The words a physio says slowly. 18 days is what the club will announce and everybody who has heard this diagnosis before knows the number is the least of it: the knee comes back before the player does.
Mourad 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 Jul 2032
Words at Tijuana training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. José Antonio Rodríguez 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.
At 28 the improving is meant to be over. It is not: 3 points better than the mark taken at the start of the year, which is the sort of thing that happens to players who take the boring parts of the job seriously.
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Tijuana, and both men came out saying it was fine.
The unglamorous genius of a well-written contract. Jackson Porozo is somebody else's player now, and $633.3K has arrived because the people who sold him thought further ahead than the transfer window.
Another week, another link, another denial nobody quite believes. Tijuana know the market decides these things, not the back pages — but the back pages are louder.
The last league game has been played and the table has stopped moving: 17 points. The summer begins on Monday, and so does the argument about what it all meant.
Mourad 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.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Efraín Orona was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Warm-up bib, ninety minutes of watching, and a handshake at the end that fooled nobody. Big matches tell you who a manager trusts; this one told Efraín Orona.
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.
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.
It finished 1‑1, and it somehow always looked like it would. One of those afternoons where the table moves less than the tempers.
The dugout15 Mar 2032
The manager’s verdict
“I am frustrated, honestly. We did enough to win and we did not win.” Interim Coach was not hiding it after 1‑1, and nobody in the Tijuana dressing room was either.
“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 Tijuana, and it is not being withdrawn.
“We were not good enough today and I am not going to dress it up.” Interim Coach after 0‑2, in the tone of a man who knows the next question and does not intend to answer it.
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.
Newcastle United have been asked whether they would lend him. Loans are agreed quickly or not at all, and this one will be one or the other by the weekend.
Tijuana have made the call to Athletic Bilbao. No fee, a share of the wages, and a spare shirt in the position where the squad has been thinnest all season.
In brief
The dugoutAlejandro Gómez has become a man the manager trusts
20 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.
Mourad 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.
Squad22 Dec 2031
Words at Tijuana training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Efraín Orona 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.
Two sides from the bottom of the table, three points, and an afternoon that will be described afterwards as a relegation decider by whoever loses it.
The dugout22 Dec 2031
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 Interim Coach left the room before anybody could ask which.
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.
Another week, another link, another denial nobody quite believes. Tijuana know the market decides these things, not the back pages — but the back pages are louder.
The words a physio says slowly. 23 days is what the club will announce and everybody who has heard this diagnosis before knows the number is the least of it: the knee comes back before the player does.
Terms were offered and declined. Whether it was the wages, the role or the town, nobody at Club America is saying, and nobody at Tijuana is enjoying the guessing.
Boardroom1 Sep 2031
Deadline passes with 22 signed and 16 gone
That is the business done at Tijuana until the window opens again. Whether it was enough will be answered on Saturdays rather than in a column, and the first Saturday is close.
“I want to win things, and I would like to do it here.” Nothing has been demanded and nothing has been threatened — but a boardroom at Tijuana hears a sentence like that exactly as it was built.
Successful dribbles: 23. He went past people as if he had been told there was a prize for it, and by the end the full-back had stopped pretending to try.
Mourad 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.
Squad1 Sep 2031
Efraín Orona 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.
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.
A loan enquiry to Queens Park Rangers: cover, or a look at somebody the club cannot afford to buy yet. Either way the answer will come back inside the week.
In brief
Player ratingsThe afternoon belonged to Aarón Mejía
The words a physio says slowly. 30 days is what the club will announce and everybody who has heard this diagnosis before knows the number is the least of it: the knee comes back before the player does.
Everything agreed with Cruz Azul, everything agreed with the player; a doctor is the only person left to persuade. The photograph is a day or two away.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Tijuana this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad25 Aug 2031
Aarón Mejía 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.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Anderlecht have kept their man, and Tijuana go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
“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.
Squad25 Aug 2031
9 new faces, and Tijuana 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.
135 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Tijuana lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Mourad 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.
Squad12 May 2031
Words at Tijuana training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Efraín Orona 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.
11 days since the seat came open, a list of names doing the rounds, and nobody has signed anything. Every week this drags on the shortlist gets shorter.
“I was told straight, and I would rather have it straight.” The manager at Tijuana has been clear about where Brayan Félix stands, which is more than many ever get.
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.
6 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.
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.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Tijuana this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Efraín Orona was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Efraín Orona was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
“The supporters are entitled to be angry. So am I. We will put it right.” 0‑2, a manager saying the necessary things, and a dressing room that heard a different version of them.
Two goals and a mark of 8.60 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
Successful dribbles: 24. He went past people as if he had been told there was a prize for it, and by the end the full-back had stopped pretending to try.
Domingo Blanco 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.
There is a version of every career where the player ends up somewhere he chose rather than somewhere that chose him. Daniel Morales is living that version at Tijuana, and it tends to show in the first month.
Squad20 Jan 2031
Words at Tijuana training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Nicolás Díaz 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.
A bone, which is the one injury with a calendar attached. Tijuana will name a return date and, unusually for this business, will probably be right about it.
Mourad 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.
Squad23 Dec 2030
Words at Tijuana training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Aarón Mejía 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.
“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 dugout23 Dec 2030
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 Interim Coach left the room before anybody could ask which.
Another week, another link, another denial nobody quite believes. Tijuana know the market decides these things, not the back pages — but the back pages are louder.
Toluca next, and one man in the Tijuana dressing room knows their training ground better than his own. The reception will tell him what they thought of him.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 48 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Aarón Mejía was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
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. Tijuana know what is at stake and so does everybody in the away end.
“The supporters are entitled to be angry. So am I. We will put it right.” 0‑3, a manager saying the necessary things, and a dressing room that heard a different version of them.
Successful dribbles: 15. He went past people as if he had been told there was a prize for it, and by the end the full-back had stopped pretending to try.
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 7.53 for the rest of it.
Mourad 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.
Squad28 Oct 2030
Nicolás Díaz 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.
“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 dugout28 Oct 2030
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 1‑2 defeat, delivered by Interim Coach to a room that had heard them before.
Pumas UNAM next, and one man in the Tijuana dressing room knows their training ground better than his own. The reception will tell him what they thought of him.
The shape wanted a different profile against this opponent, which is a real football answer and no comfort at all to the man it is about. He did nothing wrong and he did not play.
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Mourad provided it, and the 8.73 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Efraín Orona was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
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.
A point taken on 89 minutes is worth exactly one point and considerably more than that to a dressing room. This side does not stop, which is a reputation worth more than the result.
Chances created: 12. Not on the scoresheet and not remotely anonymous — a passing performance that pulled a defence apart without leaving a mark on the column that gets read.