Marked for Ezequiel Ramírez
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Squad16 Mar 2037
A fracture rules Alonso Tamariz out for 113 days
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Ayacucho will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
Squad16 Mar 2037
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the team. 7 saves, several of them the sort nobody expects to see stopped, and a scoreline that flatters everybody in front of him.
Squad16 Mar 2037
Edú Villar 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.
Squad16 Mar 2037
Words at Ayacucho training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Kryspin Szcześniak 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.
Match14 Mar 2037
Sporting Cristal left with the points after a 0‑1 defeat that will take some explaining on the terraces.
Player ratings16 Mar 2037
Jhon Rivas runs at them all day
Successful dribbles: 16. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Squad9 Feb 2037
Alonso Tamariz breaks a bone — 148 days out
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 148 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
Boardroom9 Feb 2037
The scrutiny sharpens at Ayacucho
Nobody upstairs has said anything, which is the loudest thing they could do. Results buy silence in this game; the account at Ayacucho is running low.
Market9 Feb 2037
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Ayacucho can pretend not to have heard.
Squad9 Feb 2037
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Fabián Palomino and Ayacucho agree another 2 years.
Squad9 Feb 2037
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Ayacucho this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad9 Feb 2037
Juan David Ararat 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.
Match7 Feb 2037
Deportivo Municipal left with the points after a 0‑1 defeat that will take some explaining on the terraces.
The terraces9 Feb 2037
Everybody has an opinion about Royer Salcedo
He is the name in every column and on every phone-in, which is a heavy thing to carry at any age. Some footballers thrive on it; others are quietly finished by it.
Player ratings9 Feb 2037
Jhon Rivas runs at them all day
Successful dribbles: 13. 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
Crisis
Boardroom12 Jan 2037
The scrutiny sharpens at Ayacucho
Nobody upstairs has said anything, which is the loudest thing they could do. Results buy silence in this game; the account at Ayacucho is running low.
Market12 Jan 2037
“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.
Squad12 Jan 2037
Edú Villar 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.
Squad12 Jan 2037
Juan David Ararat 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.
Squad12 Jan 2037
Juan David Ararat has become a man the manager trusts
Nobody at Ayacucho will say this on the record and the team sheets have been saying it for weeks. There is a small group in every squad who get picked when the fixture is difficult, and he has joined it.
Squad12 Jan 2037
Nerves in the Ayacucho squad
Kryspin Szcześniak has been around long enough to know what the spring feels like when it goes wrong, and he can feel it. A dressing room that is frightened plays like one.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
The terraces5 Jan 2037
The mood at Ayacucho has turned into something else
Supporters who sing when it goes badly are supporters. Supporters who gather afterwards are a problem, and everybody inside the building knows which of the two this now is.
Boardroom5 Jan 2037
The board’s statement ran to three sentences and one of them mentioned results. Interim Coach has managed long enough to translate: win soon, or the next statement is shorter.
Market5 Jan 2037
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Ayacucho can pretend not to have heard.
Boardroom5 Jan 2037
Crisis meeting at Ayacucho
The official line will be that it was routine. It was not routine, the timing says so, and every person in that room knows what the next bad result costs.
Squad5 Jan 2037
Rait Alarcón has been here 10 seasons
107 appearances across 10 seasons in one shirt. Nobody builds a career like that on purpose any more; it happens to a certain kind of footballer at a certain kind of club.
Squad5 Jan 2037
Juan David Ararat 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 Jan 2037
Royer Salcedo has become a man the manager trusts
Nobody at Ayacucho will say this on the record and the team sheets have been saying it for weeks. There is a small group in every squad who get picked when the fixture is difficult, and he has joined it.
Squad5 Jan 2037
Every squad has men who were signed by a particular manager and men who were merely inherited. Kryspin Szcześniak is in the first group, and the man who wanted him here is no longer in the building.
Boardroom5 Jan 2037
$4.4M taken back off the Ayacucho table
What was available in the summer has quietly gone. Upstairs nobody will call it a change of ambition; downstairs nobody will call it anything else.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Squad15 Dec 2036
A knee injury of the worst kind for Leandro Iglesias
17 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Ayacucho lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Boardroom15 Dec 2036
Pressure builds in the Ayacucho boardroom
The directors have stopped offering the manager public warmth. In football that is usually the stage before the short statement.
Squad15 Dec 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 Ayacucho this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad15 Dec 2036
Juan David Ararat has become a man the manager trusts
Nobody at Ayacucho will say this on the record and the team sheets have been saying it for weeks. There is a small group in every squad who get picked when the fixture is difficult, and he has joined it.
Squad15 Dec 2036
Words at Ayacucho training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Francisco Machado 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.
Market15 Dec 2036
The list is a quiet document with a loud meaning. Nicolás Mosquera may talk to anybody who asks, and everybody at the club understands what that means.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Squad10 Nov 2036
A knee injury of the worst kind for Leandro Iglesias
52 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Ayacucho lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
The terraces10 Nov 2036
The mood at Ayacucho has turned into something else
Supporters who sing when it goes badly are supporters. Supporters who gather afterwards are a problem, and everybody inside the building knows which of the two this now is.
Squad10 Nov 2036
Frank Ysique breaks a bone — 95 days out
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 95 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.