Marked for Anthony Henriquez
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad31 May 2027
A knee injury of the worst kind for Anthony Henriquez
17 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Iquique lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Player ratings31 May 2027
Successful dribbles: 30. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
Match29 May 2027
The wait goes on for Iquique
4 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.
Squad31 May 2027
Agustín Venezia 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 terraces31 May 2027
At 23 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.
Player ratings31 May 2027
There is a version of this player everybody suspected was in there, and on this evidence it is. 8.27, and no argument anywhere in the ground.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad24 May 2027
A knee injury of the worst kind for Anthony Henriquez
26 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Iquique lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Player ratings24 May 2027
Age has not caught Franco Ledesma yet — 8.00
At 34 he is supposed to be managing his minutes. Instead he was marked 8.00 and looked, for ninety minutes, exactly like the player everybody remembers.
Player ratings24 May 2027
Successful dribbles: 24. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Squad24 May 2027
Álvaro Ramos 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.
Squad24 May 2027
Agustín Venezia 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 ratings24 May 2027
20 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.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Match17 Mar 2027
The cup run ends for Iquique
1‑3 against Audax Italiano, and the road stops here. Cup exits are quick deaths — no second leg, no next week, just the league from now until May.
Player ratings22 Mar 2027
2 goals, and the second was the one that settled it. Marked 8.68, and he could have had a third with better luck at the near post.
Squad22 Mar 2027
Lucas Marcotti: that is not what I was promised
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Iquique have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Squad22 Mar 2027
Agustín Venezia 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.
Squad22 Mar 2027
Simón Contreras 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.
Match20 Mar 2027
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Esteban Calderón. 2‑1 against Colo-Colo, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
The terraces22 Mar 2027
There is a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 23-year-old it feels ownership of. Agustín Venezia 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.
Player ratings22 Mar 2027
Ninety minutes of Agustín Venezia at his very best
Marked 8.80. Players have careers without a single afternoon like this in them, and he has just had one in front of everybody at Iquique.
Squad22 Mar 2027
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Luciano Miño, and the manager let it.