The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Patriotas is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
Sebastián Moreno 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.
Squad18 Jan 2027
Iván Camacho 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 manager keeps a short list in his head of the men he wants on the pitch when the stakes rise, and it is never published. The team sheets for the big afternoons say Jonnier Torres is on it.
A new face in his position and a shirt he thought he owned suddenly up for discussion. Patriotas have promised nothing, which is what clubs promise at this stage.
The phone has started ringing about Kevin Álvarez again, and this time the name on the line is Depor. Patriotas are listening politely and promising nothing.
Everybody saw it before anybody said it. At 37 the numbers say 3 points down on what he was, and the question for Patriotas is how to handle a man they owe a great deal.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Patriotas 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 Iván Camacho was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Fortaleza CEIF have accepted the money. What Patriotas do not yet have is the man, and between here and the photograph is a conversation about wages that both sides are dreading.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Patriotas is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 18 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.
Nobody makes a documentary about a hamstring and everybody in the game fears one. Patriotas will be careful with the return date, because the second one is always worse than the first.
Javier Cordoba 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.
Squad21 Dec 2026
Iván Camacho 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.
Patriotas have made the call to Racing Club. No fee, a share of the wages, and a spare shirt in the position where the squad has been thinnest all season.
The clubs have settled the fee and he has settled his wages. What remains is a medical and a photograph, and around Patriotas people have started saying his name in the past tense.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Patriotas have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Patriotas have gone to Universitario Popayan with a bid, and the supporters have gone to the internet with an opinion about it. Whether either changes anything is up to the selling club.
Patriotas offered $1.1M; Deportivo Pereira said it was not close. The manager will be told the money is still there for the right player, which is what managers are told.
The number the board signed off was not enough. It has been asked again and raised its own offer to $1.0M — a club that wants Javier Cordoba enough to be asked twice.
The offer went to America de Cali this week and it is theirs to answer. First bids are rarely meant to succeed; they are meant to find out how loud the door closes.
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Esteven Salguero and Patriotas agree another 4 years.
Sebastián Moreno 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.
Squad16 Nov 2026
Words at Patriotas training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Iván Camacho 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.
Nobody at Patriotas 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.
He asked about his future and was given an answer with minutes in it. The manager has now made a promise in a building where promises are remembered, and the clock on it has started.
“Judge me on him.” Managers do not say that kind of thing by accident — it moves the pressure from Johan Campaña’s shoulders onto his own, and both of them know it.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Patriotas they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
The manager has re-ordered his thinking and Iván Camacho has come out of it lower. He will be told it is temporary, and the players who have heard that before will avoid his eye.
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Patriotas, and both men came out saying it was fine.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Alejandro Amaya will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Patriotas the goodbyes have quietly begun.
At 18 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.
Javier Angulo 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.
Every squad has one of these fixtures for somebody every season. This one is Éder Chaux’s: the club that knew him first, the supporters who will decide in the first minute whether to applaud, and Patriotas needing him to play as if none of it matters.
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Patriotas, and both men came out saying it was fine.
Nobody at Patriotas 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.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Patriotas can pretend not to have heard.
Sebastián Moreno 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.
Beaten 0‑1, and beaten fairly. The manager kept his words short afterwards, which was probably wise.
Squad28 Sep 2026
Iván Camacho 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.
“We were not good enough today and I am not going to dress it up.” Andres Uribe after 0‑1, in the tone of a man who knows the next question and does not intend to answer it.
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Patriotas, and both men came out saying it was fine.
There is no complaint available here and everybody involved knows it, which does not make the walk to the bench any shorter. Form is the only currency in football that cannot be borrowed against.
“I have done everything asked of me in training and it has not changed a thing on a Saturday.” The most familiar complaint in football, and one Patriotas will have to answer with minutes or with a transfer.
In brief
Player ratingsCarlos Copete beats them one at a time
Darwin Palomeque 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.
Alianza Petrolera made Patriotas work for it, but the scoreboard read 2‑0 at the end and the table does not ask how.
Player ratings21 Sep 2026
Johan Campaña was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.22. 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 players deserve the credit. My job was easy today.” It was not, and everybody in the room knew it; after 2‑0, Andres Uribe could afford to be generous.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Jonnier Torres was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Esteven Salguero trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
The chances are being made and something is happening between the making and the finishing. 3 matches now, and the anxiety in the ground arrives a little earlier every week.
He won it back and then made something of it, which is two jobs and the reason the scoreline looks the way it does. 10 combined actions and a mark of 7.07, and not one of them will make a highlights package.
A mark of 7.63, and nobody in the ground would argue with it. He was involved in everything that mattered and most of what did not.
Squad31 Aug 2026
Words at Patriotas training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Jonnier Torres 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.
“A point is a point and I will take it, but we should have had all three.” Andres Uribe after the 0‑0 draw, and the sentence every manager in the country said at some stage this weekend.
Santa Fe go through and Patriotas go home, 0‑1 the scoreline that did it. The dressing room will call the league the priority now, because that is what dressing rooms 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 Patriotas this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
0‑2 to Junior, and no complaints worth printing. The performance asked for nothing more than it got.
Squad24 Aug 2026
Words at Patriotas training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Iván Camacho 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
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 0‑2 defeat, delivered by Andres Uribe to a room that had heard them before.
Every squad has one of these fixtures for somebody every season. This one is Michael Nike’s: the club that knew him first, the supporters who will decide in the first minute whether to applaud, and Patriotas needing him to play as if none of it matters.
In brief
The dugoutIván Camacho knocks on the manager's door
The dugoutJonnier Torres has become a man the manager trusts
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Patriotas is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
He will play here until the summer and then walk out of the door for free, having already signed elsewhere. Supporters will manage the first part of that sentence; it is the second they will struggle with.
Sebastián Moreno 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.
There is no fee, no unveiling and no agent on the steps. Carlos Romero has been at this club since he was a boy and is now, formally, one of the first-team squad — which for a local readership beats any signing of any size.
There is no fee, no unveiling and no agent on the steps. Santiago Borja has been at this club since he was a boy and is now, formally, one of the first-team squad — which for a local readership beats any signing of any size.
Clubs spend fortunes looking for players and occasionally find one down the corridor. Fabian Mejia is that, and the reception he gets on his first appearance will be different in kind from the one any signing receives.
Squad10 Aug 2026
12 new faces, and Patriotas are still learning each other
A squad rebuilt inside one window pays for it in a currency nobody budgets for. The football is not worse than the sum of the players; it is worse than the sum of the players who have played together before.
It needed Michael Nike to find the net to bring anything home at all: 1‑1 against Independiente Medellin, and half the dressing room will call it a point won.
The dugout10 Aug 2026
Freyn Macleyn is still being punished for one mistake
Nobody will confirm it and the team sheets confirm it every week. One error has bought him a spell as second choice that is already longer than the error deserved.
In brief
SquadJonnier Torres falls out with a teammate over standards
The dugoutHalf-satisfied: Andres Uribe on the draw
The dugoutSomebody else is better right now than Javier Angulo
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the team. 6 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 Patriotas this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
0‑1 to Atletico Nacional, and no complaints worth printing. The performance asked for nothing more than it got.
Squad3 Aug 2026
Words at Patriotas training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Esteven Salguero 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.
Still no offer on the table, and Éder Chaux’s deal keeps shrinking. In boardroom language, silence this long stops being an oversight and starts being an answer.
The dugout3 Aug 2026
The manager’s verdict
“That is on me. I pick the team and I picked wrong.” Managers say that when they mean it and when they need to be seen to, and after 0‑1 Andres Uribe left the room before anybody could ask which.
8 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.