The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Cerro Porteno is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
Manuel Roffo and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Squad7 Sep 2026
Words at Cerro Porteno training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Pablo Vegetti 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 demotion a club never announces and a dressing room always notices. Luis Amarilla is further from the side than he was, and the reason will not be given until he asks.
It will be explained as a change for the team and it may even be one. Nobody who has worn one believes that, and neither does the man who has just had it taken away.
The accountants will call it good business and they will be right, which is not the point anybody outside the boardroom is making. Jonatan Torres was one of the reasons people came, and $9.0M does not replace that by itself.
Manuel Roffo 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.
It is not a grievance and it is not a demand: he wants to play continental football, and he has stopped hiding it. Whether Cerro Porteno can give him that is a question about the club, not about him.
11 signings in three months. Every one of them may be an upgrade and the team can still be worse for a while, which is the part of a rebuild that never appears in the transfer-window verdicts.
Squad31 Aug 2026
Words at Cerro Porteno training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Antonio Martínez 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.
0‑1 against Sportivo Trinidense, and the road stops here. Cup exits are quick deaths — no second leg, no next week, just the league from now until May.
Add another name to the list: Leganés have asked the question everybody in the game has been asking about Jonatan Torres. The answer from Cerro Porteno has not changed — yet.
It is the most legitimate ambition in the sport and the hardest for most clubs to satisfy. Manuel Roffo wants continental football; whether Cerro Porteno can provide it is a question about the next two seasons, not about him.
Jonatan Torres and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Squad24 Aug 2026
Pablo Vegetti 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.
The rules permit it and it stings anyway. Nelson Eliseche has agreed terms with General Diaz for the summer, and until then he pulls on this shirt as a player who has already chosen his next one.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Cerro Porteno is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
Jonatan Torres 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.
In brief
SquadPablo Vegetti falls out with a teammate over standards
The rules permit it and it stings anyway. Enzo Cabrera has agreed terms with General Diaz for the summer, and until then he pulls on this shirt as a player who has already chosen his next one.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Cerro Porteno they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Cerro Porteno this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
It is not a grievance and it is not a demand: he wants to play continental football, and he has stopped hiding it. Whether Cerro Porteno can give him that is a question about the club, not about him.
Nacional will keep picking him until June and will get nothing for him after it. Alejandro Samudio has pre-agreed a move to Cerro Porteno, and the only people who lose in that arrangement are the ones who let the contract run down.
Clubs spend fortunes looking for players and occasionally find one down the corridor. Hugo Barrios is that, and the reception he gets on his first appearance will be different in kind from the one any signing receives.
It is not a grievance and it is not a demand: he wants to play continental football, and he has stopped hiding it. Whether Cerro Porteno can give him that is a question about the club, not about him.
Jonatan Torres 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.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Pablo Vegetti was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
49 months left and silence from upstairs — no offer, no talks, nothing for his people to answer. Clubs that let a calendar do their negotiating usually end up negotiating with the calendar.
11 signings in three months. Every one of them may be an upgrade and the team can still be worse for a while, which is the part of a rebuild that never appears in the transfer-window verdicts.