Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Platense will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the team. 7 saves, several of them the sort nobody expects to see stopped, and a scoreline that flatters everybody in front of him.
Another week, another link, another denial nobody quite believes. Platense know the market decides these things, not the back pages — but the back pages are louder.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 22 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
Juan Pablo Goicochea 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.
Defensa y Justicia left with the points after a 2‑3 defeat that will take some explaining on the terraces.
Squad6 Sep 2038
Ramiro Pral 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 board have answered with money instead of encouragement, which is the only answer a manager ever wants. Spending it well is now entirely his problem.
16 attempts, none of them in. He got into the right places all afternoon, which is the hard part, and did the easy part badly — and that is the version of a bad day a manager can live with.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Platense will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the team. 6 saves, several of them the sort nobody expects to see stopped, and a scoreline that flatters everybody in front of 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 Platense this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Hard to beat is not the same as winning, but 7 matches without defeat is a foundation Platense did not have in the autumn.
Squad30 Aug 2038
Words at Platense training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Maximiliano Amarfil 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.
Marked 8.93. Players have careers without a single afternoon like this in them, and he has just had one in front of everybody at Platense.
Player ratings30 Aug 2038
Ramiro Pral was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.64. 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.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the team. 11 saves, several of them the sort nobody expects to see stopped, and a scoreline that flatters everybody in front of him.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Platense will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Platense is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Platense this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Marked 8.50 — 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.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 45 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
The board had gone up, the arguing had started, and then the ball was in the net in the 90th minute. Lanús will replay every second of the added time for a week.
Two goals and a mark of 8.76 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Platense this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad16 Aug 2038
Words at Platense training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Ramiro Pral 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 Platense 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.
Another week, another link, another denial nobody quite believes. Platense know the market decides these things, not the back pages — but the back pages are louder.
Nobody makes a documentary about a hamstring and everybody in the game fears one. Platense will be careful with the return date, because the second one is always worse than the first.
Juan Pablo Goicochea 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.
A performance of 8.73 does not come along often, and when it does the rest of the team becomes scenery. He was magnificent.
Player ratings9 Aug 2038
Ramiro Pral was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.44. 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.
Marked 8.11 — 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.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Platense have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
5 without a win now, and the ground has developed the special quiet of a crowd that expects the worst. One scrappy 1-0 would cure most of it; that is the maddening part.
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Juan Pablo Goicochea and Platense agree another 3 years.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Platense this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad2 Aug 2038
Words at Platense training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Maximiliano Amarfil 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.
12 attempts, none of them in. He got into the right places all afternoon, which is the hard part, and did the easy part badly — and that is the version of a bad day a manager can live with.
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Andrés Sosa signs something — a contract at Platense or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
It is a specific kind of quiet, a ground watching a winning position dissolve. Talleres kept coming because nothing stopped them, and Platense will be asked about the last half hour all week.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Platense have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Carlos Banguero will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Platense the goodbyes have quietly begun.
Juan Pablo Goicochea 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.
19 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Platense 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 Platense this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad19 Jul 2038
Words at Platense training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Maximiliano Amarfil 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.
26 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Platense lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
The phone has started ringing about Agustín Maglione again, and this time the name on the line is All Boys. Platense are listening politely and promising nothing.
Juan Pablo Goicochea 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 words a physio says slowly. 33 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.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Platense this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
None of them will be seen by anybody outside the training ground for three years, most of them will never play a senior match, and one of them might change the club. That is the whole proposition, and it is why academies exist.
The words a physio says slowly. 40 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 Platense is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Platense this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad28 Jun 2038
Words at Platense training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Maximiliano Amarfil 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.
48 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Platense lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
“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 Platense, and it is not being withdrawn.
Juan Pablo Goicochea 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.
57 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Platense lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Defensa y Justicia go through and Platense go home, 1‑4 the scoreline that did it. The dressing room will call the league the priority now, because that is what dressing rooms say.
1-4, and long before the end the away end had switched from encouragement to something considerably more pointed. Nobody rings a phone-in about losing narrowly.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Platense this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad14 Jun 2038
Words at Platense training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Maximiliano Amarfil 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 here is above being told.” It was not said with a name attached, but the dressing room can count, and so can everybody who was listening.
Player ratings14 Jun 2038
Enzo Lombardi was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.71. 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.
Talleres go through. The table said this team was good enough for months and the format does not care what the table said, which is the argument every eliminated club has had with itself since playoffs were invented.
The words a physio says slowly. 65 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.
“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 Platense, and it is not being withdrawn.
Juan Pablo Goicochea 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 board have answered with money instead of encouragement, which is the only answer a manager ever wants. Spending it well is now entirely his problem.
2‑0 settles it, and a club that spent a season earning the right to play these games has won one of them. Somebody else's season ended tonight, which is the part nobody mentions in the celebrations.
73 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Platense lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
33 times he got in the way of something. Centre-halves get written about when they make mistakes and ignored when they do not, so an afternoon like this needs saying out loud: he is the reason the scoreline reads as it does.
12 without defeat on their own grass. The pitch has not changed; the crowd has — louder earlier, and quicker to sense when the opposition would rather be somewhere else.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Platense is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Platense this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
In brief
SquadWords at Platense training over how hard people work
Player ratingsIgnacio Mercado was on a different afternoon to everybody else
The words a physio says slowly. 81 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.
Juan Pablo Goicochea 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 words a physio says slowly. 88 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.
At 33 he is supposed to be managing his minutes. Instead he was marked 8.97 and looked, for ninety minutes, exactly like the player everybody remembers.
11 home matches unbeaten. Visiting sides arrive already talking about the atmosphere, which is usually the sign that they have half-lost before kickoff.
Demián Troya 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.
Squad17 May 2038
Words at Platense training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Maximiliano Amarfil 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.
96 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Platense lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Juan Pablo Goicochea 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 is the most legitimate ambition in the sport and the hardest for most clubs to satisfy. Franco Basualdo wants continental football; whether Platense can provide it is a question about the next two seasons, not about him.
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.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the team. 7 saves, several of them the sort nobody expects to see stopped, and a scoreline that flatters everybody in front of him.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Platense is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Platense this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
10 matches unbeaten here. Every visiting manager is asked about it in the week before, which is precisely why it keeps going.
Squad3 May 2038
Words at Platense training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Maximiliano Amarfil 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.
22 defensive actions and a clean sheet at the end of them. A defender's afternoon can only be told by what did not happen, which is why nobody makes a highlights package out of one and every manager in the division would take it.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the team. 12 saves, several of them the sort nobody expects to see stopped, and a scoreline that flatters everybody in front of him.
Cup ties wait for somebody to seize them, and Santiago Bouhet obliged against Patronato. 2‑0 on the night, and the name in the next round’s hat is Platense.
28 defensive actions and a clean sheet at the end of them. A defender's afternoon can only be told by what did not happen, which is why nobody makes a highlights package out of one and every manager in the division would take it.
There is an age at which every good afternoon gets described as a throwback, which is unfair and also accurate. 8.33 at 34, and nobody on the pitch was better.
Juan Pablo Goicochea 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.
9 home matches unbeaten. Visiting sides arrive already talking about the atmosphere, which is usually the sign that they have half-lost before kickoff.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the team. 6 saves, several of them the sort nobody expects to see stopped, and a scoreline that flatters everybody in front of 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 Platense this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad19 Apr 2038
Words at Platense training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Maximiliano Amarfil 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.
9.01. 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.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the team. 8 saves, several of them the sort nobody expects to see stopped, and a scoreline that flatters everybody in front of him.
4 wins in a row changes how opponents warm up: quieter, more glances across. Runs end, everybody knows that — but nobody in this dressing room is planning for it.
Juan Pablo Goicochea 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.
Player ratings12 Apr 2038
Franco Basualdo was on a different afternoon to everybody else
9.19. 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.
16 times he got in the way of something. Centre-halves get written about when they make mistakes and ignored when they do not, so an afternoon like this needs saying out loud: he is the reason the scoreline reads as it does.
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.
Position 1, 23 points, and the result everyone checks first is now theirs. The word is still not being said around the ground, which is how you know everyone is thinking it.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Carlos Banguero will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Platense 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 Platense this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
5 straight away victories. Sides that win away are usually sides that can defend and can counter, and the table has begun to reflect what those journeys have earned.
3 wins in a row changes how opponents warm up: quieter, more glances across. Runs end, everybody knows that — but nobody in this dressing room is planning for it.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Platense will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Platense 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.
9.18. 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.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Platense will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Platense this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad22 Mar 2038
Words at Platense training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Maximiliano Amarfil 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.
Match20 Mar 2038
Another one collected away from home
4 on the bounce on the road for Platense. The coaches leave early, arrive at unlovely grounds in the dark, and keep coming home with three points.
Marked 9.16 — 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.
4‑4 against Universidad de Chile, and a performance that will be described to people who were not there for the rest of the season. Ramiro Pral was at the centre of the description.
2 kept out in the shoot-out, and a stadium that will still be describing them in twenty years. A goalkeeper only needs one of these to be remembered forever.
2 in front and in complete control, and it finished with Universidad de Chile the happier side. There is no version of this afternoon that Platense will enjoy reviewing.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 34 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
Juan Pablo Goicochea 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.
Headers, blocks, tackles, interceptions — 22 of them, and not one goal behind him. The sort of performance that never makes a highlight reel and wins football matches.
Two goals and a mark of 8.97 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 41 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
4 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.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Platense have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Platense 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 Platense this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
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.
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Agustín Maglione. 3‑2 against Lanús, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 48 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
At 33 he is supposed to be managing his minutes. Instead he was marked 9.30 and looked, for ninety minutes, exactly like the player everybody remembers.
Juan Pablo Goicochea 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.
2‑1 against Universidad de Chile, under lights, against people who do not speak the same language as the crowd. These are the evenings a club measures its decade in, and there are never as many of them as anybody expects.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Platense will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Platense this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad22 Feb 2038
Words at Platense training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Maximiliano Amarfil 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: Juan Alcaine. 3‑2 against Unión de Santa Fe, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
Marked 9.00 — 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.
Conceding is one thing; the response is what tells you about a dressing room. Juan Alcaine had Platense level again within 1 minutes, and Unión de Santa Fe never got to play with a lead at all.
A player who expected to start watched it instead. The manager will call it a decision for the team; Lautaro Zunino will call it something else in private.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Platense will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
Juan Pablo Goicochea 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.
6 goals in one match, Ramiro Pral on the scoresheet, and a scoreline that will look like a misprint. Neutrals could not have asked more of Platense and Talleres.
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.
Marked 8.60 — 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.
Two goals and a mark of 9.16 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Platense will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
176 appearances across 11 seasons in one shirt. Nobody builds a career like that on purpose any more; it happens to a certain kind of footballer at a certain kind of club.
There is an age at which every good afternoon gets described as a throwback, which is unfair and also accurate. 8.16 at 34, and nobody on the pitch was better.
27 times he got in the way of something. Centre-halves get written about when they make mistakes and ignored when they do not, so an afternoon like this needs saying out loud: he is the reason the scoreline reads as it does.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Platense is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
Demián Troya 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.
Squad8 Feb 2038
Words at Platense training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Maximiliano Amarfil 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.
9 boys move up, and somewhere in the building the people who coached them at twelve are quietly having the best morning of their working year. Nothing about this shows up in a result and it is why the academy exists.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Platense will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
175 appearances across 11 seasons in one shirt. Nobody builds a career like that on purpose any more; it happens to a certain kind of footballer at a certain kind of club.
Juan Pablo Goicochea 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.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 85 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Platense this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad25 Jan 2038
Words at Platense training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Maximiliano Amarfil 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.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Platense will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
Juan Pablo Goicochea 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.
Carlos De Las Salas arrives at 39 with nothing left to prove and plenty left to pass on. Legs are a young man's currency; knowing where to stand never ages.
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Pablo Ferreira signs something — a contract at Platense or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
He is the name in every column and on every phone-in, which is a heavy thing to carry at any age. Some footballers thrive on it; others are quietly finished by it.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 101 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Platense 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 Platense this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
There is no worse way to lose a footballer. Simón Meza 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.
Squad11 Jan 2038
Words at Platense training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Maximiliano Amarfil 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.
Belgrano will keep picking him until June and will get nothing for him after it. Martín Contreras has pre-agreed a move to Platense, and the only people who lose in that arrangement are the ones who let the contract run down.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 108 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
Everything was agreed until it was not, and Santiago Bouhet reports back to Platense with a summer to forget. Neither club is saying who walked away from the table.
Juan Pablo Goicochea 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 is the most legitimate ambition in the sport and the hardest for most clubs to satisfy. Franco Basualdo wants continental football; whether Platense can provide it is a question about the next two seasons, not about him.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 115 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Platense this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad28 Dec 2037
Words at Platense training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Maximiliano Amarfil 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 Platense 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.
Qualification is done, and next season the floodlights come on for something bigger. A stage for the players, oxygen for the accounts and a passport for everybody else.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 122 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
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. Jeremías Villafañe will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Platense 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 Platense 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.
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Pablo Ferreira signs something — a contract at Platense or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 129 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
1‑2 against Huachipato. 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 Platense this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad14 Dec 2037
Words at Platense training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Maximiliano Amarfil 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 the name in every column and on every phone-in, which is a heavy thing to carry at any age. Some footballers thrive on it; others are quietly finished by it.
Juan Pablo Goicochea 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.
1‑0 against Atletico Nacional, under lights, against people who do not speak the same language as the crowd. These are the evenings a club measures its decade in, and there are never as many of them as anybody expects.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Platense this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
23 times he got in the way of something. Centre-halves get written about when they make mistakes and ignored when they do not, so an afternoon like this needs saying out loud: he is the reason the scoreline reads as it does.
Squad30 Nov 2037
Words at Platense training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Maximiliano Amarfil 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.
21 defensive actions and a clean sheet at the end of them. A defender's afternoon can only be told by what did not happen, which is why nobody makes a highlights package out of one and every manager in the division would take it.
Juan Pablo Goicochea 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.
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.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Platense 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 Platense this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad16 Nov 2037
Words at Platense training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Maximiliano Amarfil 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.
River Plate go through. The table said this team was good enough for months and the format does not care what the table said, which is the argument every eliminated club has had with itself since playoffs were invented.
1‑3 away to the standard of Olimpia. Nobody will pretend this was a scandal; the gap is real, it is measurable, and closing it is a project rather than a team talk.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the team. 7 saves, several of them the sort nobody expects to see stopped, and a scoreline that flatters everybody in front of him.
The terraces9 Nov 2037
The boos come down from three sides
“We pay for this every fortnight. The least we want is somebody who looks like he cares.” 8 of the 38 senior players walked off into it; the rest were not playing.
At 36 he is supposed to be managing his minutes. Instead he was marked 8.42 and looked, for ninety minutes, exactly like the player everybody remembers.
Juan Pablo Goicochea 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.
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.
Demián Troya 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.
In brief
SquadWords at Platense training over how hard people work
At 34 he is supposed to be managing his minutes. Instead he was marked 7.93 and looked, for ninety minutes, exactly like the player everybody remembers.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Platense this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad26 Oct 2037
Words at Platense training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Maximiliano Amarfil 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.
Marked 9.24 — 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.
Juan Pablo Goicochea 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.
Squad19 Oct 2037
The manager has not finished forgetting Andrés Sosa's mistake
Publicly it is behind everybody. It is not behind the man who picks the team, and the only place that shows is a team sheet. He will get another chance; he will get it in a match that matters less.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Platense this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad12 Oct 2037
Words at Platense training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Maximiliano Amarfil 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.
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Andrés Sosa signs something — a contract at Platense or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
9 shots, and a count that reads like a good afternoon until you check the other column. Strikers survive weeks like this on the understanding that the chances keep arriving; the day they stop is the day it becomes a problem.
3‑1 against Huachipato, under lights, against people who do not speak the same language as the crowd. These are the evenings a club measures its decade in, and there are never as many of them as anybody expects.
Two goals and a mark of 8.95 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
402 appearances across 12 seasons in one shirt. Nobody builds a career like that on purpose any more; it happens to a certain kind of footballer at a certain kind of club.
Juan Pablo Goicochea 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.
8.85. 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.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Platense this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad28 Sep 2037
Words at Platense training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Demián Troya 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.
Marked 8.81 — 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.
6 attempts, none of them in. He got into the right places all afternoon, which is the hard part, and did the easy part badly — and that is the version of a bad day a manager can live with.
The words a physio says slowly. 18 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.
0‑1 away to the standard of Atletico Nacional. Nobody will pretend this was a scandal; the gap is real, it is measurable, and closing it is a project rather than a team talk.
Juan Pablo Goicochea 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.
11 shots, and a count that reads like a good afternoon until you check the other column. Strikers survive weeks like this on the understanding that the chances keep arriving; the day they stop is the day it becomes a problem.
The words a physio says slowly. 27 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.
Position 3, 19 points, and the result everyone checks first is now theirs. The word is still not being said around the ground, which is how you know everyone is thinking 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 Platense this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad14 Sep 2037
Words at Platense training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Maximiliano Amarfil 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.
21 times he got in the way of something. Centre-halves get written about when they make mistakes and ignored when they do not, so an afternoon like this needs saying out loud: he is the reason the scoreline reads as it does.
The words a physio says slowly. 34 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.
Juan Pablo Goicochea 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 words a physio says slowly. 41 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.
Deportivo Riestra will want this one forgotten quickly: 4‑1, every duel lost, and a long ride home. Platense were ruthless in the way good sides are ruthless.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Platense this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
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.
Squad31 Aug 2037
Words at Platense training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Maximiliano Amarfil 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.
Marked 8.92 — 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.
8.94. 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.
49 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Platense lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Platense have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Juan Pablo Goicochea 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.
The words a physio says slowly. 57 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.
31 times he got in the way of something. Centre-halves get written about when they make mistakes and ignored when they do not, so an afternoon like this needs saying out loud: he is the reason the scoreline reads as it does.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Platense this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
12 attempts, none of them in. He got into the right places all afternoon, which is the hard part, and did the easy part badly — and that is the version of a bad day a manager can live with.
The crowd waited for a goal that never came. Lanús defended in numbers and left with what they came for, and the two sides could be playing still without troubling a scorer.
65 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Platense lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
4 wins in a row changes how opponents warm up: quieter, more glances across. Runs end, everybody knows that — but nobody in this dressing room is planning for it.
Juan Pablo Goicochea 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.
74 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Platense lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the team. 9 saves, several of them the sort nobody expects to see stopped, and a scoreline that flatters everybody in front of him.
116 appearances across 12 seasons in one shirt. Nobody builds a career like that on purpose any more; it happens to a certain kind of footballer at a certain kind of club.
Headers, blocks, tackles, interceptions — 24 of them, and not one goal behind him. The sort of performance that never makes a highlight reel and wins football matches.
Marked 9.20 — 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.
Marked 9.13 — 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.
In brief
Player ratingsRamiro Pral was on a different afternoon to everybody else
81 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Platense 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 Platense this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
9.09. 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.
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.
Shots: 11. Goals: none. The chances were there and they were good ones, and they went into the stand, the goalkeeper's arms and the side netting in roughly that order.
88 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Platense lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Headers, blocks, tackles, interceptions — 30 of them, and not one goal behind him. The sort of performance that never makes a highlight reel and wins football matches.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Platense this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
24 times he got in the way of something. Centre-halves get written about when they make mistakes and ignored when they do not, so an afternoon like this needs saying out loud: he is the reason the scoreline reads as it does.
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Ramiro Pral. 1‑0 against Godoy Cruz, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
95 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Platense lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Juan Pablo Goicochea 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.
102 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Platense lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
“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 Platense, and it is not being withdrawn.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Platense 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.
7 arrivals, an average age nobody would call a squad, and a set of parents being shown around a building their sons will spend more time in than at home. The scouting has already happened; today is only the paperwork.
109 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Platense lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Platense can pretend not to have heard.
Juan Pablo Goicochea 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 is the most legitimate ambition in the sport and the hardest for most clubs to satisfy. Franco Basualdo wants continental football; whether Platense can provide it is a question about the next two seasons, not about him.
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.
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.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Platense 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 Platense this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad22 Jun 2037
Words at Platense training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Maximiliano Amarfil 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.
5 without a win now, and the ground has developed the special quiet of a crowd that expects the worst. One scrappy 1-0 would cure most of it; that is the maddening part.
Juan Pablo Goicochea 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.
Add another name to the list: Boca Juniors have asked the question everybody in the game has been asking about Santiago Bouhet. The answer from Platense has not changed — yet.
Squad15 Jun 2037
Demián Troya 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 makes a documentary about a hamstring and everybody in the game fears one. Platense will be careful with the return date, because the second one is always worse than the first.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Platense this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Eugenio Raggio and Platense agree another 2 years.
Squad8 Jun 2037
Words at Platense training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Maximiliano Amarfil 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, and a season that ran to May has ended inside a fortnight. This is what a playoff is: nine months of work settled by a couple of evenings, and nobody who designed it was thinking about the losing dressing room.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Platense can pretend not to have heard.
Juan Pablo Goicochea 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.
Shots: 9. Goals: none. The chances were there and they were good ones, and they went into the stand, the goalkeeper's arms and the side netting in roughly that order.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Platense 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.
The words a physio says slowly. 14 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.
Juan Pablo Goicochea 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.
The words a physio says slowly. 23 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.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Platense this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad11 May 2037
Words at Platense training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Maximiliano Amarfil 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 words a physio says slowly. 32 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.
Juan Pablo Goicochea 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.
Beaten 0‑1, and beaten fairly. The manager kept his words short afterwards, which was probably wise.
Squad4 May 2037
Words at Platense training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Joaquín Medina 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.
12 attempts, none of them in. He got into the right places all afternoon, which is the hard part, and did the easy part badly — and that is the version of a bad day a manager can live with.
Cup ties wait for somebody to seize them, and Nahuel González obliged against Almagro. 1‑0 on the night, and the name in the next round’s hat is Platense.
The board had gone up, the arguing had started, and then the ball was in the net in the 121th minute. Almagro will replay every second of the added time for a week.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the team. 7 saves, several of them the sort nobody expects to see stopped, and a scoreline that flatters everybody in front of him.
25 defensive actions and a clean sheet at the end of them. A defender's afternoon can only be told by what did not happen, which is why nobody makes a highlights package out of one and every manager in the division would take 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 Platense this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
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.
Successful dribbles: 23. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
Squad27 Apr 2037
Words at Platense training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Maximiliano Amarfil 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 injury that keeps coming back, keeps being rushed back from, and quietly costs more careers than the dramatic ones. 14 days is the estimate; the honest figure depends on whether anybody is patient.
Franco Basualdo 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.
Marked 8.78 — 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 Platense 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.
10 shots, and a count that reads like a good afternoon until you check the other column. Strikers survive weeks like this on the understanding that the chances keep arriving; the day they stop is the day it becomes a problem.
5 attempts, none of them in. He got into the right places all afternoon, which is the hard part, and did the easy part badly — and that is the version of a bad day a manager can live with.
In brief
Player ratingsAn afternoon Angel Uñates will want back
BoardroomThe Platense production line keeps running
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Franco Basualdo provided it, and the 9.41 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
5 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.
Juan Pablo Goicochea 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.
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Franco Basualdo. 3‑1 against All Boys, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
8.63. 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.
4 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.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Platense this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad30 Mar 2037
Words at Platense training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Maximiliano Amarfil 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.
Marked 9.16. Players have careers without a single afternoon like this in them, and he has just had one in front of everybody at Platense.
Player ratings30 Mar 2037
Joaquín Medina was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.99. 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.
Marked 8.43 — 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.
Two goals and a mark of 9.06 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
There is an age at which every good afternoon gets described as a throwback, which is unfair and also accurate. 7.91 at 34, and nobody on the pitch was better.
Juan Pablo Goicochea 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.
Marked 8.78 — 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.
“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.
Squad23 Mar 2037
Words at Platense training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Joaquín Medina 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.
In brief
Player ratingsMiguel Palacios was on a different afternoon to everybody else
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Nahuel González will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Platense 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 Platense this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Hard to beat is not the same as winning, but 7 matches without defeat is a foundation Platense did not have in the autumn.
Squad16 Mar 2037
Words at Platense training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Maximiliano Amarfil 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.
Marked 9.26 — 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.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Platense can pretend not to have heard.
Juan Pablo Goicochea 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.
23 defensive actions and a clean sheet at the end of them. A defender's afternoon can only be told by what did not happen, which is why nobody makes a highlights package out of one and every manager in the division would take it.
22 times he got in the way of something. Centre-halves get written about when they make mistakes and ignored when they do not, so an afternoon like this needs saying out loud: he is the reason the scoreline reads as it does.
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.
Marked 9.10 — 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.
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.
Maximiliano Amarfil 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.
Nobody at Platense 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.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Platense have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Juan Pablo Goicochea 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.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Platense 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 Platense this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Successful dribbles: 22. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Squad16 Feb 2037
Words at Platense training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Maximiliano Amarfil 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.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 15 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Platense this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Platense can pretend not to have heard.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 24 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
Juan Pablo Goicochea 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.
Boardroom2 Feb 2037
9 academy players handed senior numbers at Platense
The morning the pathway stops being a brochure and becomes a team sheet. Most of them will not be here in three years; all of them have already done the hard part, which was getting to today.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 31 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 Platense, and it is not being withdrawn.
There is a version of every career where the player ends up somewhere he chose rather than somewhere that chose him. Felipe Tempone is living that version at Platense, and it tends to show in the first month.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Platense this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad26 Jan 2037
Words at Platense training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Maximiliano Amarfil 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 clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Platense is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
Juan Pablo Goicochea 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.
There is a version of every career where the player ends up somewhere he chose rather than somewhere that chose him. Gustavo Fernandez is living that version at Platense, and it tends to show in the first month.
River Plate will keep picking him until June and will get nothing for him after it. Franco Basualdo has pre-agreed a move to Platense, and the only people who lose in that arrangement are the ones who let the contract run down.
Ramiro Pral 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.
Squad12 Jan 2037
Words at Platense training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Maximiliano Amarfil 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.
Another week, another link, another denial nobody quite believes. Platense know the market decides these things, not the back pages — but the back pages are louder.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Platense can pretend not to have heard.
Juan Pablo Goicochea 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.
The paperwork is done long before the player is. Cristian Herrera has agreed terms to come here when his current deal runs out, which means Platense have spent a summer's transfer budget on a phone call.
“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 Platense, and it is not being withdrawn.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Platense is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Platense 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.
Nobody at Platense 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.
Qualification is done, and next season the floodlights come on for something bigger. A stage for the players, oxygen for the accounts and a passport for everybody else.
Footballers are asked about their boyhood club so often that nobody listens to the answer. Ramiro Pral has just signed for Platense, and for once the answer mattered.
Juan Pablo Goicochea 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.
Qualification is secured, and next season the big floodlit nights are continental ones. For the players it is a stage; for the accounts it is a lifeline; for the supporters it is passports.
1‑0 against San Marcos de Arica, and a performance that will be described to people who were not there for the rest of the season. Joaquín Medina was at the centre of the description.
“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 Platense, and it is not being withdrawn.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Platense this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Nobody makes a documentary about a hamstring and everybody in the game fears one. Platense will be careful with the return date, because the second one is always worse than the first.
Squad15 Dec 2036
Words at Platense training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Maximiliano Amarfil 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.
21 times he got in the way of something. Centre-halves get written about when they make mistakes and ignored when they do not, so an afternoon like this needs saying out loud: he is the reason the scoreline reads as it does.
In brief
Player ratingsJoaquín Medina was on a different afternoon to everybody else
Player ratingsSantino Cavagna was on a different afternoon to everybody else
“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 Platense, and it is not being withdrawn.
Juan Pablo Goicochea 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 medical room confirms 47 days on the sidelines for Federico Ríos, and a plan built around him now has to be rebuilt.
Squad8 Dec 2036
Words at Platense training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Joaquín Medina 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.
1‑2 against Deportivo Cali. 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.
“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 Platense, and it is not being withdrawn.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Platense this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Shots: 7. Goals: none. The chances were there and they were good ones, and they went into the stand, the goalkeeper's arms and the side netting in roughly that order.
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.
Joaquín Medina 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 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.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Platense 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.
River Plate go through. The table said this team was good enough for months and the format does not care what the table said, which is the argument every eliminated club has had with itself since playoffs were invented.
Juan Pablo Goicochea 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.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Platense can pretend not to have heard.
Tomás Silva 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.
Juan Pablo Goicochea 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.
Squad27 Oct 2036
Demián Troya 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.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Platense 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 Platense this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad20 Oct 2036
Words at Platense training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Maximiliano Amarfil 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.