Five domestic championships; one Copa Libertadores; one South American Supercup. The record in, say, the last decade of one of the really big clubs in Argentina? No. This is the CV of just one man’s coaching career, at one club, and now he’s looking to add to it.

Ramón Díaz won all that in two spells at River Plate, before, in 2002, falling out with the club’s directors and walking out. It was unexpected, to say the least, when he and his team were subsequently unveiled as the technical and managerial department at Oxford United (yes, that’s Oxford United in England), but he made a return to his homeland last January to try and turn the fortunes of another of Argentina’s ‘Big Five’, San Lorenzo.

San Lorenzo endured a torrid time in the Apertura, conceding twelve goals in their two matches against River and Boca and looking seriously off the pace all over the pitch, but Díaz has got down to business sorting things out. At River, he always had a reputation for open, attacking, flowing football - the 1996 Libertadores-winning side included younger versions of Hernán Crespo, Julio Cruz, Juan Pablo Sorín and Ariel Ortega as well as veteran Uruguayan Enzo Francescoli (Zinedine Zidane’s inspiration when he began training with the first-team squad at Marseilles) - but at San Lorenzo, following those two spankings during the Apertura, the attack clearly wasn’t what needed looking at.

So he set about boring the pants off everyone for a few weeks. I remarked at the time, during the Summer Tournament, that his side were hardly setting the world on fire - but they were keeping clean sheets at last, and looking a more cohesive unit. Then, near the end of the transfer window, came two key moments.

The first was the transfer to River of Ezequiel Lavezzi, one of the bright young things of Argentine football, which had seemed inevitable throughout the transfer window, fell through. Lavezzi, a classic Argentine number 10 who had not been training with the squad, let alone playing, whilst the negotiations went on, was suddenly available again. Then came the signing from River - oh, the irony! - of Gaston ‘La Gata’ Fernández.

Quite why River let Fernández go after failing to sign Lavezzi is a bit of a mystery. The money on offer wasn’t huge and he was widely regarded as the one to give River an extra dimension in attack - the only one of their strikers who’d try and pull the strings from a little deeper in the absence of too-often-incapacitated Ariel Ortega. But let him go they did, and they’re regretting it now.

Fernández has struck six times in the opening seven matches of the Clausura, as a much more attacking San Lorenzo have made their way to the top of the table, three points ahead of Boca - who they beat comfortably 3-0 in La Bombonera a couple of weeks ago - and four ahead of River. Already, there’s much discussion in the media about whether Ramón’s San Lorenzo side (no-one seems to call him ‘Díaz, for some reason) are comparable with the one lead by Manuel Pellegrini - now of Villarreal - to the championship in 2001. The answer seems, for now, to be ‘no’, and not without reason given that Pellegrini’s side won eleven consecutive matches in claiming that championship, but there’s no denying that they’re a vast improvement on their Apertura showing.

With River - who have, on paper, the country’s strongest squad by some distance - finally losing after playing badly this weekend, Boca took the opportunity to leapfrog their great rivals on Sunday night. They did it the hard way, Godoy Cruz holding out well in their compact little World Cup stadium in Mendoza, but were finally broken thanks to a simply flying backheeled volley from Mauro Boselli. This came just a few days after Boselli had put the icing on the cake of Boca’s 3-0 win over Toluca of Mexico in the Libertadores, chipping a return pass from Juan Román Riquelme exquisitely over the visiting goalie from outside the box. It’s not a bad way to announce yourself on the national stage, so you might want to remember his name for future reference.

Another rising star, meanwhile, is set for Europe soon. Sergio Romero is Racing’s second choice goalkeeper, and has played one match for the first team, yet already his transfer to AZ Alkmaar of Holland for a fee of around £1m has been confirmed for the end of the current European season. He’s 19 years old, which is very young for an outfield player, never mind a goalkeeper, and already he’s joined the exodus.

It seems to be another situation in which the moneymen have had the final say over things, forcing a young player abroad when a little more time developing at home, and maybe even actually playing some competitive football might be better for him in the long term. How ironic that the sale of such a player, from the club known in Argentina as ‘The Academy’, was announced on the day Racing as an institution celebrated their 104th ‘birthday’.

San Lorenzo, though, will be hoping that one of their own prized assets stays with them come the campaign’s end, especially if it carries on like this, and the asset in question isn’t a promising young player, but a managerial legend.

23rd-25th March:

Nueva Chicago 2-0 Belgrano de Córdoba
Racing 2-2 Arsenal de Sarandí
Estudiantes de La Plata 3-0 Rosario Central
Vélez Sársfield 1-1 Colón de Santa Fé
Gimnasia y Esgrima La Plata 0-1 Banfield
River Plate 0-1 Gimnasia y Esgrima de Jujuy
Lanús 2-1 Argentinos Juniors
Newell’s Old Boys 2-2 Quilmes
San Lorenzo de Almagro 4-3 Independiente
Godoy Cruz de Mendoza 0-1 Boca Juniors

Copa Libertadores 2007

21st March:
Group 1

Banfield 3-1 América (Mexico)

22nd March:
Group 7

Boca 3-0 Toluca (Mexico)

Group 8

Gimnasia 1-2 Santos (Brazil)

28th March:
Group 4

Inter (Brazil) 0-0 Velez