In that context, Racing stands out as a bastion of innovation. It is not just the homemade Footbonaut. It is the support available to the 55 boys who live at the club’s academy, far in advance of what most of their peers in Argentina would be offered, ranging from social workers and psychologists to academic tutors. It is the approach to player development, centering less on results and more on individual progress. Most of all, it is the work done in a small, subterranean office in the parking lot of the club’s stadium.

Here, Javier Weiner’s team of four scouts, including Huerta, sits at a bank of four desks, each one dominated by an iMac. The scouts scour games from Argentina’s lower leagues and a handful of South American countries on Wyscout, a content platform that streams action from across the world.

Each scout has an area to cover: Weiner takes Argentina and Colombia; Huerta monitors youth soccer and Venezuela.

Using the analytics service InStat, they compile dossiers on potential acquisitions, drawing together not just raw performance data but also players’ psychological, emotional and medical backgrounds. They track information from journalists on social media.

Most clubs of this scale in Europe, North America and Asia would see this work as standard now; in Argentina, it is all but revolutionary. “Most of the time, it is the head coach who recruits players, or the president, with the help of a few agents,” Huerta said. “There is no process: Everything changes constantly. And there are times when crucial decisions are made by someone who does not know anything about football.”

Racing, however, is determined to be “another type of club,” Weiner said. “We have to be creative,” he said. “We have to have a network that means we can get players before bigger clubs because financially we cannot compete with River Plate and Boca Juniors.”