26 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Deportivo Lara lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Deportivo Lara will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
6 without a win now, and the ground has developed the special quiet of a crowd that expects the worst. One scrappy 1-0 would cure most of it; that is the maddening part.
There is an age at which every good afternoon gets described as a throwback, which is unfair and also accurate. 7.83 at 37, and nobody on the pitch was better.
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 Lara this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad24 May 2038
Néstor Trejo 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.
47 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Deportivo Lara lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
The board’s statement ran to three sentences and one of them mentioned results. Interim Coach has managed long enough to translate: win soon, or the next statement is shorter.
Nothing has been announced and everybody understands what it means. A board that summons the whole football department on a Tuesday morning is a board that has stopped believing the problem will fix itself.
“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 The request is on a desk at Deportivo Lara, and it is not being withdrawn.
Óscar Hinojosa 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 May 2038
Words at Deportivo Lara training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Néstor Trejo 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.
Marked 8.44 — the sort of number a correspondent writes down twice to be sure. Everything he tried came off, and what he did not try was not worth trying.
54 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Deportivo Lara lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
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 Lara this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad26 Apr 2038
Néstor Trejo 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.
Shots: 10. 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.
The words a physio says slowly. 21 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.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the team. 8 saves, several of them the sort nobody expects to see stopped, and a scoreline that flatters everybody in front of him.
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Cristóbal Gómez provided it, and the 8.64 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
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 Lara this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
A 3‑2 win over Atletico Venezuela, earned rather than given, and the sort of afternoon that sends everyone home talking about next week instead of this one.
Player ratings12 Apr 2038
Juan Mujica was on a different afternoon to everybody else
9.50. 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.
Match10 Apr 2038
Another one collected away from home
3 on the bounce on the road for Deportivo Lara. The coaches leave early, arrive at unlovely grounds in the dark, and keep coming home with three points.
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.
The words a physio says slowly. 35 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.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Deportivo Lara will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
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 Lara this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad29 Mar 2038
Néstor Trejo 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.
Player ratings29 Mar 2038
Juan Mujica was on a different afternoon to everybody else
9.36. 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 words a physio says slowly. 77 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.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Deportivo Lara will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
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 Lara this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad15 Feb 2038
Néstor Trejo 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.
Every touch is being weighed now, in print and everywhere else. Some players grow into that and some are quietly ruined by it, and nobody knows which in advance.
Shots: 9. 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.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Deportivo Lara have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Óscar Hinojosa 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.
Squad14 Sep 2037
Words at Deportivo Lara training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Néstor Trejo 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.
76 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Deportivo Lara lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
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 Lara this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad15 Jun 2037
Néstor Trejo 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.
97 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Deportivo Lara lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Óscar Hinojosa 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.
Squad25 May 2037
Words at Deportivo Lara training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Néstor Trejo 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.
18 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.
Headers, blocks, tackles, interceptions — 18 of them, and not one goal behind him. The sort of performance that never makes a highlight reel and wins football matches.
The crowd waited for a goal that never came. Estudiantes de Merida defended in numbers and left with what they came for, and the two sides could be playing still without troubling a scorer.
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Juan Eduardo Reina signs something — a contract at Deportivo Lara or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
104 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Deportivo Lara lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
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 Lara this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad18 May 2037
Néstor Trejo 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.
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.
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 Lara this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad20 Apr 2037
Néstor Trejo 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.
Every touch is being weighed now, in print and everywhere else. Some players grow into that and some are quietly ruined by it, and nobody knows which in advance.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 14 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
At 36 he is supposed to be managing his minutes. Instead he was marked 8.47 and looked, for ninety minutes, exactly like the player everybody remembers.
“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 Lara can pretend not to have heard.
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 Lara this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Néstor Trejo 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.