It is the most legitimate ambition in the sport and the hardest for most clubs to satisfy. Jackson Porozo wants continental football; whether Tijuana can provide it is a question about the next two seasons, not about him.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Tijuana this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
“I have tried. I have really tried, and every day I wake up in the wrong place.” Nobody at Tijuana can coach that out of a man, and nobody there is pretending to.
Santos Laguna left with the points after a 0‑1 defeat that will take some explaining on the terraces.
Squad8 Mar 2027
Words at Tijuana training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Iván Tona is at the centre of it, and the squad will now find out whether the standard rises or the pair of them simply stop speaking.
“I am grateful for the games, but I did not become a footballer to be somebody else's spare part.” He wants to be at Tijuana, and 1 appearances in 30 say he has earned the hearing.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the whole of the defence. 6 saves, several of them the kind nobody expects to see made, and ten outfield players who owe him a drink.
A defender on the scoresheet, which happens rarely enough that everybody in the ground remembers who took the corner. 1 for him, and a mark of 7.28 for the rest of it.
Javier Marquez and a teammate said things this week that will take longer than a week to unsay. It was not about football, and both of them play on Saturday.
The general version of this complaint is that a player wants more. The specific version names the thing: he wants to walk out under floodlights against clubs from other countries, and he has stopped pretending otherwise.
Squad22 Feb 2027
Iván Tona falls out with a teammate over standards
The oldest argument in any dressing room and the only one that is genuinely about football: one man thinks another is not putting enough in. It is also the row a manager privately does not mind having happened.
Clubs make promises constantly and the page usually only hears about them when they are broken. This one was honoured, and the dressing room noticed that faster than any supporter did.
“I watch every Tijuana game from here. That says everything about where my head is.” The loan at Pachuca runs its course, but his heart never made the trip.
“It was not right for me. I am not going to explain why to anybody except the people I owe an explanation to.” A deal agreed between two clubs, and a player who declined to be part of it.
A season average of 7.04 at an age when most of his year group are still in the youth team. Tijuana know what they have, and so, by now, does everybody else.
The offer from Cruz Azul for Aldahir Pérez was heard out and sent back the same day. First bids are rarely meant to succeed; they are meant to find out how loudly the door closes.
“I remember the meeting. I remember exactly what was promised in it.” Tijuana may remember it differently, which is precisely the problem.
Boardroom1 Feb 2027
Tijuana close the window on a squad of their own making
6 in and 3 out, and no more changes for months. The manager has what he has, the supporters have their opinion of it, and the table will have the last word.
Javier Marquez was at the centre of it, and by the time it was pulled apart there were three or four others involved. Training grounds are small places and long seasons make them smaller.
Successful dribbles: 22. He went past people as if he had been told there was a prize for it, and by the end the full-back had stopped pretending to try.
Two goals and a mark of 8.39 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Tijuana this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
At 22 he is doing things this season that he could not do last season, and doing them every week. Form comes and goes; this has stayed long enough to be called something else.
Minute 91, against Cruz Azul, and a goal that felt like a win to everybody who had stayed. It was a draw. Nobody leaving the ground will describe it as one.
Half the programme played, position 13, 19 on the board. Doubling it is the sum every supporter has done and the only one nobody at the club will do out loud.
It finished 2‑2, and it somehow always looked like it would. One of those afternoons where the table moves less than the tempers.
The dugout14 Dec 2026
The view from the dugout
“We did not lose. Some weeks that is all you get, and I would rather have the point than not.” Jesus Dos Santos chose the glass-half-full version of 2‑2; the supporters left with the other one.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Christian Castillo was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Javier Marquez was at the centre of it, and by the time it was pulled apart there were three or four others involved. Training grounds are small places and long seasons make them smaller.
“I am grateful for the games, but I did not become a footballer to be somebody else's spare part.” He wants to be at Tijuana, and 1 appearances in 17 say he has earned the hearing.
Beaten 0‑2, and beaten fairly. The manager kept his words short afterwards, which was probably wise.
Squad7 Dec 2026
Gilberto Mora is the division's best young player this month
At 18 he has spent a month being better than everybody his age in the league, which is a different and harder thing than one good afternoon. Tijuana will try very hard not to make too much of it.
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Christian Castillo and Tijuana agree another 3 years.
Squad7 Dec 2026
Words at Tijuana training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Elias Manoel is at the centre of it, and the squad will now find out whether the standard rises or the pair of them simply stop speaking.
The team sheet says it in public every week until it changes. The only version of being dropped a footballer cannot argue with, and the one he takes hardest.
Every club pays most of what it earns to its players. Paying nearly all of it is a different arrangement, and it has ended the same way every time it has been tried.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the team. 7 saves, several of them the sort nobody expects to see stopped, and a scoreline that flatters everybody in front of him.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Tijuana this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
3 matches, no goals, and a training ground that has tried everything. It will end — droughts always do — but nobody at Tijuana can tell you which week it ends in.
Javier Marquez and a teammate said things this week that will take longer than a week to unsay. It was not about football, and both of them play on Saturday.
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Eduardo Ochoa is 21, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
At 17 he is being sung about by people twice his age, which is an affection a signing has to earn over years and a local kid gets for turning up. It is also the hardest thing in football to live up to.
Dorados made Tijuana work for it, but the scoreboard read 2‑0 at the end and the table does not ask how.
Squad5 Oct 2026
Words at Tijuana training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Diogo Bagüí is at the centre of it, and the squad will now find out whether the standard rises or the pair of them simply stop speaking.
“I have given this everything, but my family is not here and neither am I, not really.” A footballer can be coached out of bad form. Nobody has ever been coached out of this, and Tijuana know it.
0‑3 to Guadalajara, and it was every bit as bad as the number suggests. There are defeats you argue about and defeats you apologise for; this was the second kind.
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 21 he is doing things at this level he could not do at the start of the season, and the coaching staff will tell you exactly which of them.
The manager kept them in and said what needed saying. A response is expected on Saturday, and if it does not come the questions move upstairs.
Squad28 Sep 2026
Elias Manoel falls out with a teammate over standards
The oldest argument in any dressing room and the only one that is genuinely about football: one man thinks another is not putting enough in. It is also the row a manager privately does not mind having happened.
Squad28 Sep 2026
9 new faces, and Tijuana are still learning each other
A squad rebuilt inside one window pays for it in a currency nobody budgets for. The football is not worse than the sum of the players; it is worse than the sum of the players who have played together before.
“The supporters are entitled to be angry. So am I. We will put it right.” 0‑3, a manager saying the necessary things, and a dressing room that heard a different version of them.
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 22 he is doing things at this level he could not do at the start of the season, and the coaching staff will tell you exactly which of them.
Beaten 0‑1, and beaten fairly. The manager kept his words short afterwards, which was probably wise.
The dugout21 Sep 2026
The manager’s verdict
“That is on me. I pick the team and I picked wrong.” Managers say that when they mean it and when they need to be seen to, and after 0‑1 Jesus Dos Santos left the room before anybody could ask which.
Successful dribbles: 15. He went past people as if he had been told there was a prize for it, and by the end the full-back had stopped pretending to try.
The dugout21 Sep 2026
The manager has not finished forgetting Frank Boya's mistake
Publicly it is behind everybody. It is not behind the man who picks the team, and the only place that shows is a team sheet. He will get another chance; he will get it in a match that matters less.
Somebody else has been better, the manager has said so with a team sheet, and there is no argument to be had. He will get the shirt back the only way it can be got back.
“I have done everything asked of me in training and it has not changed a thing on a Saturday.” The most familiar complaint in football, and one Tijuana will have to answer with minutes or with a transfer.
The offer from Monterrey for Ignacio Rivero was heard out and sent back the same day. First bids are rarely meant to succeed; they are meant to find out how loudly the door closes.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Tijuana this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Monterrey have kept their man, and Tijuana go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
There is a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 17-year-old it feels ownership of. Gilberto Mora has it now, and everything he does for the rest of his time here will be measured against the goodwill he was handed for free.
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Gilberto Mora. 1‑0 against Morelia, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
It is the most legitimate ambition in the sport and the hardest for most clubs to satisfy. Elias Manoel wants continental football; whether Tijuana can provide it is a question about the next two seasons, not about him.
Squad24 Aug 2026
Words at Tijuana training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Elias Manoel is at the centre of it, and the squad will now find out whether the standard rises or the pair of them simply stop speaking.
The phone has started ringing about Diego Abreu again, and this time the name on the line is FC Dallas. Tijuana are listening politely and promising nothing.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Tijuana this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Unai Bilbao was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Minute 88, against Club America, and a goal that felt like a win to everybody who had stayed. It was a draw. Nobody leaving the ground will describe it as one.
24 months to run and not a word offered. A club that lets the calendar negotiate for it usually ends up losing to the calendar.
Squad3 Aug 2026
7 new faces, and Tijuana are still learning each other
A squad rebuilt inside one window pays for it in a currency nobody budgets for. The football is not worse than the sum of the players; it is worse than the sum of the players who have played together before.