“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Deportivo Cali can pretend not to have heard.
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.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Deportivo Cali this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Pedro Gallese, and the manager let it.
Squad28 Sep 2026
Words at Deportivo Cali training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Andrés Correa 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.
Squad28 Sep 2026
The manager has not finished forgetting Pedro Gallese's mistake
Publicly it is behind everybody. It is not behind the man who picks the team, and the only place that shows is a team sheet. He will get another chance; he will get it in a match that matters less.
9 shots, and a count that reads like a good afternoon until you check the other column. Strikers survive weeks like this on the understanding that the chances keep arriving; the day they stop is the day it becomes a problem.
Javier Mena, 21, plays like he has been here for years — 8.53
A mark of 8.53 means one thing beside a twenty-nine-year-old's name and something else entirely beside a 21-year-old's. Nobody at the ground needed telling which this was.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the team. 6 saves, several of them the sort nobody expects to see stopped, and a scoreline that flatters everybody in front of him.
At 21 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.
“If you cannot run for the shirt, somebody else will wear it.” No name was used and none was needed; every player in that room knew who it was for.
Squad14 Sep 2026
Words at Deportivo Cali training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Andrés Correa 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.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Deportivo Cali this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Shots: 5. Goals: none. The chances were there and they were good ones, and they went into the stand, the goalkeeper's arms and the side netting in roughly that order.
Juan Dinenno was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.38. There are performances a supporter describes to somebody who was not there and cannot quite convey; this was one, and the number does not help either.
Squad7 Sep 2026
Andrés Correa 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.
16 defensive actions and a clean sheet at the end of them. A defender's afternoon can only be told by what did not happen, which is why nobody makes a highlights package out of one and every manager in the division would take it.
Alianza Petrolera go through and Deportivo Cali go home, 0‑1 the scoreline that did it. The dressing room will call the league the priority now, because that is what dressing rooms say.
The terraces31 Aug 2026
The boos come down from three sides
“We pay for this every fortnight. The least we want is somebody who looks like he cares.” 8 of the 32 senior players walked off into it; the rest were not playing.
The manager kept them in and said what needed saying. A response is expected on Saturday, and if it does not come the questions move upstairs.
Squad31 Aug 2026
The manager has not finished forgetting Ronaldo Pájaro's mistake
Publicly it is behind everybody. It is not behind the man who picks the team, and the only place that shows is a team sheet. He will get another chance; he will get it in a match that matters less.
A shoot-out is remembered by its ending, and this one ends with Pedro Gallese: 3 kept out, and a set of supporters who will describe every one of them for the next twenty years.
Emanuel Reynoso 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.
Successful dribbles: 22. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Squad24 Aug 2026
Andrés Correa 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.
At 21 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.
It is the most legitimate ambition in the sport and the hardest for most clubs to satisfy. Andrés Correa wants continental football; whether Deportivo Cali can provide it is a question about the next two seasons, not about him.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Deportivo Cali this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
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.
Emanuel Reynoso 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.
Squad3 Aug 2026
Andrés Correa 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.
“If you cannot run for the shirt, somebody else will wear it.” No name was used and none was needed; every player in that room knew who it was for.
Player ratings3 Aug 2026
Juan Dinenno was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.18. There are performances a supporter describes to somebody who was not there and cannot quite convey; this was one, and the number does not help either.
“The manager did not use many words, and he did not need to.” Luis Orejuela has his answer from Deportivo Cali; what he does with it is the next window’s story.
“We keep meeting, and we keep leaving the room with the same numbers we walked in with.” Another round of talks at Deportivo Cali, another week without a signature from Avilés Hurtado.