“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 The request is on a desk at San Lorenzo, and it is not being withdrawn.
Alexis Cuello 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 watch every San Lorenzo game from here. That says everything about where my head is.” The loan at Al-Ra'ed runs its course, but his heart never made the trip.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what San Lorenzo can pretend not to have heard.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at San Lorenzo this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad31 May 2027
Words at San Lorenzo training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Nicolás Tripichio 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 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.
Alexis Cuello 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 watch every San Lorenzo game from here. That says everything about where my head is.” The loan at Urawa Reds runs its course, but his heart never made the trip.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what San Lorenzo can pretend not to have heard.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at San Lorenzo this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Beaten 1‑2, and beaten fairly. The manager kept his words short afterwards, which was probably wise.
Squad17 May 2027
Words at San Lorenzo training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Nicolás Tripichio 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.
8.09. 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.
Alexis Cuello 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 8.77 — 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.
Player ratings10 May 2027
Alexis Cuello was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.69. 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.
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 the most legitimate ambition in the sport and the hardest for most clubs to satisfy. Franco Lorenzón wants continental football; whether San Lorenzo can provide it is a question about the next two seasons, not about 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 San Lorenzo 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.
Squad3 May 2027
Words at San Lorenzo training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Nicolás Tripichio 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.
Headers, blocks, tackles, interceptions — 32 of them, and not one goal behind him. The sort of performance that never makes a highlight reel and wins football matches.
Player ratings26 Apr 2027
Facundo Gulli, 21, plays like he has been here for years — 9.32
A mark of 9.32 means one thing beside a twenty-nine-year-old's name and something else entirely beside a 21-year-old's. Nobody at the ground needed telling which this was.
Alexis Cuello 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 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.
There is a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 21-year-old it feels ownership of. Facundo Gulli has it now, and everything he does for the rest of his time here will be measured against the goodwill he was handed for free.
“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 San Lorenzo, and it is not being withdrawn.
There is an age at which every good afternoon gets described as a throwback, which is unfair and also accurate. 8.80 at 35, and nobody on the pitch was better.
Alexis Cuello 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 8.53 — 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 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 am grateful for the games, but I did not become a footballer to be somebody else's spare part.” He wants to be at San Lorenzo, and 1 appearances in 10 say he has earned the hearing.
Position 13 and 9 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.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at San Lorenzo this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
There is a version of this player everybody suspected was in there, and on this evidence it is. 8.86, and no argument anywhere in the ground.
Squad12 Apr 2027
Words at San Lorenzo training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Nicolás Tripichio 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.
An error at the back is a moment; an error in goal is a goal. Ezequiel Centurión knows it, the crowd knew it instantly, and there was nobody behind him to make it anything else.
“I watch every San Lorenzo game from here. That says everything about where my head is.” The loan at Al-Ra'ed runs its course, but his heart never made the trip.
The 2-goal deficit was real and so was the recovery. Rodrigo Auzmendi was at the centre of it, Talleres were at the end of it, and everybody who left early will hear about this one for years.
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.
At 33 he is supposed to be managing his minutes. Instead he was marked 9.19 and looked, for ninety minutes, exactly like the player everybody remembers.
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.
Alexis Cuello 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.
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Rodrigo Auzmendi. 4‑3 against Talleres, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
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 an age at which every good afternoon gets described as a throwback, which is unfair and also accurate. 8.27 at 33, and nobody on the pitch was better.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at San Lorenzo this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad29 Mar 2027
Words at San Lorenzo training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Nicolás Tripichio 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 San Lorenzo 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.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what San Lorenzo can pretend not to have heard.
Alexis Cuello 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.
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Ignacio Perruzzi and San Lorenzo agree another 5 years.
“I watch every San Lorenzo game from here. That says everything about where my head is.” The loan at Al-Ittihad runs its course, but his heart never made the trip.
“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 San Lorenzo, 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 San Lorenzo this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Nahuel Romero is 21, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
In brief
SquadWords at San Lorenzo training over how hard people work
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Ezequiel Cerutti and San Lorenzo agree another 2 years.
Alexis Cuello 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 the most legitimate ambition in the sport and the hardest for most clubs to satisfy. Franco Lorenzón wants continental football; whether San Lorenzo can provide it is a question about the next two seasons, not about him.
In brief
BoardroomNobody left the San Lorenzo dressing room in a hurry
The general version of this complaint is that a player wants more. The specific version names the thing: he wants to walk out under floodlights against clubs from other countries, and he has stopped pretending otherwise.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at San Lorenzo this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Marked 8.89. Players have careers without a single afternoon like this in them, and he has just had one in front of everybody at San Lorenzo.
Squad1 Mar 2027
Words at San Lorenzo training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Nicolás Tripichio 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.
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.
“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 San Lorenzo, and it is not being withdrawn.
Alexis Cuello 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 the most legitimate ambition in the sport and the hardest for most clubs to satisfy. Mauricio Cardillo wants continental football; whether San Lorenzo can provide it is a question about the next two seasons, not about him.
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.
The hardest thing about being 21 in a senior side is that nobody makes allowances. Facundo Gulli did not need any: 9.08, and he looked the most comfortable man on the pitch.
“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 San Lorenzo, and it is not being withdrawn.
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 San Lorenzo this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
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.
35 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.
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.
5 matches, no goals, and a training ground that has tried everything. It will end — droughts always do — but nobody at San Lorenzo can tell you which week it ends in.
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.
Orlando Gill 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.
5 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.
There is no fee, no unveiling and no agent on the steps. Leonardo Benítez 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.
The academy exists for exactly this morning. Enzo Quiroga has come through every age group the club runs and has now been handed a senior number, and the people who coached him at twelve will be the proudest in the building.
The academy exists for exactly this morning. Juan Manuel Iglesias has come through every age group the club runs and has now been handed a senior number, and the people who coached him at twelve will be the proudest in the building.
The 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.
The offer from Konyaspor for Matías Hernández was heard out and sent back the same day. First bids are rarely meant to succeed; they are meant to find out how loudly the door closes.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at San Lorenzo this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
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.
The offer from Zob Ahan for Santiago Torres was heard out and sent back the same day. First bids are rarely meant to succeed; they are meant to find out how loudly the door closes.
Alexis Cuello 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: Hapoel Tel Aviv have asked the question everybody in the game has been asking about Matías Hernández. The answer from San Lorenzo has not changed — yet.
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 am grateful for the games, but I did not become a footballer to be somebody else's spare part.” He wants to be at San Lorenzo, and 0 appearances in 5 say he has earned the hearing.
Position 1, 22 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 San Lorenzo 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.
Squad18 Jan 2027
Words at San Lorenzo training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Nicolás Tripichio 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 is never announced and it is entirely visible: the biggest afternoons of the season keep containing him. A press box works this out long before anybody at the club confirms a word of it.
The offer from Auckland FC for Branco Salinardi was heard out and sent back the same day. First bids are rarely meant to succeed; they are meant to find out how loudly the door closes.
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Ignacio Perruzzi is 21, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
Alexis Cuello 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.
Squad11 Jan 2027
6 new faces, and San Lorenzo are still learning each other
A squad rebuilt inside one window pays for it in a currency nobody budgets for. The football is not worse than the sum of the players; it is worse than the sum of the players who have played together before.
Still no offer on the table, and Lautaro Montenegro’s deal keeps shrinking. In boardroom language, silence this long stops being an oversight and starts being an answer.
There are footballers who have a good season and footballers a season is remembered for, and the second kind get their names read out in a hall in the summer. San Lorenzo will be quietly delighted and privately nervous.
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.
Everything was agreed until it was not, and Alejo Córdoba reports back to San Lorenzo with a summer to forget. Neither club is saying who walked away from the table.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at San Lorenzo this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
16 games, 0 goals, and a squad option that has arrived without a fee attached. The interesting question at San Lorenzo now is not whether he plays but who he displaces.
Squad4 Jan 2027
Words at San Lorenzo training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Nicolás Tripichio 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 San Lorenzo is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
Alexis Cuello 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.
Estudiantes paid $460.0K and San Lorenzo took it, which is the whole story in one sentence. The longer version involves a wage budget and will be told all season.
There are footballers who have a good season and footballers a season is remembered for, and the second kind get their names read out in a hall in the summer. San Lorenzo will be quietly delighted and privately nervous.
The rules permit it and it stings anyway. Ian De Filippi has agreed terms with Sarmiento for the summer, and until then he pulls on this shirt as a player who has already chosen his next one.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around San Lorenzo 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 San Lorenzo this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Nahuel Romero is 21, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
Squad21 Dec 2026
Words at San Lorenzo training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Gastón Hernández 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.
0‑0. Continental football is where a club finds out what it actually is, and San Lorenzo came through the finding-out well against Deportivo La Guaira.
7 matches now without a victory, and the excuses have worn thinner than the patience. Somebody at San Lorenzo has to find a result from somewhere.
Player ratings14 Dec 2026
Ignacio Perruzzi, 21, plays like he has been here for years — 7.62
A mark of 7.62 means one thing beside a twenty-nine-year-old's name and something else entirely beside a 21-year-old's. Nobody at the ground needed telling which this was.
The fee is $920.0K, the contract is signed, and the argument about whether he is worth it can begin. River Plate drove a hard bargain; time will say who won it.
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.
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. Ramiro Centurión will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around San Lorenzo the goodbyes have quietly begun.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” San Lorenzo have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
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.
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Luciano Vietto and San Lorenzo agree another 3 years.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Thiago Perugini will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around San Lorenzo 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 San Lorenzo this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad7 Dec 2026
Words at San Lorenzo training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Gastón Hernández 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.
Argentinos Juniors will keep picking him until June and will get nothing for him after it. Leandro Fernández has pre-agreed a move to San Lorenzo, and the only people who lose in that arrangement are the ones who let the contract run down.
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.
0‑1 away to the standard of Atlético Mineiro. 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.
“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 San Lorenzo, and it is not being withdrawn.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” San Lorenzo have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Alexis Cuello 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.
3 matches, no goals, and a training ground that has tried everything. It will end — droughts always do — but nobody at San Lorenzo can tell you which week it ends in.
“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 San Lorenzo, and it is not being withdrawn.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” San Lorenzo have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Alexis Cuello 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 San Lorenzo 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.
0‑1 away to the standard of Independiente Medellin. 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.
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.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at San Lorenzo this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad9 Nov 2026
Words at San Lorenzo training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Gastón Hernández 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.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” San Lorenzo have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what San Lorenzo can pretend not to have heard.
Alexis Cuello 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. Mauricio Cardillo wants continental football; whether San Lorenzo 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.
1‑1 against Independiente Medellin, 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.
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.
There is an age at which every good afternoon gets described as a throwback, which is unfair and also accurate. 8.80 at 34, and nobody on the pitch was better.
4 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.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at San Lorenzo this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
In brief
SquadWords at San Lorenzo training over how hard people work
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Ignacio Perruzzi is 21, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
Alexis Cuello 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.
Squad19 Oct 2026
Orlando Gill has improved at 26, which nobody expected
Careers are supposed to plateau and then decline, and the players who ignore that are always the ones who were listening on the training ground. 3 points of it, over months, at an age where the direction normally only goes one way.
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 the most legitimate ambition in the sport and the hardest for most clubs to satisfy. Franco Lorenzón wants continental football; whether San Lorenzo can provide it is a question about the next two seasons, not about 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 San Lorenzo this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 21 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.
At 24 the improving is meant to be over. It is not: 3 points better than the mark taken at the start of the year, which is the sort of thing that happens to players who take the boring parts of the job seriously.
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.
Squad12 Oct 2026
Words at San Lorenzo training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Ezequiel Herrera 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.
1‑0 against Deportivo La Guaira, 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.
Alexis Cuello 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.
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 21 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.
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.
In brief
Player ratingsNinety minutes of Jhohan Romaña at his very best
“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 San Lorenzo, and it is not being withdrawn.
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.
It is the most legitimate ambition in the sport and the hardest for most clubs to satisfy. Luciano Vietto wants continental football; whether San Lorenzo can provide it is a question about the next two seasons, not about 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 San Lorenzo this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad28 Sep 2026
Jhohan Romaña 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.
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.
1‑0 against Atlético Mineiro, 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.
Some goals win a match and some take one off somebody else. Jhohan Romaña scored in the 86th minute, Atlético Mineiro had already begun thinking about the journey home, and San Lorenzo took the lot.
29 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.
Player ratings21 Sep 2026
Facundo Gulli, 21, plays like he has been here for years — 7.90
A mark of 7.90 means one thing beside a twenty-nine-year-old's name and something else entirely beside a 21-year-old's. Nobody at the ground needed telling which this was.
Alexis Cuello 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 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 San Lorenzo this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad14 Sep 2026
Words at San Lorenzo training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Gastón Hernández 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. 16 days is the estimate; the honest figure depends on whether anybody is patient.
“We are a long way apart, and pretending otherwise helps nobody.” Neither side is close, and the calendar is not on the club's side.
Boardroom14 Sep 2026
96% of the income goes out in wages at San Lorenzo
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.
A shoot-out is remembered by its ending, and this one ends with José Devecchi: 1 kept out, and a set of supporters who will describe every one of them for the next twenty years.
28 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.
At 34 he is supposed to be managing his minutes. Instead he was marked 8.36 and looked, for ninety minutes, exactly like the player everybody remembers.
Alexis Cuello 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.
Headers, blocks, tackles, interceptions — 33 of them, and not one goal behind him. The sort of performance that never makes a highlight reel and wins football matches.
Player ratings31 Aug 2026
Facundo Gulli, 20, plays like he has been here for years — 8.96
A mark of 8.96 means one thing beside a twenty-nine-year-old's name and something else entirely beside a 20-year-old's. Nobody at the ground needed telling which this was.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at San Lorenzo this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Add another name to the list: Cesena have asked the question everybody in the game has been asking about Alan Salas. The answer from San Lorenzo has not changed — yet.
There is a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 20-year-old it feels ownership of. Facundo Gulli has it now, and everything he does for the rest of his time here will be measured against the goodwill he was handed for free.
A shoot-out is remembered by its ending, and this one ends with José Devecchi: 2 kept out, and a set of supporters who will describe every one of them for the next twenty years.
The 2-goal deficit was real and so was the recovery. Alexis Cuello was at the centre of it, Central Córdoba SdE were at the end of it, and everybody who left early will hear about this one for years.
32 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.
Two goals and a mark of 8.56 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
Player ratings24 Aug 2026
Alan Salas could not have asked for more on his first appearance — 7.72
Debuts are survived rather than enjoyed. This one was enjoyed: 7.72, 0 goals, and a manager already being asked whether he starts again next 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.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at San Lorenzo this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad17 Aug 2026
Words at San Lorenzo training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Gastón Hernández 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.
There is a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 22-year-old it feels ownership of. Juan Cruz Rattalino has it now, and everything he does for the rest of his time here will be measured against the goodwill he was handed for free.
8.66. 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.
6 signings in three months. Every one of them may be an upgrade and the team can still be worse for a while, which is the part of a rebuild that never appears in the transfer-window verdicts.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at San Lorenzo this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
It is the most legitimate ambition in the sport and the hardest for most clubs to satisfy. Matías Reali wants continental football; whether San Lorenzo can provide it is a question about the next two seasons, not about him.
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 decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Nicolás Tripichio and San Lorenzo agree another 3 years.
Squad10 Aug 2026
Words at San Lorenzo training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Nicolás Tripichio 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.
“We keep meeting, and we keep leaving the room with the same numbers we walked in with.” Another round of talks at San Lorenzo, another week without a signature from Jhohan Romaña.
There is no complaint available here and everybody involved knows it, which does not make the walk to the bench any shorter. Form is the only currency in football that cannot be borrowed against.
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.
Alexis Cuello 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 8.58 — 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.