Marked for Royer Salcedo
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad14 Sep 2026
Lucas Bernal 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.
Market14 Sep 2026
The academy exists for exactly this morning. Alexander Santamaria has come through every age group the club runs and has now been handed a senior number, and the people who coached him at twelve will be the proudest in the building.
Squad14 Sep 2026
Juan Cámara 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.
Squad14 Sep 2026
Too much change too quickly at Ayacucho
11 signings in three months. Every one of them may be an upgrade and the team can still be worse for a while, which is the part of a rebuild that never appears in the transfer-window verdicts.
The dugout14 Sep 2026
The manager has not finished forgetting Royer Salcedo'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.
Market14 Sep 2026
At 36, he has seen every situation this season can produce, twice. The legs will be managed; the head is the purchase.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Steady
Match19 Aug 2026
The small margins put Ayacucho out
Out, 0‑1 to Universitario, and the long argument about which of the small moments decided it. The league is all there is now, and everybody knows it.
Squad24 Aug 2026
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the team. 7 saves, several of them the sort nobody expects to see stopped, and a scoreline that flatters everybody in front of him.
Squad24 Aug 2026
Words at Ayacucho training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Jeisson 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.
The dugout24 Aug 2026
“We were not good enough today and I am not going to dress it up.” Renato Farfan after 0‑1, in the tone of a man who knows the next question and does not intend to answer it.
The dugout24 Aug 2026
Somebody else is better right now than Santiago Ormeño
The team sheet says it in public every week until it changes. The only version of being dropped a footballer cannot argue with, and the one he takes hardest.
The dugout24 Aug 2026
“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.
From our football correspondent
Triumph
Match12 Aug 2026
Ayacucho march on in the cup
Cesar Vallejo are out and Ayacucho go through, 2‑1 the final word. The bracket opens up a little, and everyone allows themselves a look at it.
Match12 Aug 2026
Liberson Soto wins it after the whistle should have gone
120 minutes played. Liberson Soto found the finish in time that only existed because of earlier delays, and Cesar Vallejo went from a point to nothing inside one movement.
Squad17 Aug 2026
There were 7 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.
Squad17 Aug 2026
Carlos 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.
The terraces17 Aug 2026
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.
Squad17 Aug 2026
Words at Ayacucho training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Juan Cámara 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.
Squad17 Aug 2026
Too much change too quickly at Ayacucho
8 signings in three months. Every one of them may be an upgrade and the team can still be worse for a while, which is the part of a rebuild that never appears in the transfer-window verdicts.
Player ratings17 Aug 2026
A mark of 7.52, and nobody in the ground would argue with it. He was involved in everything that mattered and most of what did not.
The dugout17 Aug 2026
The manager’s verdict
“I am not going to get carried away and I will not let them either. It was a good day. There will be harder ones.” Renato Farfan kept it short after the 2‑1 win, which is what managers do when they are happy.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad3 Aug 2026
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Jean Pierre Archimbaud and Ayacucho agree another 3 years.
Squad3 Aug 2026
Words exchanged at Ayacucho
Gerson Iraola 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.
Squad3 Aug 2026
Juan Cámara 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 Aug 2026
The system has changed and his position has not. A footballer can improve his form; he cannot improve the manager’s formation, and that is the whole of the problem.
Market3 Aug 2026
36 months to run and not a word offered. A club that lets the calendar negotiate for it usually ends up losing to the calendar.
Market3 Aug 2026
“There is a gap, and pretending there is not helps nobody.” Neither side has moved, and the calendar is working for exactly one of them.