Marked for Jonathan Benítez
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Match19 Aug 2026
The small margins put Palestino out
Out, 1‑2 to Universidad de Concepcion, and the long argument about which of the small moments decided it. The league is all there is now, and everybody knows it.
Squad24 Aug 2026
There were 6 saves in it, and at least three that had no business being saves at all. The ten outfield players owe him a drink and they know it.
Squad24 Aug 2026
Words at Palestino training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Jonathan Benítez 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.
Squad24 Aug 2026
Words exchanged at Palestino
Ronnie Fernández 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.
Player ratings24 Aug 2026
Successful dribbles: 19. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
Match22 Aug 2026
Cobresal left with the points after a 0‑1 defeat that will take some explaining on the terraces.
The dugout24 Aug 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 Felipe Vargas left the room before anybody could ask which.
Player ratings24 Aug 2026
There was one mistake and it ended in the net. Defenders are judged on the worst thing they did rather than on the eighty-nine minutes either side of it, which is unfair and is also the job.
The dugout24 Aug 2026
Bryan Carrasco dropped after a run of poor form
The one version of being left out a player cannot argue with, and the one he takes worst. Somebody else has been better and the team sheet says so, in public, every week until it changes.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Player ratings17 Aug 2026
A brace, and Nelson Da Silva takes the afternoon — 8.87
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Nelson Da Silva provided it, and the 8.87 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
Squad17 Aug 2026
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.
Player ratings17 Aug 2026
Successful dribbles: 25. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
Squad17 Aug 2026
A row about effort at Palestino
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Jonathan Benítez was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Squad17 Aug 2026
Ronnie Fernández and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Match15 Aug 2026
It finished 2‑1, and it was Nelson Da Silva’s afternoon: on the scoresheet when it mattered, and the reason the points belong to Palestino.
The dugout17 Aug 2026
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Sebastián Pérez, and the manager let it.
Player ratings17 Aug 2026
Marked 8.15 — the sort of number a correspondent writes down twice to be sure. Everything he tried came off, and what he did not try was not worth trying.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Market3 Aug 2026
“I have given everything here and I need a new challenge.” The request is formal, and the relationship will never be quite the same again.
Player ratings3 Aug 2026
Successful dribbles: 23. 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.
Squad3 Aug 2026
“I never wanted to be anywhere else. There is unfinished business here.” Sebastián Pérez commits to Palestino for another 2 years.
Squad3 Aug 2026
Words exchanged at Palestino
Federico Anselmo 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.
Squad3 Aug 2026
Words at Palestino training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Sebastián Pérez 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.
Match1 Aug 2026
Palestino caught on 89 minutes
The board was up, the win was priced in, and then Huachipato scored. There is no worse minute to concede in and the ground emptied in the silence that follows one.
Market3 Aug 2026
“There is a gap, and pretending there is not helps nobody.” Neither side has moved, and the calendar is working for exactly one of them.
Market3 Aug 2026
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.
Player ratings3 Aug 2026
Nobody on the pitch touched Joe Abrigo
7.75, and no serious argument from anybody who was there. Palestino had eleven men on the pitch and one of them decided how it went.