The 2008 HEGS reader survey

Another year, another survey. The 2007-2008 season was the first full one that HEGS covered, and at the grand old age of 17 months, I thought it was time for another survey of the site’s readers. Readership has trebled since February - and increased roughly eightfold since the last survey a year ago - so your responsed really would be appreciated, so I can keep the site going the right way in the next twelve months. If you’ve got any ideas to improve the site, or if you just want to tell me what a great job I’m doing (always appreciated!), read on.

Summer holiday

A short announcement to inform you all that from now until the 28th / 29th of July, HEGS won’t be updated. I’m going on a summer holiday to Cuba for nearly two weeks, and with internet access being slow (and heavily restriced) there, I shan’t even be attempting to update the site. Holidays, after all, are not about doing work. I realise no updates at all won’t be much fun for regular reader, so there are a couple of posts scheduled to go online in the next week or so, but there won’t be any news updates, obviously. For transfer news, I’d point you towards the comments section of the transfer page. I don’t like to the leave the site totally down for such a long time, but the fact that I’ve got to is the reason I’m taking this holiday outside of the football season, so I hope readers don’t mind.

Ahumada stays, and Agüero to England?

Soon to be united for club and country?

Now, here’s a surprise. For days, his departure has been a given, but on Monday Oscar Ahumada, who’s been arguing with River Plate’s directors about his contractual status for over a week, agreed to a contract extension with the Núñez club which will see him remain with the champions for the foreseeable future. The exact details of the contract aren’t known - it’s not yet been signed as this story goes out - but it’s a surprising end (if indeed it is an end) to one of the sagas of the post-season. The second-best Argentine player in a foreign league, meanwhile, might be on his way to hook up with the best (as chosen by HEGS readers), if Monday’s newspaper reports are anything to go by…

A leopard never changes its spots

So the saying goes, and so it’s proven this weekend. Germán Denis has moved clubs and continents, joining Ezequiel Lavezzi at Napoli, and is scoring as freely as ever in pre-season for his new side. He got a hat-trick in his first appearance (as did Lavezzi last year, funnily enough) and scored again on Sunday during his team’s pre-Intertoto-Cup tour of Austria. Back in Buenos Aires, meanwhile, Huracán chairman Carlos Babington’s in the news again. And, surprise surprise, it’s for not showing enough respect to his employees.

What’s the Croatian for ‘Oriundi’?

A missed opportunity for Argentina? Perhaps. Under Alfio Basile, one or two of the domestic league’s more impressive performers have been given the chance to represent their country alongside their more well-known (or perhaps not, in the cases of the Juans; Román Riquelme and Sebastián Verón) Europe-based countrymen. Up front, though, it was only Basile’s former Boca protége Rodrigo Palacio who got the nod, in spite of perhaps more impressive - and certainly no less prolific - performances from Banfield’s Darío Cvitanich. Now, though, the top scorer of the Clausura is off to Europe - and he’s not only switching clubs, but has decided to represent a different national team as well,; that of his grandparents: Croatia.

2008 Winter transfers

A quick note to let you know that during the 2008 winter break (that’s summer for our northern hemisphere readers!), the page formerly known as ’squad lists’ has been renamed ‘transfers’, and will contain a list, updated as frequently and accurately as I can manage (but please bear with me) of all the ins and outs at the current Primera A clubs. If you’ve bookmarked that page already… well, then frankly I think you’re a bit odd, but you should bear in mind that the URL has also changed; it’s now http://hastaelgolsiempre.com/squad-lists/.

Pre-season begins in earnest

Odd to be thinking this, never mind writing it, so soon after the previous season ended in South America (and delayed congratulations, by the way, to forwards Damián Mansó and Claudio Bieler, and manager Edgardo Bauza for ensuring some Argentine glory in the Copa Libertadores as Liga de Quito beat Fluminense on penalties last week), but the pre-season is now well and truly underway around the world. Independiente played a friendly in the United States on Thursday, Racing boss Juan Manuel Llop has made up his mind to seriously cut the deadwood from his squad, and Colón have definitely lost Martín Bravo - he’s going to Mexico.

Sit down and behave

That’s the message being sent to fans of Primera A clubs by the AFA. From the start of this year’s Apertura, new regulations will be introduced to increase safety in the top flight stadia of Capital Federal. As part of a long-delayed initiative, clubs including River Plate, Boca Juniors, Vélez Sársfield and San Lorenzo will have to have 90% of their stadium capacity seated before the new season starts. By the end of the year, the regulator says, the target is 100%. Unsurprisingly, the 10% that escape for now will be the area reserved for the barra bravas.

Flores in, Ahumada out, and Bravo to follow…

Oscar Ahumada made a bit of a stir during River’s successful Clausura campaign, criticising the club’s fans in the aftermath of the superclásico defeat in La Bombonera before going on to be one of the team’s best players in the subsequent matches, superb in particular against championship competitors Estudiantes. Today, though, as new River striker Robert Flores joins from the club’s Uruguayan namesake, Ahumada looks like he’s got more than one foot out of the door at the Monumental…

A chapter closed, and a problem of Olympian proportions

After the initial announcement just over a month ago, the day Racing Club fans had been waiting for arrived on Monday. Blanquiceleste, the company who ran the club from 2001 until early June, were signed out of existence by the judges presiding over their case yesterday. Meanwhile, a little to the west of Avellaneda, in Ezeiza, Sergio Batista’s got to find another defender after Internazionale of Milan refused to release Nicolás Burdisso for the Olympic Football Tournament.