Marked for Joaquín Flores
From our football correspondent
Steady
Match26 Aug 2026
A 1‑0 win over Defensa y Justicia, a place in the next round, and the quiet arithmetic every supporter does on the walk home: how many more until a final?
Player ratings31 Aug 2026
Joaquín Flores, 21, plays like he has been here for years — 8.08
A mark of 8.08 means one thing beside a twenty-nine-year-old's name and something else entirely beside a 21-year-old's. Nobody at the ground needed telling which this was.
Squad31 Aug 2026
Lucas González 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.
Squad31 Aug 2026
Fernando Juárez 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.
Match29 Aug 2026
Beaten 0‑1, and beaten fairly. The manager kept his words short afterwards, which was probably wise.
Squad31 Aug 2026
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Alejandro Maciel, and the manager let it.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Steady
Player ratings24 Aug 2026
Successful dribbles: 48. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Player ratings24 Aug 2026
Joaquín Flores, 21, plays like he has been here for years — 8.15
A mark of 8.15 means one thing beside a twenty-nine-year-old's name and something else entirely beside a 21-year-old's. Nobody at the ground needed telling which this was.
Squad24 Aug 2026
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Central Córdoba SdE this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad24 Aug 2026
Words at Central Córdoba SdE training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Fernando Juárez 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 terraces24 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.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Market17 Aug 2026
Las Palmas come back empty-handed
The bid was some way short and Central Córdoba SdE did not need long over it. Nobody in the game reads a first refusal as the end of anything.
Squad17 Aug 2026
Lucas González 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.
Squad17 Aug 2026
“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.
Match15 Aug 2026
Beaten 0‑2, and beaten fairly. The manager kept his words short afterwards, which was probably wise.
Squad17 Aug 2026
Joaquín Flores 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.
Squad17 Aug 2026
The manager has not finished forgetting Fernando Martínez'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.