Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 37 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Walter Mazzantti was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Every run ends on an afternoon somebody had marked down as routine. This one went 4 matches, which is long enough that a town had stopped counting, and short enough that it will remember exactly who stopped it.
The manager has re-ordered his thinking and Ignacio Ramírez has come out of it lower. He will be told it is temporary, and the players who have heard that before will avoid his eye.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Newell's Old Boys will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Francisco Scarpeccio will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Newell's Old Boys the goodbyes have quietly begun.
3 wins in a row changes how opponents warm up: quieter, more glances across. Runs end, everybody knows that — but nobody in this dressing room is planning for it.
The rules permit it and it stings anyway. Sebastián Montero has agreed terms with Villa San Carlos for the summer, and until then he pulls on this shirt as a player who has already chosen his next one.
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.
Two sides from the top of the table, one afternoon, and a month of talk decided in ninety minutes. Newell's Old Boys will not use the word title this week and will not stop thinking it.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Newell's Old Boys this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 63 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
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.
Boca Juniors next, and the two sides the division is watching meet each other. Whoever wins will be told nothing is decided in the same breath as being congratulated.
Julián Contrera 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.
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 Guillermo Balzi is on it.
He used to wear the other shirt. On Saturday he plays against Boca Juniors in this one, and whatever he says this week about it being just another game will be untrue.
“I listened, I thought about it, and I am staying. That is the whole story.” The clubs had agreed a fee. Ignacio Ramírez had not agreed to go, which turned out to be the part that mattered.
A bone, which is the one injury with a calendar attached. Newell's Old Boys will name a return date and, unusually for this business, will probably be right about it.
The rules permit it and it stings anyway. Alejo Torres has agreed terms with Argentino de Merlo for the summer, and until then he pulls on this shirt as a player who has already chosen his next one.
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.
15 goals in 27 games at Coquimbo Unido — numbers that travel home faster than he does. Somebody at Newell's Old Boys updates a spreadsheet every Monday, and it makes better reading each week.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Milton Delgado was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
There is a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 22-year-old it feels ownership of. Milton Delgado has it now, and everything he does for the rest of his time here will be measured against the goodwill he was handed for free.
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: José Manuel López. 2‑0 against Estudiantes, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
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 dugout23 Aug 2027
The manager’s verdict
“I am not going to get carried away and I will not let them either. It was a good day. There will be harder ones.” Ezequiel Suárez kept it short after the 2‑0 win, which is what managers do when they are happy.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Newell's Old Boys have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Newell's Old Boys they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
He will play here until the summer and then walk out of the door for free, having already signed elsewhere. Supporters will manage the first part of that sentence; it is the second they will struggle with.
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.
Successful dribbles: 18. There was always a defender in front of him and there was never a defender in front of him for long.
The dugout16 Aug 2027
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 0‑1 defeat, delivered by Ezequiel Suárez to a room that had heard them before.
Add another name to the list: Palermo have asked the question everybody in the game has been asking about Ignacio Ramírez. The answer from Newell's Old Boys has not changed — yet.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Walter Mazzantti 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.
Nothing happens for months and then he simply arrives, at no cost, having signed a pre-contract while still turning out for somebody else. It is the least dramatic way to sign a footballer and frequently the shrewdest.
Pablo Altamirano 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.
Somebody else has been better, the manager has said so with a team sheet, and there is no argument to be had. He will get the shirt back the only way it can be got back.
The words a physio says slowly. 14 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 right for me. I am not going to explain why to anybody except the people I owe an explanation to.” A deal agreed between two clubs, and a player who declined to be part of it.
Atlético Tucumán are out and Newell's Old Boys go through, 2‑0 the final word. The bracket opens up a little, and everyone allows themselves a look at it.
Instituto will want this one forgotten quickly: 4‑1, every duel lost, and a long ride home. Newell's Old Boys were ruthless in the way good sides are ruthless.
The clubs have settled the fee and he has settled his wages. What remains is a medical and a photograph, and around Newell's Old Boys people have started saying his name in the past tense.
The deal with Godoy Cruz 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.
The hardest thing about being 21 in a senior side is that nobody makes allowances. Francisco Scarpeccio did not need any: 7.60, and he looked the most comfortable man on the pitch.
24 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Newell's Old Boys lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
The clubs have settled the fee and he has settled his wages. What remains is a medical and a photograph, and around Newell's Old Boys people have started saying his name in the past tense.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Newell's Old Boys can pretend not to have heard.
The accountants will call it good business and they will be right, which is not the point anybody outside the boardroom is making. Alejo Montero was one of the reasons people came, and $7.2M does not replace that by itself.
Newell's Old Boys have gone to Godoy Cruz with a bid, and the supporters have gone to the internet with an opinion about it. Whether either changes anything is up to the selling club.
There is no worse way to lose a footballer. Augusto Levrand 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.
15 combined actions and 7.02. The job he did is the one that shows up as other people looking good, and the only reliable way to notice it is to watch what happens on the afternoons he is missing.
20 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Newell's Old Boys lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
The last thing about a transfer that is still about the player is his signature on his own terms, and it is there. Newell's Old Boys have lost him in all but the paperwork.
Footballers are asked about their boyhood club so often that nobody listens to the answer. Matheus Albino has just signed for Newell's Old Boys, and for once the answer mattered.
Add another name to the list: Palermo have asked the question everybody in the game has been asking about Ignacio Ramírez. The answer from Newell's Old Boys has not changed — yet.
There comes a point where a club either backs its own ambition or admits it does not have any. Newell's Old Boys have paid $1.3M for Matheus Albino, which is the loudest way there is of saying which one it chose.
Terms were offered and declined. Whether it was the wages, the role or the town, nobody at Botafogo is saying, and nobody at Newell's Old Boys is enjoying the guessing.
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Luciano Herrera and Newell's Old Boys agree another 3 years.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Milton Delgado 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.
37 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Newell's Old Boys lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
“I know what people will say. I know what I want, and it is here.” America de Cali had the fee agreed and the shirt ready; they did not have the player, and now they will not.
The last thing about a transfer that is still about the player is his signature on his own terms, and it is there. Newell's Old Boys have lost him in all but the paperwork.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Walter Mazzantti was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Huracán have kept their man, and Newell's Old Boys go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
46 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Newell's Old Boys lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
The clubs have settled the fee and he has settled his wages. What remains is a medical and a photograph, and around Newell's Old Boys people have started saying his name in the past tense.
There comes a point where a club either backs its own ambition or admits it does not have any. Newell's Old Boys have paid $7.4M for Claudio Spinelli, which is the loudest way there is of saying which one it chose.
Newell's Old Boys have gone to Al Wasl with a bid, and the supporters have gone to the internet with an opinion about it. Whether either changes anything is up to the selling club.
The fee is $3.0M, the contract is signed, and the argument about whether he is worth it can begin. Excursionistas drove a hard bargain; time will say who won it.
Milton Delgado 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.
Newell's Old Boys asked and Colo-Colo said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Santiago Solari was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Nicolás Figal 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.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Alejo Montero trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
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 Nicolás Caro Torres is on it.
Milton Delgado, 21, plays like he has been here for years — 8.02
A mark of 8.02 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.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Walter Mazzantti 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 21 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.
“The easiest signature of my career.” Felipe Calderone and Newell's Old Boys agree another 4 years, and the manager can plan around him rather than about him.
Pablo Altamirano 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 complaint available here and everybody involved knows it, which does not make the walk to the bench any shorter. Form is the only currency in football that cannot be borrowed against.
The dugout24 May 2027
The manager’s verdict
“I am not going to get carried away and I will not let them either. It was a good day. There will be harder ones.” Ezequiel Suárez kept it short after the 1‑0 win, which is what managers do when they are happy.
Nobody at Newell's Old 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.
Martín Ortega 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.
3 games without scoring. Strikers stop looking up, midfielders take the extra touch, and every shot that clears the bar is followed by a groan that has been building since the last goal.
Marked 7.17 on 11 actions at both ends of the pitch. Midfielders like this get described as unspectacular by people who have never tried to play against one.
“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 dugout10 May 2027
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 0‑1 Ezequiel Suárez left the room before anybody could ask which.
Nobody at Newell's Old 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.
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 manager has re-ordered his thinking and Saúl Salcedo has come out of it lower. He will be told it is temporary, and the players who have heard that before will avoid his eye.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Newell's Old Boys this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
A month is long enough that nobody gets in by accident. Jherson Mosquera is in the division's best eleven for it, which is a quieter compliment than an award and a more reliable one.
“It is not the end of the world and it is not good enough. Both of those are true.” The manager, after a 0‑0 draw, said the honest thing and then went to say it again inside.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Walter Mazzantti was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Alejo Montero 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 demotion a club never announces and a dressing room always notices. Nicolás Figal is further from the side than he was, and the reason will not be given until he asks.
The captaincy has been taken off Gabriel Arias. Newell's Old Boys will call it a decision about the team; a dressing room reads it as a verdict on a man.
“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.
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.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Walter Mazzantti 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.
“We earned that. I asked them for a reaction and I got one, and now I want the same again on Saturday.” Ezequiel Suárez on a 3‑1 afternoon that pleased him more than he was prepared to show.
Jeremías Vallejos 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.
Nobody at Newell's Old 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.
He wheeled away like a man who had been carrying it for months, because he had. Newell's Old Boys have their signing off the mark and one press-conference question retired.
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.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Walter Mazzantti 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 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.
In brief
Squad8 new faces, and Newell's Old Boys are still learning each other
The dugoutLucas Carrizo dropped after a run of poor form
4 matches now without a victory, and the excuses have worn thinner than the patience. Somebody at Newell's Old Boys has to find a result from somewhere.
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.
3 games without scoring. Strikers stop looking up, midfielders take the extra touch, and every shot that clears the bar is followed by a groan that has been building since the last goal.
Pablo Altamirano and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
The dugout8 Mar 2027
Somebody else is better right now than Lucas Carrizo
The team sheet says it in public every week until it changes. The only version of being dropped a footballer cannot argue with, and the one he takes hardest.
“There are things I liked and things we will be doing on Tuesday until they are right.” 0‑0, and a manager who had already decided what Tuesday looked like.
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.
Pablo Altamirano 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.
“We were not good enough today and I am not going to dress it up.” Ezequiel Suárez after 0‑1, in the tone of a man who knows the next question and does not intend to answer it.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Milton Delgado trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
Not a new contract, not a new number: a new place in the manager’s thinking, which is the only promotion in football that actually matters. Marco Pellegrino has moved up it.
The manager wanted a different profile for this opponent, which is a real football reason and no consolation. He did nothing wrong and he did not play.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Ian Glavinovich was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
“The easiest signature of my career.” Francisco Scarpeccio and Newell's Old Boys agree another 4 years, and the manager can plan around him rather than about him.
Pablo Altamirano 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.
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.
Gimnasia y Esgrima will want this one forgotten quickly: 3‑0, every duel lost, and a long ride home. Newell's Old Boys were ruthless in the way good sides are ruthless.
7.91, 1 on the scoresheet, and the specific comedy of a back-four player celebrating like somebody who does this every week. He does not, and that is exactly why the ground reacted the way it did.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Newell's Old Boys is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
Walter Mazzantti 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.
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.
Marked 8.03 — the sort of number a correspondent writes down twice to be sure. Everything he tried came off, and what he did not try was not worth trying.
36 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Newell's Old Boys lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Facundo Basualdo will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Newell's Old Boys the goodbyes have quietly begun.
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 21 he is doing things at this level he could not do at the start of the season, and the coaching staff will tell you exactly which of them.
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.
Successful dribbles: 17. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
The dugout19 Oct 2026
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 1‑2 defeat, delivered by Ezequiel Suárez to a room that had heard them before.
The words a physio says slowly. 95 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.
Player ratings31 Aug 2026
Up for the corner, and Alejo Montero delivers — 7.52
Centre-halves are allowed forward twice a season and are judged on what they do when they get there. Alejo Montero scored, was marked 7.52, and got back before anybody noticed he had gone.
5 matches without a win, and then this, against Central Córdoba SdE. Relief is a strange noise in a football ground and it was the only noise at the end.
He won it back and then made something of it, which is two jobs and the reason the scoreline looks the way it does. 9 combined actions and a mark of 7.59, and not one of them will make a highlights package.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Ian Glavinovich 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.