Marked for Carlos Garduño
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Match19 Feb 2028
8 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.
Transfer targets21 Feb 2028
Everything agreed with another club, everything agreed with the player; a doctor is the only person left to persuade. The photograph is a day or two away.
Boardroom21 Feb 2028
There is no worse way to lose a footballer. Nils De Wilde has pre-agreed a move away, which means every appearance between now and June is made by a man the club can no longer sell, and somebody upstairs will be asked why the contract was allowed to get here.
Squad21 Feb 2028
Ivan Pavlić 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.
Squad21 Feb 2028
Yerry Mina 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.
Transfer targets21 Feb 2028
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Zulte Waregem have kept their man, and Cercle Brugge go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
Match19 Feb 2028
No clean sheets in sight for Cercle Brugge
4 games now with at least two against. The back line has been rearranged, the goalkeeper has been backed publicly, and the goals keep going in anyway.
Match19 Feb 2028
0‑2 to KV Mechelen, and no complaints worth printing. The performance asked for nothing more than it got.
Market21 Feb 2028
Nobody at the club will say out loud who this signing is for, which is how you know exactly who it is for. Carlos Garduño has been brought in to take a shirt somebody is still wearing.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Match25 Sep 2027
No end in sight to Morelia's wait for a win
14 matches now without a victory, and the excuses have worn thinner than the patience. Somebody at Morelia has to find a result from somewhere.
Squad27 Sep 2027
33 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Morelia lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
Match25 Sep 2027
Morelia throw away a 2-goal lead
2 in front and in complete control, and it finished with Chiapas the happier side. There is no version of this afternoon that Morelia will enjoy reviewing.
The dugout27 Sep 2027
“I was told what my role would be, and I signed on that basis. It has not happened.” A grievance with a date attached is the hardest kind to settle.
Market27 Sep 2027
“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 Morelia, and it is not being withdrawn.
Market27 Sep 2027
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Morelia is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
Squad27 Sep 2027
Words exchanged at Morelia
René López 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.
Player ratings27 Sep 2027
Successful dribbles: 21. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
Squad27 Sep 2027
A row about effort at Morelia
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Uziel García was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Squad19 Oct 2026
Words exchanged at Morelia
René López 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.
Squad19 Oct 2026
Carlos Garduño is a better footballer than he was
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 21 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.
Squad19 Oct 2026
It happens to all of them and it is still the hardest paragraph a local paper has to write. 35 years old, 3 points down on where he was, and a body that has started charging interest on a career.
Squad19 Oct 2026
Edgar Martínez has improved at 24, which nobody expected
Careers are supposed to plateau and then decline, and the players who ignore that are always the ones who were listening on the training ground. 3 points of it, over months, at an age where the direction normally only goes one way.
Match17 Oct 2026
Beaten 0‑2, and beaten fairly. The manager kept his words short afterwards, which was probably wise.
The dugout19 Oct 2026
The manager makes an example of Zahid Muñoz
“If you cannot run for the shirt, somebody else will wear it.” No name was used and none was needed; every player in that room knew who it was for.
The dugout19 Oct 2026
“I could talk about decisions and I could talk about luck. I will not. We lost.” The manager, 0‑2, and a press conference that lasted four minutes.
The dugout19 Oct 2026
It is not much of a headline and it is the reason players believe the next promise. Morelia told José Alonso Flores something would happen and then it happened, which in this industry passes for remarkable.
The dugout19 Oct 2026
Somebody else is better right now than Zahid Muñoz
The team sheet says it in public every week until it changes. The only version of being dropped a footballer cannot argue with, and the one he takes hardest.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Squad21 Sep 2026
Words exchanged at Morelia
René López 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.
Match19 Sep 2026
Club America left with the points after a 0‑2 defeat that will take some explaining on the terraces.
The dugout21 Sep 2026
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Marco Antonio Bueno, and the manager let it.
The dugout21 Sep 2026
The manager’s verdict
“That is on me. I pick the team and I picked wrong.” Managers say that when they mean it and when they need to be seen to, and after 0‑2 Kevin Corona left the room before anybody could ask which.
The dugout21 Sep 2026
Hervin Goyes knocks on the manager’s door
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Hervin Goyes trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
The dugout21 Sep 2026
Nobody at Morelia is suggesting he is out of form. The manager simply wanted somebody with a different set of qualities for ninety specific minutes, and there is nothing a player can train to fix that.
Squad21 Sep 2026
“I did not sign to watch. Nobody does.” The oldest complaint in the game, and Morelia will have to answer it with minutes or with a move.
Player ratings21 Sep 2026
Successful dribbles: 8. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Squad21 Sep 2026
“If we are going to be beaten, let it not be because somebody in here could not be bothered.” He stood up and said it in front of everybody, which is a thing a squad remembers about a man for years.