Marked for Jonathan Jiménez
From our football correspondent
Steady
Market9 Jul 2029
“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.
Squad9 Jul 2029
Carlos Acevedo and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Market9 Jul 2029
The interest is real enough to have reached print. Santos Laguna have said nothing, which in a transfer window is its own kind of answer.
Squad9 Jul 2029
The formation has left Alex Alcalá behind
Every shape has positions in it and this one does not have his. Santos Laguna will either change the shape, change his job, or change his club, and he is waiting to hear which.
Squad9 Jul 2029
Santos Laguna are still strangers to each other
14 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.
Transfer targets9 Jul 2029
Pumas UNAM have been asked whether they would lend him. Loans are agreed quickly or not at all, and this one will be one or the other by the weekend.
The dugout9 Jul 2029
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Santos Laguna, and both men came out saying it was fine.
Market9 Jul 2029
“We keep meeting, and we keep leaving the room with the same numbers we walked in with.” Another round of talks at Santos Laguna, another week without a signature from Tahiel Jiménez.
Squad9 Jul 2029
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Ángel Tecpanécatl was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad7 May 2029
Alexis Gutiérrez and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Squad7 May 2029
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Brian García and Santos Laguna agree another 3 years.
Loan watch7 May 2029
33 appearances at Cruz Azul and the goals keep coming. Santos Laguna are watching this more closely than the borrowing club would like.
Squad7 May 2029
“65 caps was 65 more than the boy who started ever expected.” At 34 he has stepped away from the national side and has not stepped away from Santos Laguna.
The dugout7 May 2029
Carlos Acevedo has become a man the manager trusts
Nobody at Santos Laguna 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.
Squad7 May 2029
It will be explained as a change for the team and it may even be one. Nobody who has worn one believes that, and neither does the man who has just had it taken away.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad12 Jun 2028
The knee: Diego Godoy out for 44 days
44 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Tembetary lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
Market12 Jun 2028
“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 Tembetary, and it is not being withdrawn.
Squad12 Jun 2028
Hugo Fernández 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.
Transfer targets12 Jun 2028
$8.0K on the table at Independiente CG. The manager wanted him, the board agreed a number, and the only voices still to be heard are the ones at the other club.
Match10 Jun 2028
Roland Escobar scored, and precious little else went right: 1‑3 to Guarani, and a quiet walk to the dressing room.
Transfer targets12 Jun 2028
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 dugout12 Jun 2028
“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 dugout12 Jun 2028
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.
The dugout12 Jun 2028
“We were not good enough today and I am not going to dress it up.” Edgar Romero after 1‑3, in the tone of a man who knows the next question and does not intend to answer it.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Market10 Jan 2028
“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.
Squad10 Jan 2028
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Líder Cáceres and Tembetary agree another 4 years.
Squad10 Jan 2028
Hugo Fernández and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
The dugout10 Jan 2028
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Líder Cáceres, and the manager let it.
Transfer targets10 Jan 2028
A deal that was a phone call from completion at lunchtime was dead by midnight. Tembetary will try again when the window opens; Cerro Porteno may not be selling by then.
Squad10 Jan 2028
The formation has left Hugo Fernández behind
Every shape has positions in it and this one does not have his. Tembetary will either change the shape, change his job, or change his club, and he is waiting to hear which.
The dugout10 Jan 2028
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 Ángel Aguilera is on it.
Squad10 Jan 2028
Where he used to play does most of his talking for him at Tembetary. The room defers to it, the kids study it, and the only thing that can puncture it is a bad month.
The dugout10 Jan 2028
Raúl Palacios 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.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Boardroom27 Dec 2027
Pressure builds in the Tembetary boardroom
The directors have stopped offering the manager public warmth. In football that is usually the stage before the short statement.
Market27 Dec 2027
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Tembetary can pretend not to have heard.
Transfer targets27 Dec 2027
The deal with Libertad 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.
Transfer targets27 Dec 2027
The offer went to Sol de America this week and it is theirs to answer. First bids are rarely meant to succeed; they are meant to find out how loud the door closes.
Squad27 Dec 2027
Bryan Bentaberry and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Transfer targets27 Dec 2027
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Libertad have kept their man, and Tembetary go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
Market27 Dec 2027
The phone has started ringing about Carlos Barrios again, and this time the name on the line is Angostura. Tembetary are listening politely and promising nothing.
The dugout27 Dec 2027
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to José Espínola, and the manager let it.
The dugout27 Dec 2027
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.