Marked for Tahiel Jiménez
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Player ratings9 Nov 2026
Successful dribbles: 24. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Squad9 Nov 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 Santos Laguna this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Match7 Nov 2026
0‑1 to Morelia, and no complaints worth printing. The performance asked for nothing more than it got.
Squad9 Nov 2026
Bruno Amione 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.
Squad9 Nov 2026
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Anthony Lozano, and the manager let it.
Squad9 Nov 2026
The manager has not finished forgetting Bruno Amione'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.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Match3 Oct 2026
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.
Squad5 Oct 2026
Tahiel Jiménez is a better footballer than he was
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 20 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.
Squad5 Oct 2026
Carlos Gruezo 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.
Market5 Oct 2026
It is the most legitimate ambition in the sport and the hardest for most clubs to satisfy. Kevin Balanta wants continental football; whether Santos Laguna can provide it is a question about the next two seasons, not about him.
Squad5 Oct 2026
Words at Santos Laguna training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Cristian Dájome 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.
Squad5 Oct 2026
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Carlos Gruezo, and the manager let it.
Match3 Oct 2026
0‑2 to Monterrey, and no complaints worth printing. The performance asked for nothing more than it got.
Boardroom5 Oct 2026
105% of the income goes out in wages at Santos Laguna
Every club in football pays most of what it earns to its players. Paying nearly all of it is a different arrangement, and it has ended the same way every time somebody has tried it.
Player ratings5 Oct 2026
Successful dribbles: 12. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Squad14 Sep 2026
Anthony Lozano 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.
Squad14 Sep 2026
Cristian Dájome 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 ratings14 Sep 2026
Successful dribbles: 20. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
Squad14 Sep 2026
“Nobody here is above being told.” It was not said with a name attached, but the dressing room can count, and so can everybody who was listening.
Match12 Sep 2026
Beaten 0‑2, and beaten fairly. The manager kept his words short afterwards, which was probably wise.
Squad14 Sep 2026
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.
The terraces14 Sep 2026
Every touch is being weighed now, in print and everywhere else. Some players grow into that and some are quietly ruined by it, and nobody knows which in advance.
Player ratings14 Sep 2026
5.68. Every footballer has these and most of them happen away from a full ground; his did not, and he will be aware of that all week.
Market14 Sep 2026
Every press conference now starts and ends the same way: with Tahiel Jiménez’s future. The manager has run out of new ways to say nothing.