From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Boardroom2 Nov 2026
The sale went through, the money came with it, and everything anybody had planned for next season is now provisional. New owners always arrive promising patience.
Market2 Nov 2026
“I have ambitions, and I would like the club to share them.” Nobody has asked to leave and nobody has been shown the door — but a player chooses that sentence carefully, and a boardroom hears it exactly as it was meant.
Squad2 Nov 2026
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at River Plate this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad2 Nov 2026
“I never wanted to be anywhere else. There is unfinished business here.” Lautaro Rivero commits to River Plate for another 5 years.
Squad2 Nov 2026
It is not much of a headline and it is the reason players believe the next promise. River Plate told Nicolás Otamendi something would happen and then it happened, which in this industry passes for remarkable.
Squad2 Nov 2026
The manager makes an example of Facundo Colidio
“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.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Match24 Oct 2026
No end in sight to River Plate's wait for a win
14 matches now without a victory, and the excuses have worn thinner than the patience. Somebody at River Plate has to find a result from somewhere.
Squad26 Oct 2026
There were 9 saves in it, and at least three that had no business being saves at all. The ten outfield players owe him a drink and they know it.
Match26 Oct 2026
River Plate are in real trouble now
Position 14, 10 points, and a fixture list with fewer games left in it than excuses. The arithmetic is not cruel yet, but it has stopped being kind.
Squad26 Oct 2026
“I remember the meeting. I remember exactly what was promised in it.” River Plate may remember it differently, which is precisely the problem.
Squad26 Oct 2026
Mauro Arambarri 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.
Player ratings26 Oct 2026
Mauro Arambarri was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.78. 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.
Squad26 Oct 2026
Aníbal Moreno 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.
Player ratings26 Oct 2026
There is a version of this player everybody suspected was in there, and on this evidence it is. 8.28, and no argument anywhere in the ground.
Match24 Oct 2026
1‑1, and both dressing rooms will call it two points lost. A draw that asked plenty of questions and answered none of them.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Match17 Oct 2026
13 matches without a win for River Plate
The run now stands at 13, and the questions being asked around River Plate are no longer polite ones.
Squad19 Oct 2026
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at River Plate this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad19 Oct 2026
Lautaro Rivero is a better footballer than he was
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 22 he is doing things at this level he could not do at the start of the season, and the coaching staff will tell you exactly which of them.
Squad19 Oct 2026
The manager makes an example of Franco Armani
“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.
Player ratings19 Oct 2026
A performance of 8.59 does not come along often, and when it does the rest of the team becomes scenery. He was magnificent.
Player ratings19 Oct 2026
Successful dribbles: 18. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Player ratings19 Oct 2026
Marked 8.13 — 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.
Boardroom19 Oct 2026
Nobody left the River Plate dressing room in a hurry
The door stayed shut a long time after the final whistle. What was said in there is between them; whether it worked is between them and Saturday.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad12 Oct 2026
Mauro Arambarri 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 Oct 2026
Jonathan Spiff is a better footballer than he was
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 19 he is doing things at this level he could not do at the start of the season, and the coaching staff will tell you exactly which of them.
Market12 Oct 2026
It is the most legitimate ambition in the sport and the hardest for most clubs to satisfy. Giuliano Galoppo wants continental football; whether River Plate can provide it is a question about the next two seasons, not about him.
Squad12 Oct 2026
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Mauro Arambarri trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
Squad12 Oct 2026
Nobody at River Plate 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.
Loan watch12 Oct 2026
6 appearances at Atlanta United FC and the goals keep coming. River Plate are watching this more closely than the borrowing club would like.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Match3 Oct 2026
No end in sight to River Plate's wait for a win
12 matches now without a victory, and the excuses have worn thinner than the patience. Somebody at River Plate has to find a result from somewhere.
Player ratings5 Oct 2026
29 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.
Market5 Oct 2026
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.
Squad5 Oct 2026
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at River Plate this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad5 Oct 2026
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Juan Villordo is 18, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
Squad5 Oct 2026
Words at River Plate training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Aníbal Moreno 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.
Boardroom5 Oct 2026
111% of the income goes out in wages at River Plate
Every club in football pays most of what it earns to its players. Paying nearly all of it is a different arrangement, and it has ended the same way every time somebody has tried it.
Squad5 Oct 2026
“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.
Player ratings5 Oct 2026
Successful dribbles: 14. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Match26 Sep 2026
No end in sight to River Plate's wait for a win
11 matches now without a victory, and the excuses have worn thinner than the patience. Somebody at River Plate has to find a result from somewhere.
Match28 Sep 2026
Every point is an argument now for River Plate
Position 14 and 8 points, and the table gets read bottom-up in this part of town. The calendar has stopped being a schedule and started being a countdown.
Market28 Sep 2026
“I have given everything here and I need a new challenge.” The request is formal, and the relationship will never be quite the same again.
Market28 Sep 2026
It is the most legitimate ambition in the sport and the hardest for most clubs to satisfy. Mauro Arambarri wants continental football; whether River Plate can provide it is a question about the next two seasons, not about him.
Player ratings28 Sep 2026
Successful dribbles: 24. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Squad28 Sep 2026
Mauro Arambarri 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.
Squad28 Sep 2026
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Kendry Páez is 19, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
Squad28 Sep 2026
“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.
Match26 Sep 2026
0‑1 to Huracán, and no complaints worth printing. The performance asked for nothing more than it got.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Match19 Sep 2026
No end in sight to River Plate's wait for a win
10 matches now without a victory, and the excuses have worn thinner than the patience. Somebody at River Plate has to find a result from somewhere.
Squad21 Sep 2026
There were 6 saves in it, and at least three that had no business being saves at all. The ten outfield players owe him a drink and they know it.
Squad21 Sep 2026
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at River Plate this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Player ratings21 Sep 2026
Ninety minutes of Lucas Beltrán at his very best
Marked 8.74. Players have careers without a single afternoon like this in them, and he has just had one in front of everybody at River Plate.
Player ratings21 Sep 2026
Successful dribbles: 16. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Squad21 Sep 2026
“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.
Match19 Sep 2026
It finished 1‑1, and it somehow always looked like it would. One of those afternoons where the table moves less than the tempers.
Squad21 Sep 2026
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Agustín Ruberto trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
Player ratings21 Sep 2026
7 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.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Match12 Sep 2026
9 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.
Player ratings14 Sep 2026
Successful dribbles: 25. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
Market14 Sep 2026
“I want to be playing for trophies while my legs still let me.” Nothing in that sentence is a transfer request, and nobody at River Plate heard it as anything else.
Squad14 Sep 2026
Mauro Arambarri 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.
Squad14 Sep 2026
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Jonathan Spiff is 19, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
Match12 Sep 2026
1‑2 to Atlético Tucumán, and no complaints worth printing. The performance asked for nothing more than it got.
Squad14 Sep 2026
Aníbal Moreno 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.
Boardroom14 Sep 2026
The music was off and the showers ran late. What was said in that dressing room stays there, but Saturday will publish the minutes.
Squad14 Sep 2026
Nobody will confirm this and nothing else explains the last month of selections. A costly error buys a player a period of being second choice that is always longer than the error was.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Match2 Sep 2026
The small margins put River Plate out
Out, 0‑1 to Patronato, and the long argument about which of the small moments decided it. The league is all there is now, and everybody knows it.
Match5 Sep 2026
8 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.
The terraces7 Sep 2026
The ground has had enough
“We travel everywhere and we get this.” 8 of the 34 senior players heard it walking off, and the ones who did not hear it were not playing.
Player ratings7 Sep 2026
At 33 he is supposed to be managing his minutes. Instead he was marked 8.87 and looked, for ninety minutes, exactly like the player everybody remembers.
Market7 Sep 2026
Franco Armani wants to know where this is going
“I want to win things, and I would like to do it here.” Nothing has been demanded and nothing has been threatened — but a boardroom at River Plate hears a sentence like that exactly as it was built.
Player ratings7 Sep 2026
Successful dribbles: 23. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Squad7 Sep 2026
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at River Plate this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad7 Sep 2026
The manager makes an example of Mauro Arambarri
“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.
In brief
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Boardroom
135% of the income goes out in wages at River Plate
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Player ratings
Facundo Colidio was on a different afternoon to everybody else
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Squad
Words at River Plate training over how hard people work
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad31 Aug 2026
Franco Armani decides it from twelve yards
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.
Match26 Aug 2026
A 1‑1 win over Almagro, and the draw for the next round can be watched with some interest for once.
Match29 Aug 2026
6 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.
Player ratings31 Aug 2026
Germán Pezzella, 35, rolls back the years — 8.37
There is an age at which every good afternoon gets described as a throwback, which is unfair and also accurate. 8.37 at 35, and nobody on the pitch was better.
Market31 Aug 2026
The offer was not close and it was refused without much discussion. Whether the second one is refused as quickly is another matter.
Player ratings31 Aug 2026
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.
Squad31 Aug 2026
Mauro Arambarri 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.
Match29 Aug 2026
Still nobody has beaten River Plate
The unbeaten run reaches 7. Some of them were wins and some were escapes, but a side that refuses to lose is a side other dressing rooms talk about.
Player ratings31 Aug 2026
Successful dribbles: 19. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad24 Aug 2026
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.
Match19 Aug 2026
A 0‑0 win over Tristán Suárez, and the draw for the next round can be watched with some interest for once.
Squad24 Aug 2026
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.
Player ratings24 Aug 2026
Kendry Páez, 19, plays like he has been here for years — 7.65
A mark of 7.65 means one thing beside a twenty-nine-year-old's name and something else entirely beside a 19-year-old's. Nobody at the ground needed telling which this was.
Player ratings24 Aug 2026
Headers, blocks, tackles, interceptions — 27 of them, and not one goal behind him. The sort of performance that never makes a highlight reel and wins football matches.
Player ratings24 Aug 2026
A defender's afternoon for Aníbal Moreno
Defensive actions: 26. He was first to everything and second to nothing, and the goalkeeper had an easy day because of it.
Match22 Aug 2026
No end in sight to River Plate's wait for a win
4 matches now without a victory, and the excuses have worn thinner than the patience. Somebody at River Plate has to find a result from somewhere.
Market24 Aug 2026
The bid was some way short and River Plate did not need long over it. Nobody in the game reads a first refusal as the end of anything.
Squad24 Aug 2026
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at River Plate this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Player ratings17 Aug 2026
Defensive actions: 32, and a clean sheet at the end of it. A centre-half's best afternoons look like nothing happening, which is precisely the point.
Squad17 Aug 2026
There were 8 saves in it, and at least three that had no business being saves at all. The ten outfield players owe him a drink and they know it.
Market17 Aug 2026
The bid was some way short and River Plate did not need long over it. Nobody in the game reads a first refusal as the end of anything.
Squad17 Aug 2026
Mauro Arambarri 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 Aug 2026
Aníbal Moreno 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.
Squad17 Aug 2026
“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 ratings17 Aug 2026
Successful dribbles: 17. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
Market17 Aug 2026
Both sides expect a conversation in the coming days. River Plate will name a price, and everything after that is arithmetic.
Player ratings17 Aug 2026
Some games turn on a moment; this one turned on a man. 7.66 on the card, and the River Plate support went home talking about one name.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Player ratings10 Aug 2026
Defensive actions: 35. He was first to everything and second to nothing, and the goalkeeper had an easy day because of it.
Player ratings10 Aug 2026
30 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.
Squad10 Aug 2026
There were 6 saves in it, and at least three that had no business being saves at all. The ten outfield players owe him a drink and they know it.
Market10 Aug 2026
Kairat come back empty-handed
The bid was some way short and River Plate did not need long over it. Nobody in the game reads a first refusal as the end of anything.
Squad10 Aug 2026
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Mauro Arambarri and River Plate agree another 5 years.
Squad10 Aug 2026
Mauro Arambarri 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.
Market10 Aug 2026
Jeremías Martinet has left for Mainz 05 in a $1.1M deal. The accountants are pleased; the supporters are less certain.
Market10 Aug 2026
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.
Market10 Aug 2026
The name of Paulo Díaz has come up in conversations River Plate were not part of. Nothing formal, nothing signed — but nothing about it accidental either.
From our football correspondent
Triumph
Squad3 Aug 2026
There were 11 saves in it, and at least three that had no business being saves at all. The ten outfield players owe him a drink and they know it.
Match1 Aug 2026
Ninety minutes of very little, and then everything at once. The winner arrived in the 85th, and Racing Club spent what remained of the match appealing to the referee rather than chasing the ball.
Boardroom3 Aug 2026
Nothing has been signed and nothing has been denied. Supporters who have lived through one of these before know the quiet part lasts months and the loud part lasts a week.
Market3 Aug 2026
“I have ambitions, and I would like the club to share them.” Nobody has asked to leave and nobody has been shown the door — but a player chooses that sentence carefully, and a boardroom hears it exactly as it was meant.
Market3 Aug 2026
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.
Squad3 Aug 2026
“The easiest signature of my career.” Nicolás Otamendi and River Plate agree another 2 years, and the manager can plan around him rather than about him.
Squad3 Aug 2026
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at River Plate this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Market3 Aug 2026
RoPS paid $400.0K and River Plate took it, which is the whole story in one sentence. The longer version involves a wage budget and will be told all season.
Squad3 Aug 2026
Words at River Plate training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Nicolás Otamendi 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.