86 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Ferrocarril Midland lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Ferrocarril Midland this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Leonel Gigli 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.
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 Genaro Cepeda is on it.
Flandria next, and one man in the Ferrocarril Midland dressing room knows their training ground better than his own. The reception will tell him what they thought of him.
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Valentín Gargiulo signs something — a contract at Ferrocarril Midland or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
The words a physio says slowly. 93 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.
A bone, which is the one injury with a calendar attached. Ferrocarril Midland will name a return date and, unusually for this business, will probably be right about 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 Ferrocarril Midland this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Emilio Porro 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 Ferrocarril Midland 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.
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.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Pedro Castorani trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
The words a physio says slowly. 101 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.
Two goals and a mark of 9.27 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
31 points, and the rest of the division looking up. Every side that finishes first spends the season pretending it is not thinking about it, and this one has started pretending.
3 wins on the spin now, and the question has changed from whether the run ends to who ends it. Confidence like this cannot be bought; it has to be earned exactly this way.
Emilio Porro 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: 17. 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.
There is a level at which a footballer stops being tested and starts being contained, and he reached it some time ago. Ferrocarril Midland know it, and so does everybody who watches him.
108 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Ferrocarril Midland lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Emilio Porro 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.
Every club 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 it has been tried.
A 2‑0 win over Argentino de Merlo, earned rather than given, and the sort of afternoon that sends everyone home talking about next week instead of this one.
Squad2 Nov 2026
Gonzalo Gómez 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.
8.05. 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.
6 games unbeaten now. Some were earned and some were survived, but a habit is forming — and habits are the hardest thing in football to play against.
Squad26 Oct 2026
Emilio Porro 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.
A 2‑1 win over Deportivo Laferrere, earned rather than given, and the sort of afternoon that sends everyone home talking about next week instead of this one.
Marked 8.57 — 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.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Ferrocarril Midland this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
18 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.
Fernando González 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.
7.33, and no serious argument from anybody who was there. Ferrocarril Midland had eleven men on the pitch and one of them decided how it went.
The dugout19 Oct 2026
The manager’s verdict
“I am frustrated, honestly. We did enough to win and we did not win.” Juan Pablo Campos was not hiding it after 0‑0, and nobody in the Ferrocarril Midland dressing room was either.
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.
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.
Fernando González and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Squad12 Oct 2026
Gonzalo Gómez 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.
Everybody saw it before anybody said it. At 35 the numbers say 3 points down on what he was, and the question for Ferrocarril Midland is how to handle a man they owe a great deal.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Agustín Campana trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
Every squad has one of these fixtures for somebody every season. This one is Emilio Porro’s: the club that knew him first, the supporters who will decide in the first minute whether to applaud, and Ferrocarril Midland needing him to play as if none of it matters.
Nobody at Ferrocarril Midland 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.
What was a back-page link has become a chant, and the chant is not friendly. Ferrocarril Midland would rather it were settled quietly, and it has stopped being quiet.
Successful dribbles: 22. 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.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Ferrocarril Midland this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Emilio Porro was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Every club 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 it has been tried.
Fernando González 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.
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Jeremías Perales. 2‑0 against Fénix, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
17 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.
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.
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.
“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 Ferrocarril Midland, and it is not being withdrawn.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Ferrocarril Midland is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
There is no worse way to lose a footballer. Lucas Escobar 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.
Fernando González 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.
1‑1, and both dressing rooms will call it two points lost. A draw that asked plenty of questions and answered none of them.
Squad21 Sep 2026
Leonel Gigli 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.
“A point is a point and I will take it, but we should have had all three.” Juan Pablo Campos after the 1‑1 draw, and the sentence every manager in the country said at some stage this weekend.
Two goals and a mark of 9.01 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
Centre-halves are allowed forward twice a season and are judged on what they do when they get there. Tomás Muia scored, was marked 7.54, and got back before anybody noticed he had gone.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Emilio Porro 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.
Lucas Vicó 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.
Emilio Porro 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.
Four or five weekends of consistency, judged against everybody in the division doing his job. Valentín Gargiulo has come out of that comparison in the side, and Ferrocarril Midland have had the benefit of every one of those afternoons.
Nobody at Ferrocarril Midland 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.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Emilio Porro trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
The captaincy has been taken off Marcos Roseti. Ferrocarril Midland will call it a decision about the team; a dressing room reads it as a verdict on a man.
Nothing is announced when this happens and everybody knows. He is a bigger part of the plan at Ferrocarril Midland than he was a month ago, and the training ground worked that out before the team sheet said so.
Every squad has one of these fixtures for somebody every season. This one is Elías Torancio’s: the club that knew him first, the supporters who will decide in the first minute whether to applaud, and Ferrocarril Midland needing him to play as if none of it matters.
Some goals win a match and some take one off somebody else. Matías Villalba scored in the 85th minute, Tigre had already begun thinking about the journey home, and Ferrocarril Midland took the lot.
Successful dribbles: 22. 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.
Fernando González 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.
At 23 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.
Marked 8.77 — 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.
A shoot-out is remembered by its ending, and this one ends with Mauro Leguiza: 2 kept out, and a set of supporters who will describe every one of them for the next twenty years.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Ferrocarril Midland can pretend not to have heard.
Fernando González 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. Emilio Porro 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 shoot-out is remembered by its ending, and this one ends with Mauro Leguiza: 3 kept out, and a set of supporters who will describe every one of them for the next twenty years.
The 87th minute, half the ground already edging towards the exits, and Gonzalo Gómez decided nobody was going anywhere. Deportivo Armenio had no time left to answer.
Successful dribbles: 23. 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.
The offer from Persib for Leonardo Rolón 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.
The paperwork is done long before the player is. Agustín Cardoso has agreed terms to come here when his current deal runs out, which means Ferrocarril Midland have spent a summer's transfer budget on a phone call.
A 2‑1 win over Deportivo Armenio, earned rather than given, and the sort of afternoon that sends everyone home talking about next week instead of this one.
Fernando González 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.
Footballers are asked about their boyhood club so often that nobody listens to the answer. Leonardo Rolón has just signed for Ferrocarril Midland, and for once the answer mattered.
The academy exists for exactly this morning. José Sosa has come through every age group the club runs and has now been handed a senior number, and the people who coached him at twelve will be the proudest in the building.
Clubs spend fortunes looking for players and occasionally find one down the corridor. Luis Alberto Pereyra is that, and the reception he gets on his first appearance will be different in kind from the one any signing receives.
Clubs spend fortunes looking for players and occasionally find one down the corridor. Andrés Escobar is that, and the reception he gets on his first appearance will be different in kind from the one any signing receives.
Clubs spend fortunes looking for players and occasionally find one down the corridor. Juan Martín Di María is that, and the reception he gets on his first appearance will be different in kind from the one any signing receives.
Successful dribbles: 23. 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.
“The easiest signature of my career.” Fernando González and Ferrocarril Midland agree another 2 years, and the manager can plan around him rather than about 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 Ferrocarril Midland this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Emilio Porro 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.
24 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.
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.