“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 The request is on a desk at Puebla, and it is not being withdrawn.
A defender on the scoresheet, which happens rarely enough that everybody in the ground remembers who took the corner. 1 for him, and a mark of 7.82 for the rest of it.
It is not a grievance and it is not a demand: he wants to play continental football, and he has stopped hiding it. Whether Puebla can give him that is a question about the club, not about him.
“Some mornings you wake up and you are still a long way from everything you know.” It is not the football and it never was; Puebla are dealing with a man who wants a different country.
“We earned that. I asked them for a reaction and I got one, and now I want the same again on Saturday.” Juan Moreno on a 2‑1 afternoon that pleased him more than he was prepared to show.
In brief
The dugoutJosé Pachuca knocks on the manager’s door
7.86, 1 on the scoresheet, and the specific comedy of a back-four player celebrating like somebody who does this every week. He does not, and that is exactly why the ground reacted the way it did.
The general version of this complaint is that a player wants more. The specific version names the thing: he wants to walk out under floodlights against clubs from other countries, and he has stopped pretending otherwise.
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.
0‑3 to Guadalajara, and it was every bit as bad as the number suggests. There are defeats you argue about and defeats you apologise for; this was the second kind.
4 games without scoring. Strikers stop looking up, midfielders take the extra touch, and every shot that clears the bar is followed by a groan that has been building since the last goal.
Puebla asked and Club America said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
Luis Gabriel Rey 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.
Both clubs in the mire, one fixture between them, and a ground that will be louder and more frightened than at any point in the season. Puebla know what is at stake and so does everybody in the away end.
He found out with everybody else, an hour before kick-off, from a sheet of paper on a wall. Nobody at Puebla pretended it was anything other than a decision about him.
The chances are being made and something is happening between the making and the finishing. 3 matches now, and the anxiety in the ground arrives a little earlier every week.
Marked 6.85 on 9 actions at both ends of the pitch. Midfielders like this get described as unspectacular by people who have never tried to play against one.
The manager kept them in and said what needed saying. A response is expected on Saturday, and if it does not come the questions move upstairs.
Squad8 Feb 2027
Owen González 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.
A defender's mistake gets tidied up by somebody else; a goalkeeper's ends up in the net. He knew before the ball crossed the line, and so did everybody in the ground.
“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.
Boardroom1 Feb 2027
Puebla close the window on a squad of their own making
0 in and 1 out, and no more changes for months. The manager has what he has, the supporters have their opinion of it, and the table will have the last word.
Raúl Torres 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.
He won it back and then made something of it, which is two jobs and the reason the scoreline looks the way it does. 9 combined actions and a mark of 6.61, and not one of them will make a highlights package.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Pedro Santos was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
The dugout1 Feb 2027
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 0‑1 Juan Moreno left the room before anybody could ask which.
7 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.
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.
Two or more conceded in each of the last 6 matches. It is not one mistake repeating itself, which would be the easier thing to fix; it is a different one every week.
The general version of this complaint is that a player wants more. The specific version names the thing: he wants to walk out under floodlights against clubs from other countries, and he has stopped pretending otherwise.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Puebla this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Beaten 0‑2, and beaten fairly. The manager kept his words short afterwards, which was probably wise.
The dugout21 Dec 2026
The view from the dugout
“We will look at it, we will learn from it, and we go again.” The three sentences every manager keeps for a 0‑2 defeat, delivered by Juan Moreno to a room that had heard them before.
Two goals and a mark of 8.39 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
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.
Nobody at Puebla 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.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the whole of the defence. 9 saves, several of them the kind nobody expects to see made, and ten outfield players who owe him a drink.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Puebla have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Two or more conceded in each of the last 4 matches. It is not one mistake repeating itself, which would be the easier thing to fix; it is a different one every week.
“We were not good enough today and I am not going to dress it up.” Juan Moreno after 1‑2, in the tone of a man who knows the next question and does not intend to answer it.
2 goals to the good, and then a slow surrender of everything that had been earned. Emiliano Gómez will not be the one blamed for it, but nobody at Puebla escapes the conversation that follows a collapse like this.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Puebla this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
He is 23 and the ground already sings his name, which is a thing that happens to local boys and almost never to signings. Everything from here is measured against an affection he did nothing to earn except be from here.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and José Pachuca trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
A defender on the scoresheet, which happens rarely enough that everybody in the ground remembers who took the corner. 1 for him, and a mark of 7.70 for the rest of it.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Puebla this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
“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.
The dugout9 Nov 2026
The view from the dugout
“We will look at it, we will learn from it, and we go again.” The three sentences every manager keeps for a 2‑3 defeat, delivered by Juan Moreno to a room that had heard them before.
Every signing waits for it and every press conference asks about it until it comes. It has come, Puebla have their man off the mark, and the second one is always easier.
Nobody will confirm this and nothing else explains the last month of selections. A costly error buys a player a period of being second choice that is always longer than the error was.
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 Alejandro Organista is on it.
At 22 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 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.
In brief
The dugoutThe manager has not finished forgetting Fernando Monarrez's mistake
The dugoutEduardo Mustre asks for a word with the manager
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.
Lucas Arce 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.
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.
A 1‑0 win over Leon, earned rather than given, and the sort of afternoon that sends everyone home talking about next week instead of this one.
Squad28 Sep 2026
14 new faces, and Puebla are still learning each other
A squad rebuilt inside one window pays for it in a currency nobody budgets for. The football is not worse than the sum of the players; it is worse than the sum of the players who have played together before.
Puebla have gone to Godoy Cruz with a bid, and the supporters have gone to the internet with an opinion about it. Whether either changes anything is up to the selling club.
Emiliano Gómez 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.
Puebla have gone to Rosario Central with a bid, and the supporters have gone to the internet with an opinion about it. Whether either changes anything is up to the selling club.
Puebla asked and Caracas said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
11 signings in three months. Every one of them may be an upgrade and the team can still be worse for a while, which is the part of a rebuild that never appears in the transfer-window verdicts.