Marked for Cristopher Rumino
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Squad25 Dec 2028
128 days out for Nicolás Castillo after a fracture
A bone, which is the one injury with a calendar attached. Curicó Unido will name a return date and, unusually for this business, will probably be right about it.
Market25 Dec 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.
Squad25 Dec 2028
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Curicó Unido this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad25 Dec 2028
Bruno Gracés gets the move he always wanted
Footballers are asked about their boyhood club so often that nobody listens to the answer. Bruno Gracés has just signed for Curicó Unido, and for once the answer mattered.
Transfer targets25 Dec 2028
Curicó Unido asked and O'Higgins said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
Squad25 Dec 2028
Ignacio Figueroa 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.
Transfer targets25 Dec 2028
A loan move for Alan Robledo is in the works
Curicó Unido have made the call to O'Higgins. No fee, a share of the wages, and a spare shirt in the position where the squad has been thinnest all season.
Transfer targets25 Dec 2028
Magallanes 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 dugout25 Dec 2028
Manuel Falón knocks on the manager's door
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Curicó Unido, and both men came out saying it was fine.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Squad27 Nov 2028
19 days out for Martín Espinoza after a fracture
A bone, which is the one injury with a calendar attached. Curicó Unido will name a return date and, unusually for this business, will probably be right about it.
Market27 Nov 2028
Only the photograph left for Damián Tello
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Damián Tello will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Curicó Unido the goodbyes have quietly begun.
Market27 Nov 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 Curicó Unido, and it is not being withdrawn.
Squad27 Nov 2028
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Curicó Unido this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Boardroom27 Nov 2028
The accounts are being read more closely than the results. Wages before ambition is the order of business now, and the manager has been told so.
Squad27 Nov 2028
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Francisco Oliver was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
The dugout27 Nov 2028
Franco Martínez 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.
Market27 Nov 2028
The clock does Diego Torres’s negotiating for him
3 months left, and both sides know what that means: every week without a signature, the fee Curicó Unido could ask drops and the wages Diego Torres can ask rise.
Squad27 Nov 2028
The shrug has gone, the language is coming, and he now argues in training like somebody who expects to be here next year. Half a signing's value is this and none of it appears on a fee.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Squad13 Nov 2028
34 days out for Martín Espinoza after a fracture
A bone, which is the one injury with a calendar attached. Curicó Unido will name a return date and, unusually for this business, will probably be right about it.
Boardroom13 Nov 2028
The silence upstairs is getting loud at Curicó Unido
Nobody on the board has said anything against the manager, which is the point — they have stopped saying anything for him either.
Squad13 Nov 2028
Milton Castagna 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.
Squad13 Nov 2028
Ignacio Figueroa 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.
Squad13 Nov 2028
27 days, the medical staff say, and medical staff are optimists by profession. The team sheet will look wrong without him.
The dugout13 Nov 2028
The manager makes an example of Gabriel Sarria
“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.
Boardroom13 Nov 2028
105% of the income goes out in wages at Curicó Unido
Every club in football pays most of what it earns to its players. Paying nearly all of it is a different arrangement, and it has ended the same way every time somebody has tried it.
Loan watch13 Nov 2028
“I watch every Curicó Unido game from here. That says everything about where my head is.” The loan at Unionistas runs its course, but his heart never made the trip.
Market13 Nov 2028
“We are a long way apart, and pretending otherwise helps nobody.” Neither side is close, and the calendar is not on the club's side.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Squad6 Nov 2028
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.
Boardroom6 Nov 2028
The board have said in public what they had been saying in private. Results between now and the next meeting decide it, and everybody in the building knows the arithmetic.
Boardroom6 Nov 2028
The official line will be that it was routine. It was not routine, the timing says so, and every person in that room knows what the next bad result costs.
Market6 Nov 2028
Only the photograph left for João Alves
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. João Alves will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Curicó Unido the goodbyes have quietly begun.
Squad6 Nov 2028
At 22 he is doing things this season that he could not do last season, and doing them every week. Form comes and goes; this has stayed long enough to be called something else.
Squad6 Nov 2028
Milton Castagna and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Squad6 Nov 2028
Words at Curicó Unido training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Francisco Oliver 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 dugout6 Nov 2028
The manager makes an example of Manuel Falón
“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.
The dugout6 Nov 2028
Clubs make promises constantly and the page usually only hears about them when they are broken. This one was honoured, and the dressing room noticed that faster than any supporter did.
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Market7 Feb 2028
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Colo-Colo can pretend not to have heard.
Squad7 Feb 2028
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Dilan Godoy and Colo-Colo agree another 4 years.
Squad7 Feb 2028
Víctor Felipe Méndez 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.
The dugout7 Feb 2028
“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.
Squad7 Feb 2028
Words exchanged at Colo-Colo
Juan Pablo Reyes 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.
Squad7 Feb 2028
Colo-Colo are still strangers to each other
15 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.
Loan watch7 Feb 2028
“I watch every Colo-Colo game from here. That says everything about where my head is.” The loan at Deportes Santa Cruz runs its course, but his heart never made the trip.
The dugout7 Feb 2028
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.
The dugout7 Feb 2028
Rafael Profini knocks on the manager's door
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Colo-Colo, and both men came out saying it was fine.