AUGUST 2025
August arrived with the familiar heaviness of expectation. Five league matches, two legs against Gremio, the transfer window still open and the constant pressure of knowing that one wrong step could undo everything we have worked for.
But I welcomed the squad back after their brief rest with something I didn’t always have as a player: perspective. This team, imperfect, growing, raw is starting to understand me and I am learning to trust them.
TIGRE (H) — 3–1
The month began the way every manager dreams: sharp, confident, ruthless.
Five minutes in, De La Fuente created magic from the right — a low ball across for Cabral: 1–0.
Nineteen minutes: same man, similar surge and Chiquichano arrived with that now-familiar thunder in his boots. 2–0.
At halftime I told them, “Don’t lose the rhythm. Don’t lose yourselves.”
In the 75th minute, Chiquichano won a penalty. Miljevic converted. 3–0.
They scored late, but the victory was never in doubt.
For the first time in a long time, I walked down the touchline actually feeling… calm.
We were 5th after four games. A platform.
ARGENTINOS JUNIORS (A) — 1–1
This was the first sign of a pattern emerging, control without killing off the match.
Cabral found Miljevic after 37 minutes for 1–0.
We entered halftime deservedly ahead, but football is cruel to those who hesitate.
With 15 minutes left, one ball over the top undid us. 1–1.
I told the boys afterward:
“You were unlucky. But luck belongs to the brave, next time, be braver.”
That night, Daniel Vega informed me that Juan Bisanz and Leonel Pérez had both signed new four-year deals.
Release clauses included, yes but realistic ones. Strategic ones.
Two pillars of our future secured.
For once, the embargo didn’t feel like a prison.
It felt like a challenge we might actually overcome.
CONMEBOL COPA SUDAMERICANA — ROUND OF 16
First Leg vs Gremio (H) — 4–1
This… this was special.
25 minutes in, Cabral thought he scored, but VAR took it away.
A lesser team drops their heads there.
Not us.
Moments into the second half, he slipped in Ibanez: 1–0.
Two minutes after, Gil’s strike deflected in: 2–0.
Then Bisanz, with the confidence of a man who just renewed, bent one into the top corner. 3–0.
Their 77th-minute goal annoyed me.
But in stoppage time, De La Fuente made it 4–1 and the stadium erupted.
I walked off that pitch knowing:
“This is the best we’ve ever played under me.”
Not perfect. But fearless.
UNIÓN (H) — 1–1
We paid for the emotional high.
Miljevic put us ahead in the 74th minute.
We looked spent.
They equalised in the 88th.
The draw felt like a defeat, but the truth?
It was fatigue. Human bodies, human hearts.
Second Leg vs Gremio (A) — 2–3 (6–4 agg)
I expected pressure. I did not expect chaos.
Six minutes in, Cabral ended the tie with a header from a Bisanz cross.
Or so I thought.
Gremio refused to die.
35 minutes: 1–1.
Just before Halftime: 2–1, suddenly they believed again.
65 minutes: 3–1 — and now I believed too. Believed in the danger.
I looked at my players: legs gone, lungs burning, eyes searching mine for answers.
And then… Bisanz.
81 minutes.
A dagger. 2–3 on the night, 6–4 overall.
We survived.
We advanced.
We earned a tie against Cruzeiro in the quarterfinals.
In that stadium, under that pressure, under that noise…
I saw the soul of this team.
SAN LORENZO (H) — 2–0
I made eight changes. The crowd hated it. A local derby, with a rotated team.
They do not see what I see — exhaustion, swollen knees, taped ankles, bandaged feet.
Warriors need rest too.
When Alanis crossed for Tissera to head in on 32 minutes, the noise soon changed.
When Miljevic made it 2–0 in the 73rd, the anger dissolved completely.
I stood on the sideline and felt something new:
“They are beginning to trust me.”
VÉLEZ (A) — 1–1
Final match of the month.
Back to the familiar starters.
15 minutes in, Chiquichano sliced them open: 1–0.
He is no longer a surprise.
He is a pillar.
Right before halftime, Velez equalised from a corner.
Neither side found a winner.
A draw, but a mature one.
We ended the month unbeaten in the league and with a historic elimination of Gremio behind us.
TRANSFER WINDOW CLOSED
On the final day, Daniel Vega sold Marcos Martínez — a good kid, but too far down the pathway, too blocked by better players.
More importantly: we held on to everyone we wanted to keep.
In this embargo era, that alone feels like victory.
BATISTUTA’S REFLECTION ON AUGUST
August was the month I stopped seeing this group as a puzzle and started seeing them as a living organism — imperfect, yes, but beating with one heart.
We rotated heavily. We survived fatigue.
We trusted youth. We trusted each other.
We beat Gremio.
We climbed the table.
We kept our core.
There were shaky nights and frustrating draws, but every step — good or bad, felt like part of a larger journey.
The truth is… for the first time since becoming manager of Huracán, I feel like we are becoming my team.
Not just in tactics, but in character.
In resilience.
In unity.
September looms with Cruzeiro, the league tightening, the cup continuing…
But tonight, as I finish this entry, I feel something rare in football:
Hope.
Real hope.
Not built on results, but on identity.
Because this month, we didn’t just win matches.
We became Huracán.
The Gaffers Lounge 
Leave a comment