Leandro Cañete 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.
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.
Marked 6.91 on 15 actions at both ends of the pitch. Midfielders like this get described as unspectacular by people who have never tried to play against one.
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.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Diego Sanhueza was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
0‑1 to Iquique, and no complaints worth printing. The performance asked for nothing more than it got.
The dugout12 Mar 2029
The view from the dugout
“We will look at it, we will learn from it, and we go again.” The three sentences every manager keeps for a 0‑1 defeat, delivered by Interim Coach to a room that had heard them before.
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.
“I was told straight, and I would rather have it straight.” The manager at Curicó Unido has been clear about where Sebastián Valencia stands, which is more than many ever get.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Almeida will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Curicó Unido the goodbyes have quietly begun.
At 38, 3 points below where he was, and a body that has started charging interest. It happens to all of them and it is still the hardest paragraph on this page.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Matías Retamal was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
The demotion a club never announces and a dressing room always notices. Agustín Rognoni is further from the side than he was, and the reason will not be given until he asks.
Nobody at Curicó Unido 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.