Marked for Alejandro Vera
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad20 Sep 2027
Juan Pablo Chávez 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.
Squad20 Sep 2027
Sergio Ceballos 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.
Transfer targets20 Sep 2027
The approach was made and the answer came back in a sentence. There is no number on the table because there was no number that would have been enough.
Squad20 Sep 2027
At 33, 3 points below where he was, and a body that has started charging interest. It happens to all of them and it is still the hardest paragraph on this page.
Match18 Sep 2027
Pachuca made Chiapas work for it, but the scoreboard read 1‑0 at the end and the table does not ask how.
Player ratings20 Sep 2027
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.
Player ratings20 Sep 2027
Nobody on the pitch touched Matías Gómez
7.62, and no serious argument from anybody who was there. Chiapas had eleven men on the pitch and one of them decided how it went.
The dugout20 Sep 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.” Eduardo Corona, on a 1‑0 win that he was already picking apart on the walk to the press room.
The dugout20 Sep 2027
Jero gets picked when it counts
Every manager keeps a short list in his head of the men he wants on the pitch when the stakes rise, and it is never published. The team sheets for the big afternoons say Jero is on it.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad23 Aug 2027
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the team. 9 saves, several of them the sort nobody expects to see stopped, and a scoreline that flatters everybody in front of him.
Market23 Aug 2027
“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.
Transfer targets23 Aug 2027
Chiapas and Tijuana have settled on $1.7M. 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.
Transfer targets23 Aug 2027
The deal with Tigres is done in every sense but the one that puts him on the pitch. Nothing goes wrong at this stage, except on the occasions when it does.
Market23 Aug 2027
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.
Squad23 Aug 2027
Words exchanged at Chiapas
Pablo López 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.
Squad23 Aug 2027
Words at Chiapas training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Sergio Ceballos 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.
Match21 Aug 2027
3 matches without a goal for Chiapas
The chances are being made and something is happening between the making and the finishing. 3 matches now, and the anxiety in the ground arrives a little earlier every week.
Market23 Aug 2027
“The manager did not use many words, and he did not need to.” Alejandro Vera has his answer from Chiapas; what he does with it is the next window’s story.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
The terraces29 Mar 2027
Supporters organise against the Chiapas board
A bad atmosphere can be waited out. A group of people meeting afterwards to decide what to do about it cannot, and everybody in the building knows which stage this is.
Squad29 Mar 2027
A falling-out at Chiapas
Miguel Pabón and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Squad29 Mar 2027
Everybody at Chiapas saw it before anybody said it, which is how this always goes. At 33 the decline is real and measurable — 3 points — and the only question left is how the club handles somebody it owes a great deal to.
Squad29 Mar 2027
The medical room confirms 40 days on the sidelines for Carlos Rosel, and a plan built around him now has to be rebuilt.
Looking ahead29 Mar 2027
Everything rides on Veracruz
Both clubs in the mire, one fixture between them, and a ground that will be louder and more frightened than at any point in the season. Chiapas know what is at stake and so does everybody in the away end.
The dugout29 Mar 2027
When it matters, Jero plays
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.
Looking ahead29 Mar 2027
Every squad has one of these fixtures for somebody every season. This one is Marco Moreno’s: the club that knew him first, the supporters who will decide in the first minute whether to applaud, and Chiapas needing him to play as if none of it matters.
The dugout29 Mar 2027
Bruno Centeno asks for a word with the manager
“I would rather say it to his face than read about it.” The meeting was requested by the player, which tells you most of what you need to know.
The dugout29 Mar 2027
Miguel Pabón has been promised minutes
A conversation in the manager’s office, and a commitment that came out of it. Promises like that are cheap to make and expensive to break, and Miguel Pabón has written the date down.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Match13 Mar 2027
17 matches without a win for Chiapas
The run now stands at 17, and the questions being asked around Chiapas are no longer polite ones.
Match15 Mar 2027
Every point is an argument now for Chiapas
Position 18 and 10 points, and the table gets read bottom-up in this part of town. The calendar has stopped being a schedule and started being a countdown.
Market15 Mar 2027
“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.
Match13 Mar 2027
Chiapas cannot find the net
5 games without scoring. Strikers stop looking up, midfielders take the extra touch, and every shot that clears the bar is followed by a groan that has been building since the last goal.
Squad15 Mar 2027
Miguel Pabón 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 Mar 2027
Pablo López 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.
Match13 Mar 2027
A bad afternoon for Chiapas against Dorados
0‑1 to Dorados, and no complaints worth printing. The performance asked for nothing more than it got.
Squad15 Mar 2027
It happens to all of them and it is still the hardest paragraph a local paper has to write. 36 years old, 3 points down on where he was, and a body that has started charging interest on a career.
Market15 Mar 2027
“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.
In brief
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The dugout
The manager’s verdict
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The dugout
No place for Alejandro Vera on the big day
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The dugout
No hiding place for Luis Sánchez
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Squad23 Nov 2026
A bone, which is the one injury with a calendar attached. Chiapas will name a return date and, unusually for this business, will probably be right about it.
Squad23 Nov 2026
Miguel Pabón 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.
Match21 Nov 2026
Queretaro left with the points after a 0‑1 defeat that will take some explaining on the terraces.
The dugout23 Nov 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 Eduardo Corona left the room before anybody could ask which.
The dugout23 Nov 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.
The dugout23 Nov 2026
A promise honoured at Chiapas
Something was said to Alejandro Vera and then it happened. In this industry that passes for remarkable, and the dressing room noticed faster than any supporter could.
The dugout23 Nov 2026
Diego Abella knocks on the manager's door
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Chiapas, and both men came out saying it was fine.
Looking ahead23 Nov 2026
Every squad has one of these fixtures for somebody every season. This one is Marco Moreno’s: the club that knew him first, the supporters who will decide in the first minute whether to applaud, and Chiapas needing him to play as if none of it matters.
Player ratings23 Nov 2026
Shots: 9. Goals: none. The chances were there and they were good ones, and they went into the stand, the goalkeeper's arms and the side netting in roughly that order.