“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Tijuana can pretend not to have heard.
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.
Vitinho 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.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Diogo Bagüí was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Cruz Azul have kept their man, and Tijuana go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
He is 20, and the scouting reports agree on the only line that matters: the ceiling. Signings like this are lottery tickets written by professionals.
Squad17 Jul 2028
5 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.
In brief
The dugoutDiego Abreu knocks on the manager’s door
“This is not anger. I have thought about it for months, and nothing that has happened lately changed my mind.” The request is on a desk at Tijuana, and it is not being withdrawn.
It is the most legitimate ambition in the sport and the hardest for most clubs to satisfy. Vitinho 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.
Squad26 Jun 2028
Words at Tijuana training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Alberto Ocejo 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.
Every long career reaches the week the last one is thought about. He would like it to be where he started, and Tijuana know now that the thought has arrived.
Tijuana have made the call to Eintracht Braunschweig. No fee, a share of the wages, and a spare shirt in the position where the squad has been thinnest all season.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Jackson Porozo trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Tijuana have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
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.
Squad1 May 2028
Words at Tijuana training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Karim Jurjo 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.
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Tijuana, and both men came out saying it was fine.
A year in and the language has not come, the city has not opened up, and he eats alone more often than anybody at Tijuana would like to admit. It is showing on Saturdays.
Tijuana interviewed the field and appointed the corridor: Gabriel Corona keeps the job he had been doing in all but title. Sometimes the safest pair of hands is the one already holding the wheel.
“This is not anger. I have thought about it for months, and nothing that has happened lately changed my mind.” The request is on a desk at Tijuana, and it is not being withdrawn.
Squad17 Apr 2028
Words at Tijuana training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Alberto Ocejo 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.
Diogo Bagüí 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.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Diogo Bagüí trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
It has stopped being a mood in the stands and started being something organised. Boards can ignore a bad atmosphere for a long time; they cannot ignore this stage of it for very long at all.
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.
“I want to be playing for trophies while my legs still let me.” Nothing in that sentence is a transfer request, and nobody at Tijuana heard it as anything else.
Beaten 0‑1, and beaten fairly. The manager kept his words short afterwards, which was probably wise.
Squad3 Apr 2028
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.
“We keep meeting, and we keep leaving the room with the same numbers we walked in with.” Another round of talks at Tijuana, another week without a signature from Diego Abreu.
Vitinho 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.
Squad27 Mar 2028
Alberto Ocejo 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.
It is not much of a headline and it is the reason players believe the next promise. Tijuana told Frank Boya something would happen and then it happened, which in this industry passes for remarkable.
The team at the top of the table next, and the honest measure of where this side actually is. Anybody can beat the club below them; the question is what happens against Pumas UNAM.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Tijuana can pretend not to have heard.
5 without a win now, and the ground has developed the special quiet of a crowd that expects the worst. One scrappy 1-0 would cure most of it; that is the maddening part.
It is not a grievance and it is not a demand: he wants to play continental football, and he has stopped hiding it. Whether Tijuana can give him that is a question about the club, not about him.
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Jackson Porozo, and the manager let it.
Squad21 Feb 2028
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.
Nobody will confirm this and nothing else explains the last month of selections. A costly error buys a player a period of being second choice that is always longer than the error was.
The board’s statement ran to three sentences and one of them mentioned results. Rodolfo Pineda has managed long enough to translate: win soon, or the next statement is shorter.
The accountants will call it good business and they will be right, which is not the point anybody outside the boardroom is making. Ángel Zapata was one of the reasons people came, and $3.2M does not replace that by itself.
“This is not anger. I have thought about it for months, and nothing that has happened lately changed my mind.” The request is on a desk at Tijuana, and it is not being withdrawn.
Ángel Zapata has left for Tigres in a $3.2M deal. The accountants are pleased; the supporters are less certain.
Boardroom7 Feb 2028
Deadline passes with 2 signed and 4 gone
That is the business done at Tijuana until the window opens again. Whether it was enough will be answered on Saturdays rather than in a column, and the first Saturday is close.
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.
Footballers are asked about their boyhood club so often that nobody listens to the answer. Antonio Álvarez has just signed for Tijuana, and for once the answer mattered.
“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.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Tijuana have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
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.
Ángel Zapata 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.
Squad15 Nov 2027
Diogo Bagüí 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.
He used to wear the other shirt. On Saturday he plays against Tigres in this one, and whatever he says this week about it being just another game will be untrue.
He trains hard, says the right things and goes home to an empty flat. Nobody at Tijuana has done anything wrong, which is exactly what makes it so difficult to fix.
1 for Frank Boya, marked 7.56, and a centre-half's name in the part of the report he normally only reaches by mistake. He will not be allowed to forget it in the dressing room for a month.
The rules permit it and it stings anyway. José Quiroz has agreed terms with Puebla for the summer, and until then he pulls on this shirt as a player who has already chosen his next one.
Aarón Mejía 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.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Diogo Bagüí was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Ángel Zapata 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.
Squad27 Sep 2027
Frank Boya 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.
It is not much of a headline and it is the reason players believe the next promise. Tijuana told Diogo Bagüí something would happen and then it happened, which in this industry passes for remarkable.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Diego Abreu trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
1 for Ángel Zapata, marked 7.44, and a centre-half's name in the part of the report he normally only reaches by mistake. He will not be allowed to forget it in the dressing room for a month.
It happens to all of them and it is still the hardest paragraph a local paper has to write. 35 years old, 3 points down on where he was, and a body that has started charging interest on a career.
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Alberto Ocejo, and the manager let it.
Squad20 Sep 2027
Frank Boya 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.
8 signings in three months. Every one of them may be an upgrade and the team can still be worse for a while, which is the part of a rebuild that never appears in the transfer-window verdicts.
Tijuana and Club America have settled on $1.1M. The rest belongs to the player and his agent, and a supporter who has watched one of these before knows not to buy the shirt yet.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Tijuana have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Diogo Bagüí 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.
Chiapas made Tijuana work for it, but the scoreboard read 1‑0 at the end and the table does not ask how.
Squad30 Aug 2027
Words at Tijuana training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Frank Boya 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 0 appearances in 5 say he has earned the hearing.
10 without a win now, and the ground has developed the special quiet of a crowd that expects the worst. One scrappy 1-0 would cure most of it; that is the maddening part.
Transfer targets9 Aug 2027
$420.0K settles it between the clubs for Gustavo Wood
Tigres have accepted the money. What Tijuana do not yet have is the man, and between here and the photograph is a conversation about wages that both sides are dreading.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Tijuana can pretend not to have heard.
39 days with the chair empty, a list of names that grows and shrinks by the day, and not one signature on anything. Every week that passes takes the best candidates off it.
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.
Beaten 0‑1, and beaten fairly. The manager kept his words short afterwards, which was probably wise.
Squad9 Aug 2027
Frank Boya 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.
In brief
The dugoutThe manager makes an example of Diogo Bagüí
This is not cover and nobody is pretending it is. $2.5M has been paid because Alberto Ocejo is straightforwardly better than what was already here, and the club has decided to stop waiting.
$2.5M on the table at Santos Laguna. The manager wanted him, the board agreed a number, and the only voices still to be heard are the ones at the other club.
$390.0K on the table at Veracruz. The manager wanted him, the board agreed a number, and the only voices still to be heard are the ones at the other club.
The terraces28 Jun 2027
Tijuana spend $2.5M on the signing the town wanted
It is the rarest sequence in football: supporters ask for something, and the club goes and does it. $2.5M for Alberto Ocejo, and for one week nobody is complaining about anything.
Squad28 Jun 2027
Ángel Zapata has improved at 26, which nobody expected
Careers are supposed to plateau and then decline, and the players who ignore that are always the ones who were listening on the training ground. 3 points of it, over months, at an age where the direction normally only goes one way.
Diogo Bagüí 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.
Frank Boya 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.
“If you cannot run for the shirt, somebody else will wear it.” No name was used and none was needed; every player in that room knew who it was for.
Squad31 May 2027
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.
José Antonio Rodríguez has done the arithmetic and does not like the answer. Nothing corrodes a squad faster, and no club has ever solved it by explaining the wage structure to a footballer.
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Tijuana, and both men came out saying it was fine.
In brief
The dugoutThe manager plants his flag on Aarón Mejía
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.
Squad26 Apr 2027
Words at Tijuana training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Ángel Zapata 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.
“Some mornings you wake up and you are still a long way from everything you know.” It is not the football and it never was; Tijuana are dealing with a man who wants a different country.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Gilberto Mora trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
Another week, another link, another denial nobody quite believes. Tijuana know the market decides these things, not the back pages — but the back pages are louder.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Tijuana have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Frank Boya 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.
“Nobody here is above being told.” It was not said with a name attached, but the dressing room can count, and so can everybody who was listening.
Squad12 Apr 2027
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.
Nobody will confirm this and nothing else explains the last month of selections. A costly error buys a player a period of being second choice that is always longer than the error was.
“I have ambitions, and I would like the club to share them.” Nobody has asked to leave and nobody has been shown the door — but a player chooses that sentence carefully, and a boardroom hears it exactly as it was meant.
It is not a grievance and it is not a demand: he wants to play continental football, and he has stopped hiding it. Whether Tijuana can give him that is a question about the club, not about him.
Gilberto Mora 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.
“Some mornings you wake up and you are still a long way from everything you know.” It is not the football and it never was; Tijuana are dealing with a man who wants a different country.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Diogo Bagüí was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
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 7.66 for the rest of it.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Santos Laguna have kept their man, and Tijuana go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
Frank Boya 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.
There is a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 18-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.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Diogo Bagüí was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Iván Tona, and the manager let it.
Squad15 Feb 2027
6 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 dugout15 Feb 2027
The view from the dugout
“We controlled it. There were spells I did not like and we will look at them, but the group showed me something.” Efrain Dos Santos, on a 1‑0 win that he was already picking apart on the walk to the press room.
In brief
The dugoutRafael Fernández is still being punished for one mistake
There are footballers who have a good season and footballers a season is remembered for, and the second kind get their names read out in a hall in the summer. Tijuana will be quietly delighted and privately nervous.
“This is not anger. I have thought about it for months, and nothing that has happened lately changed my mind.” The request is on a desk at Tijuana, and it is not being withdrawn.
At 21 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.
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.
Add another name to the list: Dorados have asked the question everybody in the game has been asking about Diego Abreu. The answer from Tijuana has not changed — yet.
Tijuana asked and Pumas UNAM said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
38 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Tijuana lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 35 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
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.
“The supporters are entitled to be angry. So am I. We will put it right.” 1‑2, a manager saying the necessary things, and a dressing room that heard a different version of them.
Nobody at Tijuana is suggesting he is out of form. The manager simply wanted somebody with a different set of qualities for ninety specific minutes, and there is nothing a player can train to fix that.
In brief
The dugoutAlan Acosta knocks on the manager’s door
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Tijuana will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
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.
1‑1, and both dressing rooms will call it two points lost. A draw that asked plenty of questions and answered none of them.
The dugout19 Oct 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.” Efrain Dos Santos chose the glass-half-full version of 1‑1; the supporters left with the other one.
A bone, which is the one injury with a calendar attached. Tijuana will name a return date and, unusually for this business, will probably be right about it.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the whole of the defence. 10 saves, several of them the kind nobody expects to see made, and ten outfield players who owe him a drink.
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 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.
“We are a long way apart, and pretending otherwise helps nobody.” Neither side is close, and the calendar is not on the club's side.
The dugout14 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 0‑2 Efrain Dos Santos left the room before anybody could ask which.