Marked for Domingo Blanco
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Market4 Jan 2027
Iván Tona puts it in writing
“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 The request is on a desk at Tijuana, and it is not being withdrawn.
Squad4 Jan 2027
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.
Squad4 Jan 2027
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.
Squad4 Jan 2027
José Castro is a better footballer than he was
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.
Squad4 Jan 2027
Words at Tijuana training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Unai Bilbao 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.
Match2 Jan 2027
It finished 2‑2, and it somehow always looked like it would. One of those afternoons where the table moves less than the tempers.
Market4 Jan 2027
Aldahir Pérez is free to find somewhere else
“I was told straight, and I would rather have it straight.” The manager at Tijuana has been clear about where Aldahir Pérez stands, which is more than many ever get.
Player ratings4 Jan 2027
Nobody could get near Mourad
Successful dribbles: 12. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Player ratings4 Jan 2027
He was not in the side at half past three and he had settled it before five. Half an hour, and Tijuana had a different afternoon.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Match28 Nov 2026
No end in sight to Tijuana's wait for a win
5 matches now without a victory, and the excuses have worn thinner than the patience. Somebody at Tijuana has to find a result from somewhere.
Squad30 Nov 2026
Unai Bilbao in a row with a teammate
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.
Squad30 Nov 2026
Words at Tijuana training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Alejandro Gómez 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.
Match28 Nov 2026
1‑2 to Club America, and no complaints worth printing. The performance asked for nothing more than it got.
Market30 Nov 2026
It is the most legitimate ambition in the sport and the hardest for most clubs to satisfy. Domingo Blanco wants continental football; whether Tijuana can provide it is a question about the next two seasons, not about him.
Squad30 Nov 2026
Ángel Zapata 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.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Match26 Sep 2026
Still nobody has beaten Tijuana
The unbeaten run reaches 7. Some of them were wins and some were escapes, but a side that refuses to lose is a side other dressing rooms talk about.
Squad28 Sep 2026
Unai Bilbao 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.
Squad28 Sep 2026
Alejandro Gómez 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.
Match26 Sep 2026
Three points for Tijuana, 2‑0 the final word against Dorados in a contest settled by the finer margins.
Market28 Sep 2026
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.
Player ratings28 Sep 2026
A defender's afternoon for Unai Bilbao
Defensive actions: 17. He was first to everything and second to nothing, and the goalkeeper had an easy day because of it.
Squad28 Sep 2026
A Tijuana teenager takes the young player award
Gilberto Mora is 17, and for one weekend he was the best of everybody his age in the division. Nobody should build a career on it and everybody quietly does.
Squad28 Sep 2026
Diego Abreu knocks on the manager’s door
“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.
Player ratings28 Sep 2026
Successful dribbles: 10. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Market24 Aug 2026
Tijuana say no — this time
The offer from Toluca 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.
Market24 Aug 2026
Eduardo Ochoa hands in a written request
“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.
Squad24 Aug 2026
Unai Bilbao in a row with a teammate
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.
Squad24 Aug 2026
Words at Tijuana training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Alejandro Gómez 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.
Market24 Aug 2026
Club America are about to pick up the phone
A conversation is coming this week. Tijuana will put a number on him, and from there it stops being football and becomes arithmetic.
Player ratings24 Aug 2026
7.34, and no serious argument from anybody who was there. Tijuana had eleven men on the pitch and one of them decided how it went.
Squad24 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 ratings24 Aug 2026
Defensive actions: 15. He was first to everything and second to nothing, and the goalkeeper had an easy day because of it.
Squad24 Aug 2026
There is no complaint available here and everybody involved knows it, which does not make the walk to the bench any shorter. Form is the only currency in football that cannot be borrowed against.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Market3 Aug 2026
The bid was some way short and Tijuana did not need long over it. Nobody in the game reads a first refusal as the end of anything.
Squad3 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.
Squad3 Aug 2026
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Unai Bilbao and Tijuana agree another 2 years.
Squad3 Aug 2026
Unai Bilbao in a row with a teammate
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.
Squad3 Aug 2026
Words at Tijuana training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Alejandro Gómez 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.
Market3 Aug 2026
It is the most legitimate ambition in the sport and the hardest for most clubs to satisfy. Domingo Blanco wants continental football; whether Tijuana can provide it is a question about the next two seasons, not about him.
Market3 Aug 2026
Nobody at Tijuana has picked up the phone to Unai Bilbao
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
Marked 7.67. Ask anyone leaving the ground what settled it and you will get one name, which is the only award that has ever really counted.
Match1 Aug 2026
1‑1, and both dressing rooms will call it two points lost. A draw that asked plenty of questions and answered none of them.