Marked for Luis Sequeira
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Player ratings11 Feb 2036
2 goals, and the second was the one that settled it. Marked 8.65, and he could have had a third with better luck at the near post.
Squad11 Feb 2036
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 16 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
Market11 Feb 2036
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Tigre they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
Market11 Feb 2036
“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 The request is on a desk at Tigre, and it is not being withdrawn.
Squad11 Feb 2036
Luis Sequeira gets the move he always wanted
Footballers are asked about their boyhood club so often that nobody listens to the answer. Luis Sequeira has just signed for Tigre, and for once the answer mattered.
Boardroom11 Feb 2036
Tigre have asked about the manager
The approach has gone in and the answer belongs to Slávia TU Košice. Business like this is done quietly and reported loudly, and rarely in that order.
Squad11 Feb 2036
A row about effort at Tigre
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Sheyko Studer was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Squad11 Feb 2036
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Tigre this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Match9 Feb 2036
Three points for Tigre, 3‑1 the final word against Banfield in a contest settled by the finer margins.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Match4 Aug 2035
Rarely has this fixture seen a display like it: 3‑0 against Leones, and it could have been more.
Player ratings6 Aug 2035
A brace, and Ricardo Solbes takes the afternoon — 8.23
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Ricardo Solbes provided it, and the 8.23 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
Market6 Aug 2035
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Deportes Tolima is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
Market6 Aug 2035
“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.
Squad6 Aug 2035
Nicolás Fuica 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.
Squad6 Aug 2035
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Ian Subiabre was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Player ratings6 Aug 2035
Marked 8.60 — 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.
Match4 Aug 2035
8 home matches unbeaten. Visiting sides arrive already talking about the atmosphere, which is usually the sign that they have half-lost before kickoff.
Market6 Aug 2035
“We keep meeting, and we keep leaving the room with the same numbers we walked in with.” Another round of talks at Deportes Tolima, another week without a signature from Agustín Méndez.
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Market9 Jul 2035
The last thing about a transfer that is still about the player is his signature on his own terms, and it is there. Deportes Tolima have lost him in all but the paperwork.
Market9 Jul 2035
Luis Sequeira has one foot out of the door
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Deportes Tolima they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
Market9 Jul 2035
“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.
Match7 Jul 2035
Momentum is a hard thing to buy and an easy thing to lose, and right now Deportes Tolima have 3 straight wins of it.
Boardroom9 Jul 2035
He will play here until the summer and then walk out of the door for free, having already signed elsewhere. Supporters will manage the first part of that sentence; it is the second they will struggle with.
Squad9 Jul 2035
Ian Subiabre 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.
Transfer targets9 Jul 2035
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.
Squad9 Jul 2035
Kelvin Flórez is in the form of his life
A season average of 7.22 with 16 goals behind it. Opponents have started planning around him, which is the sincerest compliment football pays.
Squad9 Jul 2035
Tiago Hirigoyen arrives at the club he grew up with
Every footballer has an answer to the question about his boyhood club, and most of them never get to act on it. Tiago Hirigoyen has, at Deportes Tolima, and the first month will show what that does to a man.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad7 May 2035
34 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Deportes Tolima lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
Squad7 May 2035
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 69 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
The dugout7 May 2035
“I was told what my role would be, and I signed on that basis. It has not happened.” A grievance with a date attached is the hardest kind to settle.
Squad7 May 2035
Kelvin Flórez 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.
Boardroom7 May 2035
Independiente Medellin will keep picking him until June and will get nothing for him after it. Matías Fuentes has pre-agreed a move to Deportes Tolima, and the only people who lose in that arrangement are the ones who let the contract run down.
Match5 May 2035
Once Caldas left with the points after a 0‑1 defeat that will take some explaining on the terraces.
Squad7 May 2035
Ricardo Solbes 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.
The dugout7 May 2035
“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 dugout7 May 2035
“I could talk about decisions and I could talk about luck. I will not. We lost.” The manager, 0‑1, and a press conference that lasted four minutes.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Squad19 Feb 2035
A knee injury of the worst kind for Franco Vázquez
75 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Deportes Tolima lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Match17 Feb 2035
Beaten 0‑3 by Deportivo Cali, and beaten everywhere it matters. The inquest starts on the training pitch on Monday morning.
Market19 Feb 2035
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Deportes Tolima is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
Market19 Feb 2035
It is not a grievance and it is not a demand: he wants to play continental football, and he has stopped hiding it. Whether Deportes Tolima can give him that is a question about the club, not about him.
Squad19 Feb 2035
Ian Subiabre 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.
The dugout19 Feb 2035
“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 ratings19 Feb 2035
A midfielder is measured on whether the team functions when he is on the pitch, which is nearly impossible to see and completely obvious in retrospect. 9 actions, 6.85, and a manager who will not be substituting him again in a hurry.
Boardroom19 Feb 2035
The music was off and the showers ran late. What was said in that dressing room stays there, but Saturday will publish the minutes.
The dugout19 Feb 2035
“I could talk about decisions and I could talk about luck. I will not. We lost.” The manager, 0‑3, and a press conference that lasted four minutes.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Market15 Jan 2035
Facundo Lucero has one foot out of the door
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Deportes Tolima they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
Market15 Jan 2035
“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.
Market15 Jan 2035
It is not a grievance and it is not a demand: he wants to play continental football, and he has stopped hiding it. Whether Deportes Tolima can give him that is a question about the club, not about him.
Boardroom15 Jan 2035
He will play here until the summer and then walk out of the door for free, having already signed elsewhere. Supporters will manage the first part of that sentence; it is the second they will struggle with.
Squad15 Jan 2035
Ian Subiabre 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 Jan 2035
A move Ahmed Khatir would have made for nothing
There is a version of every career where the player ends up somewhere he chose rather than somewhere that chose him. Ahmed Khatir is living that version at Deportes Tolima, and it tends to show in the first month.
Transfer targets15 Jan 2035
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.
The dugout15 Jan 2035
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.
Market15 Jan 2035
“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.
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Player ratings7 Aug 2034
Two goals and a mark of 8.96 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
Market7 Aug 2034
“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.
Squad7 Aug 2034
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.
Market7 Aug 2034
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Deportes Tolima they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
Match5 Aug 2034
Nobody wants to play Deportes Tolima right now
3 wins in a row changes how opponents warm up: quieter, more glances across. Runs end, everybody knows that — but nobody in this dressing room is planning for it.
Market7 Aug 2034
It is not a grievance and it is not a demand: he wants to play continental football, and he has stopped hiding it. Whether Deportes Tolima can give him that is a question about the club, not about him.
Squad7 Aug 2034
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Deportes Tolima this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Match5 Aug 2034
6 goals. Both benches spent the second half looking at each other rather than at the pitch. Purists will complain about Deportes Tolima and Atletico Bucaramanga in equal measure; everybody else had a wonderful time.
Match5 Aug 2034
A 4‑2 win over Atletico Bucaramanga, earned rather than given, and the sort of afternoon that sends everyone home talking about next week instead of this one.
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Squad29 May 2034
44 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Deportes Tolima lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
Market29 May 2034
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.
Match27 May 2034
Momentum is a hard thing to buy and an easy thing to lose, and right now Deportes Tolima have 3 straight wins of it.
Squad29 May 2034
Nicolás Fuica 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 ratings29 May 2034
Successful dribbles: 20. 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.
Match27 May 2034
It finished 1‑0, and it was Luis Sequeira’s afternoon: on the scoresheet when it mattered, and the reason the points belong to Deportes Tolima.
Squad29 May 2034
Nazjir Held 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 ratings29 May 2034
Marked 8.20 — 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.
The dugout29 May 2034
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Zakaria Tindano, and the manager let it.