Chaco For Ever are out and Defensa y Justicia go through, 1‑0 the final word. The bracket opens up a little, and everyone allows themselves a look at it.
The offer from Hapoel Haifa for Leandro Fernández 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.
Juan Manuel Gutiérrez 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.
Successful dribbles: 21. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Squad31 Aug 2026
Éver Banega 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.
At 20 he is being sung about by people twice his age, which is an affection a signing has to earn over years and a local kid gets for turning up. It is also the hardest thing in football to live up to.
A point taken on 95 minutes is worth exactly one point and considerably more than that to a dressing room. This side does not stop, which is a reputation worth more than the result.
15 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.
The board had gone up, the arguing had started, and then the ball was in the net in the 107th minute. Defensores will replay every second of the added time for a week.
The 88th minute, half the ground already edging towards the exits, and David Barbona decided nobody was going anywhere. Instituto had no time left to answer.
Juan Manuel Gutiérrez 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 had been thinking. Éver Banega 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.
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: David Barbona. 2‑1 against Instituto, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Defensa y Justicia this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
There is a version of every career where the player ends up somewhere he chose rather than somewhere that chose him. Nicolás Guirin is living that version at Defensa y Justicia, and it tends to show in the first month.
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.
“We were not good enough today and I am not going to dress it up.” Federico Cohen after 1‑3, in the tone of a man who knows the next question and does not intend to answer it.
He is not being dropped. There is simply nowhere in the formation Defensa y Justicia are playing to put a man who does what he does, which is a harder thing to be told than any team sheet.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Defensa y Justicia they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
Juan Manuel Gutiérrez 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 said out loud what several people had been thinking. Éver Banega 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.
Successful dribbles: 19. 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.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. David Barbona will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Defensa y Justicia the goodbyes have quietly begun.
The offer from Samtredia for Leandro Fernández 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.
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 easiest signature of my career.” Éver Banega and Defensa y Justicia agree another 2 years, and the manager can plan around him rather than about him.
“We keep meeting, and we keep leaving the room with the same numbers we walked in with.” Another round of talks at Defensa y Justicia, another week without a signature from David Barbona.
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 new signings in one window. Every one may be an upgrade and the side can still be worse for a while, which is the part of a rebuild the verdicts never mention.
In brief
The dugoutAarón Molinas knocks on the manager’s door