Marked for Valentín Gauthier
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Squad21 Jun 2027
Valentín Gauthier is a better footballer than he was
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 23 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.
Squad21 Jun 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 Pachuca this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Market21 Jun 2027
Santos Laguna pay $130.0K, and the deal is done. The number reads well on a balance sheet; whether it reads well on the pitch is next season's question.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Market7 Jun 2027
Leon come back empty-handed
The bid was some way short and Pachuca did not need long over it. Nobody in the game reads a first refusal as the end of anything.
Market7 Jun 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.
Market7 Jun 2027
“I have ambitions, and I would like the club to share them.” Nobody has asked to leave and nobody has been shown the door — but a player chooses that sentence carefully, and a boardroom hears it exactly as it was meant.
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Squad3 May 2027
A fracture rules Enner Valencia out for 52 days
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Pachuca will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
Market3 May 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.
Squad3 May 2027
“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.
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Squad19 Apr 2027
A fracture rules Enner Valencia out for 67 days
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Pachuca will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
Squad19 Apr 2027
Words at Pachuca training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Sergio Barreto 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.
Squad19 Apr 2027
Chofis 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.
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Squad12 Apr 2027
A fracture rules Enner Valencia out for 74 days
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Pachuca will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
Squad12 Apr 2027
Carlos Moreno 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 Apr 2027
Sergio Barreto 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.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad2 Nov 2026
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 42 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
Match28 Oct 2026
The cup run ends for Pachuca
1‑1 against Toluca, and the road stops here. Cup exits are quick deaths — no second leg, no next week, just the league from now until May.
Player ratings2 Nov 2026
Successful dribbles: 30. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
Squad2 Nov 2026
Carlos Moreno decides it from twelve yards
1 kept out in the shoot-out, and a stadium that will still be describing them in twenty years. A goalkeeper only needs one of these to be remembered forever.
Squad2 Nov 2026
“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.
Match31 Oct 2026
No end in sight to Pachuca's wait for a win
5 matches now without a victory, and the excuses have worn thinner than the patience. Somebody at Pachuca has to find a result from somewhere.
Match31 Oct 2026
8 unbeaten for Pachuca
Hard to beat is not the same as winning, but 8 matches without defeat is a foundation Pachuca did not have in the autumn.
Market2 Nov 2026
“I want to be playing for trophies while my legs still let me.” Nothing in that sentence is a transfer request, and nobody at Pachuca heard it as anything else.
Squad2 Nov 2026
Words at Pachuca training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Sergio Barreto 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.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad26 Oct 2026
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 49 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
Squad26 Oct 2026
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Pachuca this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Match24 Oct 2026
Whatever happens, Pachuca do not lose
6 games unbeaten now. Some were earned and some were survived, but a habit is forming — and habits are the hardest thing in football to play against.
Player ratings26 Oct 2026
Marked 8.10 — 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.
Player ratings26 Oct 2026
Successful dribbles: 17. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Squad26 Oct 2026
Words at Pachuca training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Carlos Adrián Sánchez 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.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Market17 Aug 2026
Leon say no — this time
The offer from PSV for Diber Cambindo 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.
Market17 Aug 2026
The interest is real enough to have reached print. Leon have said nothing, which in a transfer window is its own kind of answer.
Market17 Aug 2026
Pachuca paid $1.4M and Leon took it, which is the whole story in one sentence. The longer version involves a wage budget and will be told all season.
Squad17 Aug 2026
Tempers go at Leon
Jordi Cortizo 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.
Squad17 Aug 2026
Words at Leon training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Juan Pablo Domínguez 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.
Player ratings17 Aug 2026
Successful dribbles: 19. 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
Market17 Aug 2026
The paperwork is done: Valentín Gauthier joins from Leon in a deal worth $1.4M. Now comes the harder part.
Squad17 Aug 2026
Carlos Moreno 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.
Market17 Aug 2026
The name of Israel Luna has come up in conversations Pachuca were not part of. Nothing formal, nothing signed — but nothing about it accidental either.
Match15 Aug 2026
Tijuana made Pachuca work for it, but the scoreboard read 1‑0 at the end and the table does not ask how.
Player ratings17 Aug 2026
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.
Market17 Aug 2026
Both sides expect a conversation in the coming days. Pachuca will name a price, and everything after that is arithmetic.
Player ratings17 Aug 2026
The afternoon belonged to Kenedy
A mark of 7.91, and nobody in the ground would argue with it. He was involved in everything that mattered and most of what did not.
Squad17 Aug 2026
Nobody will confirm this and nothing else explains the last month of selections. A costly error buys a player a period of being second choice that is always longer than the error was.
Squad17 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.