Marked for Eduardo Ribeiro
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad11 Jan 2027
A bone, which is the one injury with a calendar attached. Universidad de Chile will name a return date and, unusually for this business, will probably be right about it.
Market11 Jan 2027
Fee agreed, wages agreed, and Zamora waiting with a shirt. Nobody at Universidad de Chile is pretending otherwise, and the supporters have stopped asking whether and started asking when.
Squad11 Jan 2027
Nicolás Ramírez 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.
Squad11 Jan 2027
At 21 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.
The dugout11 Jan 2027
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Octavio Rivero, and the manager let it.
The dugout11 Jan 2027
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 Javier Altamirano is on it.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad23 Nov 2026
Nicolás Ramírez 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.
The dugout23 Nov 2026
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 Bianneider Tamayo is on it.
The dugout23 Nov 2026
“I would rather say it to his face than read about it.” The meeting was requested by the player, which tells you most of what you need to know.
The dugout23 Nov 2026
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.
Squad23 Nov 2026
A year in and the city has not opened up, the language has not come, and lunch is eaten alone more often than anybody at Universidad de Chile would admit. It shows on Saturdays.
Squad23 Nov 2026
The language has come, the shrug has gone, and he argues in training like a man who expects to be here next year. None of it shows up on a fee and all of it shows up on the pitch.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
The dugout16 Nov 2026
“I remember the meeting. I remember exactly what was promised in it.” Universidad de Chile may remember it differently, which is precisely the problem.
Squad16 Nov 2026
Nicolás Ramírez 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.
Squad16 Nov 2026
Israel Poblete 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.
The dugout16 Nov 2026
Nicolás Ramírez has become a man the manager trusts
Nobody at Universidad de Chile 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.
Squad16 Nov 2026
He is not being dropped. There is simply nowhere in the formation Universidad de Chile are playing to put a man who does what he does, which is a harder thing to be told than any team sheet.
The dugout16 Nov 2026
Octavio Rivero knocks on the manager's door
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Universidad de Chile, and both men came out saying it was fine.
Squad16 Nov 2026
A call-up flatters the player and the club that produced him in the same breath. Universidad de Chile would like him back in one piece and know they will not be consulted.
The dugout16 Nov 2026
The manager makes Marcelo Díaz a promise
Nothing in writing and nothing in public: a word about playing time, given face to face at Universidad de Chile. The team sheets over the next month will show whether it was worth having.
Market16 Nov 2026
Every press conference now starts and ends the same way: with Tobías Reinhart’s future. The manager has run out of new ways to say nothing.