3‑0 against Progreso, and a performance that will change how the rest of the competition talks about this club. Reputations in continental football are built in single evenings and this was one.
The words a physio says slowly. 17 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.
“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 The request is on a desk at Boca Juniors, and it is not being withdrawn.
Player ratings9 Nov 2026
A brace, and Alan Velasco takes the afternoon — 9.27
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Alan Velasco provided it, and the 9.27 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
Leandro Paredes 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.
27 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Boca Juniors lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
“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.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Boca Juniors this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
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.
The words a physio says slowly. 35 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.
1‑0 against Progreso, and a performance that will be described to people who were not there for the rest of the season. Exequiel Zeballos was at the centre of the description.
There is no crueller way to lose a football match. Boca Juniors scored in the 92th minute, the restart barely happened, and the away end was still standing when the whistle went.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Boca Juniors have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
There is an age at which every good afternoon gets described as a throwback, which is unfair and also accurate. 8.78 at 33, and nobody on the pitch was better.
Leandro Paredes 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.
Marked 8.58 — 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.
In brief
SquadLautaro Blanco falls out with a teammate over standards
Player ratingsA defender's afternoon for Ayrton Costa
The words a physio says slowly. 44 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.
“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 Boca Juniors, 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 Boca Juniors this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 22 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.
Squad19 Oct 2026
Words at Boca Juniors training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Lautaro Blanco 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.
Marked 8.26 — 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.
The general version of this complaint is that a player wants more. The specific version names the thing: he wants to walk out under floodlights against clubs from other countries, and he has stopped pretending otherwise.
The words a physio says slowly. 53 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.
29 defensive actions and a clean sheet at the end of them. A defender's afternoon can only be told by what did not happen, which is why nobody makes a highlights package out of one and every manager in the division would take it.
29 defensive actions and a clean sheet at the end of them. A defender's afternoon can only be told by what did not happen, which is why nobody makes a highlights package out of one and every manager in the division would take it.
Leandro Paredes 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 general version of this complaint is that a player wants more. The specific version names the thing: he wants to walk out under floodlights against clubs from other countries, and he has stopped pretending otherwise.
At 24 the improving is meant to be over. It is not: 3 points better than the mark taken at the start of the year, which is the sort of thing that happens to players who take the boring parts of the job seriously.
The words a physio says slowly. 62 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.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the team. 6 saves, several of them the sort nobody expects to see stopped, and a scoreline that flatters everybody in front of him.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Boca Juniors this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
It is the most legitimate ambition in the sport and the hardest for most clubs to satisfy. Lautaro Blanco wants continental football; whether Boca Juniors can provide it is a question about the next two seasons, not about him.
There is a version of this player everybody suspected was in there, and on this evidence it is. 8.67, and no argument anywhere in the ground.
Squad5 Oct 2026
Words at Boca Juniors training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Lautaro Blanco 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.
Boardroom5 Oct 2026
129% of the income goes out in wages at Boca Juniors
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.
The words a physio says slowly. 71 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.
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.
It is the most legitimate ambition in the sport and the hardest for most clubs to satisfy. Miguel Merentiel wants continental football; whether Boca Juniors can provide it is a question about the next two seasons, not about him.
Leandro Paredes 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 words a physio says slowly. 80 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 Boca Juniors this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
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.
A defender's mistake gets tidied up by somebody else; a goalkeeper's ends up in the net. He knew before the ball crossed the line, and so did everybody in the ground.
8 shots, and a count that reads like a good afternoon until you check the other column. Strikers survive weeks like this on the understanding that the chances keep arriving; the day they stop is the day it becomes a problem.
88 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Boca Juniors lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the team. 9 saves, several of them the sort nobody expects to see stopped, and a scoreline that flatters everybody in front of him.
Leandro Paredes 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.
Player ratings14 Sep 2026
Leandro Paredes was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.88. There are performances a supporter describes to somebody who was not there and cannot quite convey; this was one, and the number does not help either.
Squad14 Sep 2026
Malcom Braida 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.
Conceding is one thing; the response is what tells you about a dressing room. Leandro Paredes had Boca Juniors level again within 4 minutes, and Vélez never got to play with a lead at all.
“I watch every Boca Juniors game from here. That says everything about where my head is.” The loan at Eibar runs its course, but his heart never made the trip.
95 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Boca Juniors lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Boca Juniors this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
The music was off and the showers ran late. What was said in that dressing room stays there, but Saturday will publish the minutes.
Squad7 Sep 2026
Words at Boca Juniors training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Lautaro Blanco 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.
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.
104 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Boca Juniors lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Ninety minutes of very little, and then everything at once. The winner arrived in the 86th, and Instituto spent what remained of the match appealing to the referee rather than chasing the ball.
Leandro Paredes 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 words a physio says slowly. 112 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.
Almagro go through and Boca Juniors go home, 1‑1 the scoreline that did it. The dressing room will call the league the priority now, because that is what dressing rooms say.
A shoot-out is remembered by its ending, and this one ends with Agustín Marchesín: 1 kept out, and a set of supporters who will describe every one of them for the next twenty years.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Boca Juniors this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Marked 9.02 — 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.
120 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Boca Juniors lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
The offer from Andorra for Nicolás Orsini 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.
Leandro Paredes 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 words a physio says slowly. 127 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.
“The easiest signature of my career.” Leandro Paredes and Boca Juniors agree another 3 years, and the manager can plan around him rather than about him.
Leandro Paredes 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 general version of this complaint is that a player wants more. The specific version names the thing: he wants to walk out under floodlights against clubs from other countries, and he has stopped pretending otherwise.
135 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Boca Juniors lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
“I want to be playing for trophies while my legs still let me.” Nothing in that sentence is a transfer request, and nobody at Boca Juniors heard it as anything else.
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Agustín Marchesín and Boca Juniors agree another 2 years.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Boca Juniors this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
It is the most legitimate ambition in the sport and the hardest for most clubs to satisfy. Lautaro Blanco wants continental football; whether Boca Juniors can provide it is a question about the next two seasons, not about him.
The phone has started ringing about Adam Bareiro again, and this time the name on the line is Valencia. Boca Juniors are listening politely and promising nothing.