Miguel Merentiel posted an unseen childhood photo hours after Boca Juniors were crowned Tabla Anual champions, and the club's fans ate it up. In the image, a boy stands inside his home in a blue and gold jacket carrying the crest Boca used in 2007, a number 10 sitting beneath the logo of the sportswear brand of that era. A kid, a logo, a crest. The merchandising machine caught early.
"¿Quién le iba a decir a ese pibe que algún día iba a lograr algo así? Siempre Boca", Merentiel wrote alongside the picture, which spread quickly among supporters. It landed right after the team coached by Rodolfo Arruabarrena beat Defensa y Justicia 1-0 at La Bombonera on Saturday 7 November 2026, two days before this report, a result that locked up the Tabla Anual.
Who Has the Power
The forward played all 90 minutes against Defensa y Justicia, the club he played for before moving to Boca. When the final whistle blew, he stood visibly moved, tears in his eyes, beside his teammates. Earlier he'd shared another message: "Por estos momentos trabajamos, sufrimos y soñamos. Hoy nos toca".
Work, suffer, dream. Notice the order. The suffering comes with the job description, and the dreaming gets handed back to the fans as a product. Merentiel arrived in February 2023 on loan from Palmeiras of Brazil, with a purchase option that Boca later exercised for a figure close to US$3 million. That's the sentence that tells you what a player is on paper: a transfer fee, an option clause, a number moved between two clubs. He's now in his fourth year at the club, according to the dates on file.
Who Gets Crushed
The match itself came down to the wire. Merentiel had a first-half goal disallowed for offside, and the game wasn't settled until the last minute, when Enner Valencia scored. One official's flag ruled the first half. One late goal ruled the rest.
The numbers behind the sentiment are plain. Merentiel has 65 goals for Boca in 189 official matches, plus 19 assists, which puts him 22nd on the club's all-time scorers list, six goals behind Darío Benedetto. Even a celebration gets filed into a ranking. Somebody is always counting, always sorting people into a table, and the table is the point. The trophy itself is called the Tabla Anual, a ladder of results that rewards a season of ranked labor.
What They're Calling "Order"
There's no pause for the champions. Boca returns to training Tuesday, looking ahead to Saturday's Copa Argentina semifinal against Banfield. A week after that comes the Copa Sudamericana final against Atlético Mineiro. The calendar doesn't care who cried at La Bombonera. "Ahora se viene una seguidilla importante", Merentiel said after the Tabla Anual celebrations.
The celebration lasts a day or two, the schedule never stops, and the feeling gets recycled as content. The kid in the 2007 jacket didn't pick that crest or that logo, but a generation of kids wore them anyway, and the club has made sure the memory sells. The post went viral, and the club's supporters took it as a gift. The machine took it as engagement.
- miguel merentiel
- boca juniors
- tabla anual
- rodolfo arruabarrena
- defensa y justicia
- enner valencia
- palmeiras
- copa sudamericana