Marked for Bruno Salgado
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad19 Jul 2027
Ovidiu Moldovan damages knee ligaments — 88 days out
The words a physio says slowly. 88 days is what the club will announce and everybody who has heard this diagnosis before knows the number is the least of it: the knee comes back before the player does.
Squad19 Jul 2027
Bruno Salgado breaks a bone — 119 days out
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 119 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
Market19 Jul 2027
The offer was not close and it was refused without much discussion. Whether the second one is refused as quickly is another matter.
Squad19 Jul 2027
Silviu Lung 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.
Boardroom19 Jul 2027
Graduation day at Petrolul
5 boys move up, and somewhere in the building the people who coached them at twelve are quietly having the best morning of their working year. Nothing about this shows up in a result and it is why the academy exists.
Market19 Jul 2027
Clubs spend fortunes looking for players and occasionally find one down the corridor. Daniel Moldovan is that, and the reception he gets on his first appearance will be different in kind from the one any signing receives.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad31 May 2027
An individual honour is a strange thing in a team game, and the best of them are never argued with. He has had the sort of year that ends with his name being read out, and Petrolul have had the benefit of it.
Squad31 May 2027
Silviu Lung in a row with a teammate
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Petrolul this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad31 May 2027
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Bruno Salgado is 22, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
In brief
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Squad
Words at Petrolul training over how hard people work
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad3 May 2027
Silviu Lung in a row with a teammate
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Petrolul this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad3 May 2027
David Ricardo 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.
Squad3 May 2027
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Dorin Tanase, and the manager let it.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad5 Apr 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.
Squad5 Apr 2027
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Bruno Salgado is 22, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
Squad5 Apr 2027
Silviu Lung 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.
In brief
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Squad
Words at Petrolul training over how hard people work
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Market
Petrolul shop where it costs nothing
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Match17 Mar 2027
Cruz Azul through in the cup
A 4‑2 win over Tigres, and the draw for the next round can be watched with some interest for once.
Squad22 Mar 2027
There were 8 saves in it, and at least three that had no business being saves at all. The ten outfield players owe him a drink and they know it.
Player ratings22 Mar 2027
2 goals, and the second was the one that settled it. Marked 8.71, and he could have had a third with better luck at the near post.
Player ratings22 Mar 2027
No sign of nerves from Amaury Morales at 21 — 9.03
The hardest thing about being 21 in a senior side is that nobody makes allowances. Amaury Morales did not need any: 9.03, and he looked the most comfortable man on the pitch.
Squad22 Mar 2027
“I remember the meeting. I remember exactly what was promised in it.” Cruz Azul may remember it differently, which is precisely the problem.
Market22 Mar 2027
The offer was not close and it was refused without much discussion. Whether the second one is refused as quickly is another matter.
Squad22 Mar 2027
Bruno Salgado is a better footballer than he was
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 22 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.
Squad22 Mar 2027
Hugo Cuypers 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.
Match17 Mar 2027
6 goals in one match, Jesús Orozco Chiquete on the scoresheet, and a scoreline that will look like a misprint. Neutrals could not have asked more of Cruz Azul and Tigres.
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Player ratings22 Feb 2027
Headers, blocks, tackles, interceptions — 34 of them, and not one goal behind him. The sort of performance that never makes a highlight reel and wins football matches.
Match20 Feb 2027
The 86th minute, half the ground already edging towards the exits, and Carlos Rotondi decided nobody was going anywhere. Tigres had no time left to answer.
Player ratings22 Feb 2027
Everardo López, 21, plays like he has been here for years — 7.85
A mark of 7.85 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.
Player ratings22 Feb 2027
26 times he got in the way of something. Centre-halves get written about when they make mistakes and ignored when they do not, so an afternoon like this needs saying out loud: he is the reason the scoreline reads as it does.
Squad22 Feb 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 Cruz Azul this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad22 Feb 2027
Bruno Salgado is a better footballer than he was
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 22 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.
Squad22 Feb 2027
14 shut-outs and counting. Goalkeepers are only noticed when they fail, and Andrés Gudiño has given nobody the chance.
Squad22 Feb 2027
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Hugo Cuypers, and the manager let it.
Player ratings22 Feb 2027
There is a version of this player everybody suspected was in there, and on this evidence it is. 8.87, and no argument anywhere in the ground.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad28 Dec 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 Cruz Azul this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad28 Dec 2026
Bruno Salgado is a better footballer than he was
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 21 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.
Squad28 Dec 2026
A season average of 7.41 with 7 goals behind it. Opponents have started planning around him, which is the sincerest compliment football pays.
Match26 Dec 2026
0‑1 to Toluca, and no complaints worth printing. The performance asked for nothing more than it got.
Player ratings28 Dec 2026
Successful dribbles: 17. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Boardroom28 Dec 2026
Wages eat 114% of everything Cruz Azul earn
There is a figure at which a wage bill stops being ambitious and becomes the reason nothing else is possible, and this club has reached it. Nothing is left over for a transfer, a stand or a rainy afternoon.
Squad28 Dec 2026
Words at Cruz Azul training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Luka Romero 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 ratings28 Dec 2026
10 attempts, none of them in. He got into the right places all afternoon, which is the hard part, and did the easy part badly — and that is the version of a bad day a manager can live with.
Market28 Dec 2026
Erik Lira linked with a move away
The name of Erik Lira keeps appearing in other people's back pages. Cruz Azul say nothing, which says plenty.
From our football correspondent
Triumph
Match28 Nov 2026
There is no crueller way to lose a football match. Cruz Azul scored in the 91th minute, the restart barely happened, and the away end was still standing when the whistle went.
Player ratings30 Nov 2026
Successful dribbles: 29. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Market30 Nov 2026
It is the most legitimate ambition in the sport and the hardest for most clubs to satisfy. José Paradela wants continental football; whether Cruz Azul can provide it is a question about the next two seasons, not about him.
Match28 Nov 2026
Still nobody has beaten Cruz Azul
The unbeaten run reaches 7. Some of them were wins and some were escapes, but a side that refuses to lose is a side other dressing rooms talk about.
Squad30 Nov 2026
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Bruno Salgado is 21, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
Match28 Nov 2026
Three points for Cruz Azul, 3‑2 the final word against Puebla in a contest settled by the finer margins.
Match28 Nov 2026
Cruz Azul make home a hard place to visit
9 without defeat on their own grass. The pitch has not changed; the crowd has — louder earlier, and quicker to sense when the opposition would rather be somewhere else.
Squad30 Nov 2026
Omar Campos 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.
Player ratings30 Nov 2026
A performance of 9.19 does not come along often, and when it does the rest of the team becomes scenery. He was magnificent.
From our football correspondent
Triumph
Squad5 Oct 2026
A knee injury of the worst kind for Emmanuel Sánchez
30 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Cruz Azul lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Player ratings5 Oct 2026
25 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.
Match3 Oct 2026
Cruz Azul make it 3 in a row
Momentum is a hard thing to buy and an easy thing to lose, and right now Cruz Azul have 3 straight wins of it.
Squad5 Oct 2026
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Bruno Salgado is 21, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
Squad5 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 Cruz Azul this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Market5 Oct 2026
It is the most legitimate ambition in the sport and the hardest for most clubs to satisfy. Carlos Rotondi wants continental football; whether Cruz Azul can provide it is a question about the next two seasons, not about him.
Player ratings5 Oct 2026
Agustín Palavecino was on a different afternoon to everybody else
9.35. 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.
Player ratings5 Oct 2026
A defender's afternoon for Willer Ditta
Defensive actions: 21. He was first to everything and second to nothing, and the goalkeeper had an easy day because of it.
Boardroom5 Oct 2026
Wages eat 220% of everything Cruz Azul earn
There is a figure at which a wage bill stops being ambitious and becomes the reason nothing else is possible, and this club has reached it. Nothing is left over for a transfer, a stand or a rainy afternoon.
From our football correspondent
Triumph
Match5 Sep 2026
Carlos Rodríguez wins it after the whistle should have gone
90 minutes played. Carlos Rodríguez found the finish in time that only existed because of earlier delays, and Leon went from a point to nothing inside one movement.
Squad7 Sep 2026
3 goals in one afternoon from one man. The other players were also present, a witness confirmed.
Player ratings7 Sep 2026
No sign of nerves from Luka Romero at 21 — 8.52
The hardest thing about being 21 in a senior side is that nobody makes allowances. Luka Romero did not need any: 8.52, and he looked the most comfortable man on the pitch.
Match5 Sep 2026
Cruz Azul make it 5 in a row
Momentum is a hard thing to buy and an easy thing to lose, and right now Cruz Azul have 5 straight wins of it.
Squad7 Sep 2026
There were 6 saves in it, and at least three that had no business being saves at all. The ten outfield players owe him a drink and they know it.
Match5 Sep 2026
Three points for Cruz Azul, 5‑4 the final word against Leon in a contest settled by the finer margins.
Squad7 Sep 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 Cruz Azul this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad7 Sep 2026
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Bruno Salgado is 21, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
Player ratings7 Sep 2026
Ninety minutes of Carlos Rodríguez at his very best
Marked 9.88. Players have careers without a single afternoon like this in them, and he has just had one in front of everybody at Cruz Azul.