Marked for Jonathan Cañete
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad9 Nov 2026
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 124 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
Squad9 Nov 2026
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Portuguesa this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad9 Nov 2026
Óscar González 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.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad19 Oct 2026
Óscar González: that is not what I was promised
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Portuguesa have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Squad19 Oct 2026
Jonathan Cañete 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.
Squad19 Oct 2026
Words at Portuguesa training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Óscar González 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.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad12 Oct 2026
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Portuguesa this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad12 Oct 2026
Victor Daza is a better footballer than he was
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.
Squad12 Oct 2026
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Lautaro Agüero, and the manager let it.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad5 Oct 2026
Jonathan Cañete 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.
Squad5 Oct 2026
Words at Portuguesa training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Óscar González 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.
Boardroom5 Oct 2026
Wages eat 495% of everything Portuguesa earn
There is a figure at which a wage bill stops being ambitious and becomes the reason nothing else is possible, and this club has reached it. Nothing is left over for a transfer, a stand or a rainy afternoon.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad28 Sep 2026
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Portuguesa this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad28 Sep 2026
Óscar González 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
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Keiver Zúñiga, and the manager let it.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad21 Sep 2026
Jonathan Cañete 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.
Squad21 Sep 2026
Words at Portuguesa training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Luis Moreno Quero 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.
Squad21 Sep 2026
It is never announced and it is entirely visible: the biggest afternoons of the season keep containing him. A press box works this out long before anybody at the club confirms a word of it.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad31 Aug 2026
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Portuguesa this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad31 Aug 2026
Héber García pulls a muscle — 18 days out
The injury that keeps coming back, keeps being rushed back from, and quietly costs more careers than the dramatic ones. 18 days is the estimate; the honest figure depends on whether anybody is patient.
Squad31 Aug 2026
The manager makes an example of Óscar González
“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.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Match19 Aug 2026
The cup run ends for Portuguesa
1‑1 against Deportivo Lara, and the road stops here. Cup exits are quick deaths — no second leg, no next week, just the league from now until May.
Squad24 Aug 2026
A shoot-out is remembered by its ending, and this one ends with Beycker Velásquez: 1 kept out, and a set of supporters who will describe every one of them for the next twenty years.
Player ratings24 Aug 2026
Successful dribbles: 29. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
Squad24 Aug 2026
Jonathan Cañete 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.
Squad24 Aug 2026
Words at Portuguesa training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Óscar González 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.
Player ratings24 Aug 2026
A performance of 8.89 does not come along often, and when it does the rest of the team becomes scenery. He was magnificent.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Match12 Aug 2026
A 2‑1 win over Carabobo, and the draw for the next round can be watched with some interest for once.
Match12 Aug 2026
The 87th minute, half the ground already edging towards the exits, and José Calzadilla decided nobody was going anywhere. Carabobo had no time left to answer.
Squad17 Aug 2026
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the team. 6 saves, several of them the sort nobody expects to see stopped, and a scoreline that flatters everybody in front of him.
Squad17 Aug 2026
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Portuguesa this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad17 Aug 2026
Óscar González 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.
Player ratings17 Aug 2026
José Calzadilla was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.95. There are performances a supporter describes to somebody who was not there and cannot quite convey; this was one, and the number does not help either.
Player ratings17 Aug 2026
Successful dribbles: 18. 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
“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.
Player ratings17 Aug 2026
Marked 7.90 on an afternoon he ran from the first whistle to the last. Whatever else went wrong, Portuguesa had the best player on the pitch.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Player ratings10 Aug 2026
Edwin Peraza, 33, rolls back the years — 8.58
There is an age at which every good afternoon gets described as a throwback, which is unfair and also accurate. 8.58 at 33, and nobody on the pitch was better.
Squad10 Aug 2026
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Portuguesa this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad10 Aug 2026
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Keiver Zúñiga, and the manager let it.
Market10 Aug 2026
The clock runs on Edwin Peraza's contract
24 months left and silence from upstairs — no offer, no talks, nothing for his people to answer. Clubs that let a calendar do their negotiating usually end up negotiating with the calendar.
Match8 Aug 2026
It finished 1‑1, and it somehow always looked like it would. One of those afternoons where the table moves less than the tempers.
Player ratings10 Aug 2026
Successful dribbles: 14. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Squad3 Aug 2026
“The easiest signature of my career.” Jonathan Cañete and Portuguesa agree another 3 years, and the manager can plan around him rather than about him.
Squad3 Aug 2026
Jonathan Cañete 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.
Squad3 Aug 2026
Words at Portuguesa training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Óscar González 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
0‑2 to Estudiantes de Caracas, and no complaints worth printing. The performance asked for nothing more than it got.
Squad3 Aug 2026
The manager makes an example of Óscar González
“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.
Market3 Aug 2026
Still no offer on the table, and Jonathan Cañete’s deal keeps shrinking. In boardroom language, silence this long stops being an oversight and starts being an answer.