Marked for Dair Aranda
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad28 Sep 2026
Carlos Uribe 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.
Squad28 Sep 2026
Words at Ayacucho training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Hans Aquino 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.
Squad28 Sep 2026
When it matters, Dair Aranda plays
It is never announced and it is entirely visible: the biggest afternoons of the season keep containing him. A press box works this out long before anybody at the club confirms a word of it.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad31 Aug 2026
When it matters, Dair Aranda plays
It is never announced and it is entirely visible: the biggest afternoons of the season keep containing him. A press box works this out long before anybody at the club confirms a word of it.
Squad31 Aug 2026
Hans Aquino is out on the grass again
He came through the session, took part in everything and finished it smiling. Ayacucho will not rush him, and he will spend the next fortnight trying to rush them.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Match12 Aug 2026
Ayacucho bow out of the cup
Cesar Vallejo go through and Ayacucho go home, 1‑1 the scoreline that did it. The dressing room will call the league the priority now, because that is what dressing rooms say.
Squad17 Aug 2026
Mario Suárez decides it from twelve yards
1 kept out in the shoot-out, and a stadium that will still be describing them in twenty years. A goalkeeper only needs one of these to be remembered forever.
Player ratings17 Aug 2026
A debut Dair Aranda will not forget — 7.45
There is exactly one of these per career and it does not usually go like this. 0 on the scoresheet, 7.45 beside the name, and a crowd that had never seen him before chanting it by the end.
Player ratings17 Aug 2026
No sign of nerves from Sebasthian García at 21 — 8.88
The hardest thing about being 21 in a senior side is that nobody makes allowances. Sebasthian García did not need any: 8.88, and he looked the most comfortable man on the pitch.
Squad17 Aug 2026
Carlos Uribe 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 terraces17 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.
Squad17 Aug 2026
Words at Ayacucho training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. José Ataupillco 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.
Squad17 Aug 2026
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Hans Aquino, and the manager let it.
Player ratings17 Aug 2026
It was his to settle and he did not settle it. A long walk back to the halfway line, and a considerably longer week.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad10 Aug 2026
Carlos Uribe 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.
Market10 Aug 2026
“There is a gap, and pretending there is not helps nobody.” Neither side has moved, and the calendar is working for exactly one of them.
Squad10 Aug 2026
Carlos Uribe has started doing his badges
“I watch sessions differently now. I catch myself thinking about why we are doing the drill.” At 34 that is how nearly every man in a dugout started.