Juan Cruz Randazzo and a teammate said things this week that will take longer than a week to unsay. It was not about football, and both of them play on Saturday.
At 21 he is being sung about by people twice his age, which is an affection a signing has to earn over years and a local kid gets for turning up. It is also the hardest thing in football to live up to.
“The supporters are entitled to be angry. So am I. We will put it right.” 0‑1, a manager saying the necessary things, and a dressing room that heard a different version of them.
Every manager keeps a short list in his head of the men he wants on the pitch when the stakes rise, and it is never published. The team sheets for the big afternoons say Ignacio Arce is on it.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Johnson Nsumoh was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
“I know what people will say. I know what I want, and it is here.” Real Avilés had the fee agreed and the shirt ready; they did not have the player, and now they will not.
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Antony Alonso and Deportivo Riestra 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 Deportivo Riestra 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 academy exists for exactly this morning. Emiliano Vidal 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.
There is no fee, no unveiling and no agent on the steps. Diego Ruiz has been at this club since he was a boy and is now, formally, one of the first-team squad — which for a local readership beats any signing of any size.
There is no fee, no unveiling and no agent on the steps. Sebastián Ramírez has been at this club since he was a boy and is now, formally, one of the first-team squad — which for a local readership beats any signing of any size.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Alexander Díaz was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Add another name to the list: Real Avilés have asked the question everybody in the game has been asking about Mauro Smarra. The answer from Deportivo Riestra has not changed — yet.
A squad rebuilt inside one window pays for it in a currency nobody budgets for. The football is not worse than the sum of the players; it is worse than the sum of the players who have played together before.