Words at Magallanes training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Facundo Melivilo 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.
Every club in football pays most of what it earns to its players. Paying nearly all of it is a different arrangement, and it has ended the same way every time somebody has tried it.
At 33 he is supposed to be managing his minutes. Instead he was marked 8.07 and looked, for ninety minutes, exactly like the player everybody remembers.
Diego Fernández 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.
Squad21 Sep 2026
Words at Magallanes training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Facundo Melivilo 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.
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Christian Soria. 1‑0 against Rangers de Talca, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
“The players deserve the credit. My job was easy today.” It was not, and everybody in the room knew it; after 1‑0, Gonzalo Aravena could afford to be generous.
Successful dribbles: 14. 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.
At 16 he is being measured against the rest of the division's kids and coming out in front. The senior version of this award is where the club would like this to lead.
Milton Alegre wins it after the whistle should have gone
93 minutes played. Milton Alegre found the finish in time that only existed because of earlier delays, and Antofagasta went from a point to nothing inside one movement.
There is an age at which every good afternoon gets described as a throwback, which is unfair and also accurate. 7.93 at 34, and nobody on the pitch was better.
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.
At 16 he is being sung about by people twice his age, which is an affection a signing has to earn over years and a local kid gets for turning up. It is also the hardest thing in football to live up to.
“The players deserve the credit. My job was easy today.” It was not, and everybody in the room knew it; after 1‑0, Gonzalo Aravena could afford to be generous.
“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.
Squad14 Sep 2026
A Magallanes teenager takes the young player award
Rodrigo Valdes is 16, 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.
He used to wear the other shirt. On Saturday he plays against Rangers de Talca in this one, and whatever he says this week about it being just another game will be untrue.
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.
A month is long enough that nobody gets in by accident. Felipe Yáñez is in the division's best eleven for it, which is a quieter compliment than an award and a more reliable one.
Nobody will confirm it and the team sheets confirm it every week. One error has bought him a spell as second choice that is already longer than the error deserved.
The manager has re-ordered his thinking and Joaquín Muñoz has come out of it lower. He will be told it is temporary, and the players who have heard that before will avoid his eye.
Every squad has one of these fixtures for somebody every season. This one is Bruno Liuzzi’s: the club that knew him first, the supporters who will decide in the first minute whether to applaud, and Magallanes needing him to play as if none of it matters.
There is an age at which every good afternoon gets described as a throwback, which is unfair and also accurate. 7.84 at 33, and nobody on the pitch was better.
Player ratings31 Aug 2026
Up for the corner, and Manuel Rivera delivers — 7.61
Centre-halves are allowed forward twice a season and are judged on what they do when they get there. Manuel Rivera scored, was marked 7.61, and got back before anybody noticed he had gone.
Defending was optional and nobody took up the option. 6 goals between Magallanes and San Luis, and not one of the people who paid to be there will ask for the money back.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Bruno Valdez was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
17 new signings in one window. Every one may be an upgrade and the side can still be worse for a while, which is the part of a rebuild the verdicts never mention.