A place in the month's best eleven for Braian Galván
Four or five weekends of consistency, judged against everybody in the division doing his job. Braian Galván has come out of that comparison in the side, and Oriental have had the benefit of every one of those afternoons.
He used to be one of the options. He is now one of the men the options are picked around, and the change happened quietly enough that only the dressing room noticed on the day.
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.
Every shape has positions in it and this one does not have his. Oriental will either change the shape, change his job, or change his club, and he is waiting to hear which.
Footballers are asked about their boyhood club so often that nobody listens to the answer. Bautista da Silveira has just signed for Oriental, and for once the answer mattered.
Enzo Vlaeminch 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.
River Plate go through and Oriental go home, 0‑2 the scoreline that did it. The dressing room will call the league the priority now, because that is what dressing rooms say.
The paperwork is done long before the player is. Lucão has agreed terms to come here when his current deal runs out, which means Oriental have spent a summer's transfer budget on a phone call.
“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.
The dugout17 Aug 2026
The manager’s verdict
“That is on me. I pick the team and I picked wrong.” Managers say that when they mean it and when they need to be seen to, and after 0‑2 Franco Rivera left the room before anybody could ask which.
Nobody at Oriental is suggesting he is out of form. The manager simply wanted somebody with a different set of qualities for ninety specific minutes, and there is nothing a player can train to fix that.
The match ball belongs to Nahuel Soria, whose 4 goals turned a difficult afternoon into a procession.
Match8 Aug 2026
Nahuel Soria wins it after the whistle should have gone
97 minutes played. Nahuel Soria found the finish in time that only existed because of earlier delays, and Fenix went from a point to nothing inside one movement.
Emir Basabe 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 Nicolás Kozlovsky was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
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.
The academy exists for exactly this morning. Nahuel Castro 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.
Ángelo Gabrielli 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 Nicolás Kozlovsky was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Still no offer on the table, and Ángelo Gabrielli’s deal keeps shrinking. In boardroom language, silence this long stops being an oversight and starts being an answer.
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.
“A point is a point and I will take it, but we should have had all three.” Franco Rivera after the 1‑1 draw, and the sentence every manager in the country said at some stage this weekend.