
The manager’s verdict
“I am frustrated, honestly. We did enough to win and we did not win.” Interim Coach was not hiding it after 2‑2, and nobody in the Talleres dressing room was either.
Emanuel Reynoso and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Squad25 Aug 2031
Words at Talleres training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Santiago Fernández 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.
“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 Talleres know 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.
Every touch is being weighed now, in print and everywhere else. Some players grow into that and some are quietly ruined by it, and nobody knows which in advance.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Talleres 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. Iván González has just signed for Talleres, and for once the answer mattered.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Augusto Schott was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
The door stayed shut a long time after the final whistle. What was said in there is between them; whether it worked is between them and Saturday.
The dugout18 Aug 2031
The view from the dugout
“We will look at it, we will learn from it, and we go again.” The three sentences every manager keeps for a 0‑3 defeat, delivered by Interim Coach to a room that had heard them before.
At 35 he is supposed to be managing his minutes. Instead he was marked 8.07 and looked, for ninety minutes, exactly like the player everybody remembers.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Juan Otero will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Talleres the goodbyes have quietly begun.
There is no worse way to lose a footballer. Lucio Ferrari has pre-agreed a move away, which means every appearance between now and June is made by a man the club can no longer sell, and somebody upstairs will be asked why the contract was allowed to get here.
Emanuel Reynoso 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.
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.
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Franco Cristaldo. 1‑0 against Deportivo Riestra, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
Fee agreed, wages agreed, and San Telmo waiting with a shirt. Nobody at Talleres is pretending otherwise, and the supporters have stopped asking whether and started asking when.
Talleres offered $200.0K; Estudiantes said it was not close. The manager will be told the money is still there for the right player, which is what managers are told.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Augusto Schott was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
3 matches, no goals, and a training ground that has tried everything. It will end — droughts always do — but nobody at Talleres can tell you which week it ends in.
A deal that was a phone call from completion at lunchtime was dead by midnight. Talleres will try again when the window opens; Chacarita Juniors may not be selling by then.
Fee agreed, wages agreed, and Atlanta waiting with a shirt. Nobody at Talleres is pretending otherwise, and the supporters have stopped asking whether and started asking when.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Talleres have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Talleres and Chacarita Juniors have settled on $340.0K. The rest belongs to the player and his agent, and a supporter who has watched one of these before knows not to buy the shirt yet.
The deadline has passed and the squad is the squad. 1 arrived, 12 left, and everything else printed about this club last month was a rumour that stayed one.
Terms were offered and declined. Whether it was the wages, the role or the town, nobody at Boca Juniors is saying, and nobody at Talleres is enjoying the guessing.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Talleres this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
$210.0K was the most the club would pay and San Miguel 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.
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.
Emanuel Reynoso 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.
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.
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.
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Augusto Schott signs something — a contract at Talleres or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Talleres, and both men came out saying it was fine.
Ninety specific minutes wanted a different sort of player, and the manager picked one. He is not out of form and he is not in the side, and both are true.
Nothing in writing and nothing in public: a word about playing time, given face to face at Talleres. The team sheets over the next month will show whether it was worth having.
Numbers do not stay secret in a dressing room and never have. He is not asking for more than he is worth; he is asking why somebody beside him is worth more, and at Talleres that is a harder question to answer.
The offer from Estudiantes for Juan Otero 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.
Boca Juniors paid $1.1M and Talleres took it, which is the whole story in one sentence. The longer version involves a wage budget and will be told all season.
Squad23 Jun 2031
Words at Talleres training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Santiago Fernández 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.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Benfica have kept their man, and Talleres go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
“Some mornings you wake up and you are still a long way from everything you know.” It is not the football and it never was; Talleres are dealing with a man who wants a different country.
Another week, another link, another denial nobody quite believes. Talleres know the market decides these things, not the back pages — but the back pages are louder.
In brief
The dugoutMateo Cáceres knocks on the manager's door
Emanuel Reynoso 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.
Squad16 Jun 2031
Words at Talleres training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Augusto Schott 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.
A clause somebody insisted on years ago, in a negotiation nobody remembers, has just paid Talleres $400.0K. Joaquín Blázquez left a long time ago; the paperwork stayed.
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 manager did not use many words, and he did not need to.” Rodrigo De Ciancio has his answer from Talleres; what he does with it is the next window’s story.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Marcos Acuña trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
The shape wanted a different profile against this opponent, which is a real football answer and no comfort at all to the man it is about. He did nothing wrong and he did not play.
A shoot-out is remembered by its ending, and this one ends with Santino Barbi: 1 kept out, and a set of supporters who will describe every one of them for the next twenty years.
“I listened, I thought about it, and I am staying. That is the whole story.” The clubs had agreed a fee. Román Agüero had not agreed to go, which turned out to be the part that mattered.
Emanuel Reynoso 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.
Squad9 Jun 2031
Words at Talleres training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Augusto Schott 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.
Add another name to the list: Nueva Chicago have asked the question everybody in the game has been asking about Carlos Alberto Romano. The answer from Talleres has not changed — yet.
18 times he got in the way of something. Centre-halves get written about when they make mistakes and ignored when they do not, so an afternoon like this needs saying out loud: he is the reason the scoreline reads as it does.
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.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Talleres they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
Emanuel Reynoso 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.
Squad19 May 2031
Words at Talleres training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Augusto Schott 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 at Talleres 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.
Nothing in writing and nothing in public: a word about playing time, given face to face at Talleres. The team sheets over the next month will show whether it was worth having.
45 graduates from an academy now rated 11 out of 20. A club this size does not survive any other way, and every name on that list is known in the town.
He looks like a man who lives here now rather than one who is working here. It took most of a season, and at Talleres the difference is visible from the back of the stand.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Talleres is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
Emanuel Reynoso 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.
“I have tried. I have really tried, and every day I wake up in the wrong place.” Nobody at Talleres can coach that out of a man, and nobody there is pretending to.
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.
“We were not good enough today and I am not going to dress it up.” Interim Coach after 0‑2, in the tone of a man who knows the next question and does not intend to answer it.
Ninety specific minutes wanted a different sort of player, and the manager picked one. He is not out of form and he is not in the side, and both are true.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Marcos Acuña trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
Emanuel Reynoso 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.
“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 Talleres know it.
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.
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Joaquín Mosqueira signs something — a contract at Talleres or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
Nothing in writing and nothing in public: a word about playing time, given face to face at Talleres. The team sheets over the next month will show whether it was worth having.
Numbers do not stay secret in a dressing room. He is not asking for more than he is worth; he is asking why somebody beside him is worth more, and Talleres have no good answer.
Position 2 on 77 points. Every season is a story and this is the last line of it, and now the club has three months to decide what the next one is about.
Every footballer has an answer to the question about his boyhood club, and most of them never get to act on it. Ibrahim Osman has, at Crvena Zvezda, and the first month will show what that does to a man.
Match9 Feb 2030
Another one collected away from home
6 on the bounce on the road for Crvena Zvezda. The coaches leave early, arrive at unlovely grounds in the dark, and keep coming home with three points.
“I have ambitions, and I would like the club to share them.” Nobody has asked to leave and nobody has been shown the door — but a player chooses that sentence carefully, and a boardroom hears it exactly as it was meant.