“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Juventud have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Juventud 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 Patricio Pernicone was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Nobody at Juventud 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 Federico Barrandeguy trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Juventud can pretend not to have heard.
Rodrigo Chagas 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.
“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.
Squad1 Feb 2027
Words at Juventud training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Patricio Pernicone 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 Alejo Cruz is on it.
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Juventud, and both men came out saying it was fine.
Rodrigo Chagas 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.
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 Federico Barrandeguy is on it.
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Fernando Mimbacas signs something — a contract at Juventud or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Juventud will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
There is no fee, no unveiling and no agent on the steps. Nicolas Ramirez has been at this club since he was a boy and is now, formally, one of the first-team squad — which for a local readership beats any signing of any size.
Squad18 Jan 2027
Words at Juventud training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Patricio Pernicone 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 bone, which is the one injury with a calendar attached. Juventud will name a return date and, unusually for this business, will probably be right about it.
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.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Juventud this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
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.
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 Bruno Larregui is on it.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Bruno Larregui trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 32 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
“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 Juventud, and it is not being withdrawn.
Rodrigo Chagas 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 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.
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 Alejo Cruz is on it.
Another week, another link, another denial nobody quite believes. Juventud know the market decides these things, not the back pages — but the back pages are louder.
“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 Juventud, and it is not being withdrawn.
The clubs have shaken hands with Albion; the player has not yet. Personal terms are next, and personal terms are where more deals die than anybody prints.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Juventud they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
$500.0K was the most the club would pay and Uruguay Montevideo were asking for more. Deals like this are revived in the last week of a window roughly half the time, and everybody involved knows it.
Rodrigo Chagas 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 footballer has an answer to the question about his boyhood club, and most of them never get to act on it. Alexis Zelarayán has, at Juventud, and the first month will show what that does to a man.
Penarol paid $170.0K and Juventud took it, which is the whole story in one sentence. The longer version involves a wage budget and will be told all season.
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.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Juventud have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Juventud offered $640.0K; Deportivo Maldonado said it was not close. The manager will be told the money is still there for the right player, which is what managers are told.
Clubs spend fortunes looking for players and occasionally find one down the corridor. Federico Rodriguez is that, and the reception he gets on his first appearance will be different in kind from the one any signing receives.
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Sebastián Medina, and the manager let it.
Squad21 Dec 2026
Words at Juventud training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Patricio Pernicone 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: 39. 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.
0‑3. Corinthians play this football every year and it showed in every part of the pitch. The lesson is expensive and, for a club at this stage, probably necessary.
19 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Juventud lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the whole of the defence. 9 saves, several of them the kind nobody expects to see made, and ten outfield players who owe him a drink.
Juventud have gone to Deportivo Maldonado 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.
Juventud have gone to Uruguay Montevideo 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.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Juventud this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
27 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Juventud lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Juventud can pretend not to have heard.
Martín Cáceres 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 thought about how hard another man trains, and Patricio Pernicone was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
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.
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.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Juventud is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
Martín Cáceres 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.
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Alejo Cruz, and the manager let it.
Squad30 Nov 2026
Words at Juventud training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Patricio Pernicone 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 found out with everybody else, an hour before kick-off, from a sheet of paper on a wall. Nobody at Juventud pretended it was anything other than a decision about him.
24 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Juventud 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 Juventud 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 Facundo Pérez was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
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 Alejo Cruz is on it.
The words a physio says slowly. 31 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 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 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.
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 Sebastián Sosa is on it.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Alan Ferreyra trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
He asked about his future and was given an answer with minutes in it. The manager has now made a promise in a building where promises are remembered, and the clock on it has started.
38 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Juventud lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the team. 10 saves, several of them the sort nobody expects to see stopped, and a scoreline that flatters everybody in front of him.
1‑2 against Boca Juniors. Continental football is unforgiving about the things a domestic league lets a side get away with, and this was a night spent finding out which of those the club still has.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Juventud have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Martín Cáceres 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.
Clubs spend fortunes looking for players and occasionally find one down the corridor. Franco De Arrascaeta is that, and the reception he gets on his first appearance will be different in kind from the one any signing receives.
The academy exists for exactly this morning. Rodrigo Aguirre 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.
In brief
SquadGeiner Martínez falls out with a teammate over standards
The dugoutThe view from the dugout
The dugoutThe team sheet said everything about Agustín Alaniz
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Juventud is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
Martín Cáceres 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.
“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.
Squad2 Nov 2026
Facundo Pérez 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.
Nobody at Juventud 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.
Nothing in writing and nothing in public: a word about playing time, given face to face at Juventud. The team sheets over the next month will show whether it was worth having.
0‑2 against Boca Juniors. Continental football is unforgiving about the things a domestic league lets a side get away with, and this was a night spent finding out which of those the club still has.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Juventud this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
“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.
Squad26 Oct 2026
Words at Juventud training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Patricio Pernicone 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 player who expected to start watched it instead. The manager will call it a decision for the team; Gonzalo Bueno will call it something else in private.
16 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 supporters are entitled to be angry. So am I. We will put it right.” 0‑2, a manager saying the necessary things, and a dressing room that heard a different version of them.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Patricio Pernicone was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
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.
Martín Cáceres 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.
There is no fee, no unveiling and no agent on the steps. Franco Lopez has been at this club since he was a boy and is now, formally, one of the first-team squad — which for a local readership beats any signing of any size.
Squad12 Oct 2026
Facundo Pérez 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.
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 Sebastián Sosa is on it.
Nobody will confirm it and the team sheets confirm it every week. One error has bought him a spell as second choice that is already longer than the error deserved.
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Juventud, and both men came out saying it was fine.
Another week, another link, another denial nobody quite believes. Juventud know the market decides these things, not the back pages — but the back pages are louder.
“I have done everything asked of me in training and it has not changed a thing on a Saturday.” The most familiar complaint in football, and one Juventud will have to answer with minutes or with a transfer.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the whole of the defence. 14 saves, several of them the kind nobody expects to see made, and ten outfield players who owe him a drink.
The board had gone up, the arguing had started, and then the ball was in the net in the 111th minute. Danubio will replay every second of the added time for a week.
2‑4 against Corinthians, and an evening that measured the gap rather than the ninety minutes. Nothing about it was a disgrace and nothing about it was close.
7.61, 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.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Juventud they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
Two of the goals had his name somewhere on them, which is the afternoon a manager wants from anybody asked to both create and finish. 7.75, and 2 involvements.
Martín Cáceres 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 was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Juventud this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
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.
Squad28 Sep 2026
16 new faces, and Juventud are still learning each other
A squad rebuilt inside one window pays for it in a currency nobody budgets for. The football is not worse than the sum of the players; it is worse than the sum of the players who have played together before.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Alan Ferreyra 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 Gastón Pereiro is on it.
0‑3. Colo-Colo play this football every year and it showed in every part of the pitch. The lesson is expensive and, for a club at this stage, probably necessary.
He found out with everybody else, an hour before kick-off, from a sheet of paper on a wall. Nobody at Juventud pretended it was anything other than a decision about him.
The door stayed shut a long time after the final whistle. What was said in there is between them; whether it worked is between them and Saturday.
The dugout21 Sep 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 0‑3 defeat, delivered by Mathias Rios to a room that had heard them before.
Nobody's fault and entirely his: a goal that goes into the book with his name against it and nothing about it intended. Juventud deserved better, and so did he.
The dugout21 Sep 2026
Somebody else is better right now than Alan Ferreyra
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.
Martín Cáceres 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 academy exists for exactly this morning. Joaquin Bentancur 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.
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.
Nobody at Juventud 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 is not being dropped. There is simply nowhere in the formation Juventud are playing to put a man who does what he does, which is a harder thing to be told than any team sheet.
Another week, another link, another denial nobody quite believes. Juventud know the market decides these things, not the back pages — but the back pages are louder.
He asked about his future and was given an answer with minutes in it. The manager has now made a promise in a building where promises are remembered, and the clock on it has started.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Juventud they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
Martín Cáceres 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.
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.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Emanuel Cecchini was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Four or five weekends of consistency, judged against everybody in the division doing his job. Sebastián Sosa has come out of that comparison in the side, and Juventud have had the benefit of every one of those afternoons.
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.
Nobody will confirm it and the team sheets confirm it every week. One error has bought him a spell as second choice that is already longer than the error deserved.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Juventud this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
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 7.00, and not one of them will make a highlights package.
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.
A brace, and Bruno Arady takes the afternoon — 8.64
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Bruno Arady provided it, and the 8.64 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
Everything agreed with another club, everything agreed with the player; a doctor is the only person left to persuade. The photograph is a day or two away.
The paperwork is done long before the player is. Mathías Bernatene has agreed terms to come here when his current deal runs out, which means Juventud have spent a summer's transfer budget on a phone call.
At 19 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 mark of 9.19 means one thing beside a twenty-nine-year-old's name and something else entirely beside a 19-year-old's. Nobody at the ground needed telling which this was.
Martín Cáceres 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.
At 21 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.
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Bruno Larregui. 1‑0 against Cerro Largo, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
3 goals before the ground had finished arriving. Rampla Juniors spent the rest of the afternoon playing a match that had already been decided, and everybody in the stadium knew 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.
Nobody makes a documentary about a hamstring and everybody in the game fears one. Juventud will be careful with the return date, because the second one is always worse than the first.
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.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Mauricio Rodríguez will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Juventud the goodbyes have quietly begun.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Juventud this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Successful dribbles: 20. 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.
Add another name to the list: Arzignano have asked the question everybody in the game has been asking about Fabrizio Correa. The answer from Juventud has not changed — yet.
Clubs spend fortunes looking for players and occasionally find one down the corridor. Carlos Lopez is that, and the reception he gets on his first appearance will be different in kind from the one any signing receives.
The academy exists for exactly this morning. Diego Perez 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.
Martín Cáceres 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 Sebastián Sosa 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 23-year-old it feels ownership of. Ramiro Peralta 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: Ramiro Peralta. 1‑0 against Liverpool Montevideo, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
Player ratings3 Aug 2026
Ramiro Peralta was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.08. 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.
13 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.