“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Cruz Azul can pretend not to have heard.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Cruz Azul they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
Successful dribbles: 22. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
Player ratings24 Dec 2029
Ozziel Herrera was on a different afternoon to everybody else
9.87. 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.
Squad24 Dec 2029
Words at Cruz Azul training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Carlos Rodríguez 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 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 Jhohan Romaña is on it.
Another week, another link, another denial nobody quite believes. Leon know the market decides these things, not the back pages — but the back pages are louder.
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.
33 graduates, from a department now rated 9 out of 20. Nothing about the academy appears in a result, and nothing about the club’s future exists without it.
The standards have slipped, and in a building where everybody watches everybody it has not gone unremarked. This is how a player loses a place before he loses one.
“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 The request is on a desk at Cruz Azul, and it is not being withdrawn.
Sergio Barreto 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.
Squad30 Apr 2029
Words at Cruz Azul training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Gonzalo Piovi 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.
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 Agustín Palavecino is on it.
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.
The words a physio says slowly. 19 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.
The general version of this complaint is that a player wants more. The specific version names the thing: he wants to walk out under floodlights against clubs from other countries, and he has stopped pretending otherwise.
Ismael Díaz 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.
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 Jhohan Romaña is on it.
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.
Another week, another link, another denial nobody quite believes. Leon know the market decides these things, not the back pages — but the back pages are louder.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Óscar Jiménez trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
In brief
SquadQuestions about César Bustos on the training pitch
$12.2M was the most the club would pay and Pumas UNAM were asking for more. Deals like this are revived in the last week of a window roughly half the time, and everybody involved knows it.
Fee agreed, wages agreed, and Leon waiting with a shirt. Nobody at Cruz Azul is pretending otherwise, and the supporters have stopped asking whether and started asking when.
Nobody at the club will say out loud who this signing is for, which is how you know exactly who it is for. José Juan Macías has been brought in to take a shirt somebody is still wearing.
“I want to be playing for trophies while my legs still let me.” Nothing in that sentence is a transfer request, and nobody at Cruz Azul heard it as anything else.
Cruz Azul have gone to Queretaro 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.
Cruz Azul asked and Monterrey said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Carlos Rodríguez was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Boards get told what they have done wrong for years and hear nothing on the days they get it right. This is one of those days: José Juan Macías from Pumas UNAM for $6.6M, and a ticket office having a very good morning.
The 2-goal deficit was real and so was the recovery. Arneth González was at the centre of it, Tigres were at the end of it, and everybody who left early will hear about this one for years.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Cruz Azul have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
At 34 he is supposed to be managing his minutes. Instead he was marked 7.85 and looked, for ninety minutes, exactly like the player everybody remembers.
7.98, 1 on the scoresheet, and the specific comedy of a back-four player celebrating like somebody who does this every week. He does not, and that is exactly why the ground reacted the way it did.
Two of the goals had his name somewhere on them, which is the afternoon a manager wants from anybody asked to both create and finish. 7.80, and 2 involvements.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Erik Lira was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
There is a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 23-year-old it feels ownership of. Arneth González has it now, and everything he does for the rest of his time here will be measured against the goodwill he was handed for free.