Everybody at Deportivo Miranda saw it before anybody said it, which is how this always goes. At 33 the decline is real and measurable — 3 points — and the only question left is how the club handles somebody it owes a great deal to.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. José Dario Ascanio 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.
There is a figure at which a wage bill stops being ambitious and becomes the reason nothing else is possible, and this club has reached it. Nothing is left over for a transfer, a stand or a rainy afternoon.
Deportivo Miranda have made the call to Union Magdalena. No fee, a share of the wages, and a spare shirt in the position where the squad has been thinnest all season.
Fortaleza CEIF 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.
In brief
The dugoutAron Angulo knocks on the manager’s door
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Deportivo Miranda this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
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.
He is doing things on a Saturday afternoon that nobody around him can answer, which is flattering for about one season and a problem after that. Deportivo Miranda will not keep him by pretending otherwise.
“We keep meeting, and we keep leaving the room with the same numbers we walked in with.” Another round of talks at Deportivo Miranda, another week without a signature from Jhohann Yabur.
The accountants will call it good business and they will be right, which is not the point anybody outside the boardroom is making. Giovanni Quatromani was one of the reasons people came, and $160.0K does not replace that by itself.
A medical, a signature, a shirt held up in front of a sponsor’s board. Deportivo Miranda have done the hard part with Banfield, and the part that remains is the part supporters actually see.
Deportivo Miranda asked and Monagas said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
He is doing things every Saturday that nobody around him can answer. It is flattering for a season and a problem after that, and Deportivo Miranda know which stage they are at.
A loan enquiry to Argentino de Quilmes: cover, or a look at somebody the club cannot afford to buy yet. Either way the answer will come back inside the week.
Nothing in writing and nothing in public: a word about playing time, given face to face at Deportivo Miranda. The team sheets over the next month will show whether it was worth having.
A new face in his position and a shirt he thought he owned suddenly up for discussion. Deportivo Miranda have promised nothing, which is what clubs promise at this stage.
Rodrigo Gallo 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 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 a figure at which a wage bill stops being ambitious and becomes the reason nothing else is possible, and this club has reached it. Nothing is left over for a transfer, a stand or a rainy afternoon.
A conversation in the manager’s office, and a commitment that came out of it. Promises like that are cheap to make and expensive to break, and Tomás Barbero has written the date down.
In brief
MarketThe clock does Radamés Davis’s negotiating for him
Tomás Barbero 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.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Rodrigo Gallo trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
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.
Tomás Barbero 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 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.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Deportivo Miranda they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
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.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Deportivo Miranda this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
There is a figure at which a wage bill stops being ambitious and becomes the reason nothing else is possible, and this club has reached it. Nothing is left over for a transfer, a stand or a rainy afternoon.
He used to be one of the options. He is now one of the men the options are picked around, and the change happened quietly enough that only the dressing room noticed on the day.
Nothing in writing and nothing in public: a word about playing time, given face to face at Deportivo Miranda. The team sheets over the next month will show whether it was worth having.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and José Dario Ascanio was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
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.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. José Dario Ascanio 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.
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.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Deportivo Miranda is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
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.
Rodrigo Gallo 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.
10 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.
Nothing in writing and nothing in public: a word about playing time, given face to face at Deportivo Miranda. The team sheets over the next month will show whether it was worth having.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Deportivo Miranda can pretend not to have heard.
Nobody makes a documentary about a hamstring and everybody in the game fears one. Deportivo Miranda will be careful with the return date, because the second one is always worse than the first.
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.
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.
The demotion a club never announces and a dressing room always notices. Gabriel Fermín is further from the side than he was, and the reason will not be given until he asks.
In brief
The dugoutRodrigo Gallo asks for a word with the manager
“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 Deportivo Miranda, and it is not being withdrawn.
Tomás Barbero 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.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. José Dario Ascanio 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 conversation in the manager’s office, and a commitment that came out of it. Promises like that are cheap to make and expensive to break, and Tomás Barbero has written the date down.
In brief
The dugoutRadamés Davis asks for a word with the manager
Gabriel Fermín 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 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.
In brief
The dugoutRadamés Davis knocks on the manager's door
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Deportivo Miranda have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Deportivo Miranda they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
The rules permit it and it stings anyway. Diego González has agreed terms with Dynamo Puerto for the summer, and until then he pulls on this shirt as a player who has already chosen his next one.
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.
10 new signings in one window. Every one may be an upgrade and the side can still be worse for a while, which is the part of a rebuild the verdicts never mention.
4 months left, and both sides know what that means: every week without a signature, the fee Deportivo Miranda could ask drops and the wages Giovanni Quatromani can ask rise.
In brief
SquadThe training reports on Marco Coronado are not good
SquadJesús Vega makes the division’s eleven — 6.71
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.
At 22 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.
Some games turn on a moment; this one turned on a man. 7.61 on the card, and the Deportivo Miranda support went home talking about one name.
The dugout24 Aug 2026
The manager’s verdict
“I am not going to get carried away and I will not let them either. It was a good day. There will be harder ones.” Salomon Arango kept it short after the 1‑0 win, which is what managers do when they are happy.
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Deportivo Miranda, and both men came out saying it was fine.
The manager wanted a different profile for this opponent, which is a real football reason and no consolation. He did nothing wrong and he did not play.
7.67, 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 Deportivo Miranda this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Andrés Maldonado 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.
Every shape has positions in it and this one does not have his. Deportivo Miranda will either change the shape, change his job, or change his club, and he is waiting to hear which.
There is a version of every career where the player ends up somewhere he chose rather than somewhere that chose him. Tomás Barbero is living that version at Deportivo Miranda, and it tends to show in the first month.
Tomás Barbero 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.
There is no fee, no unveiling and no agent on the steps. Luis Otero has been at this club since he was a boy and is now, formally, one of the first-team squad — which for a local readership beats any signing of any size.
Clubs spend fortunes looking for players and occasionally find one down the corridor. Andres Osorio is that, and the reception he gets on his first appearance will be different in kind from the one any signing receives.
The academy exists for exactly this morning. Darwin Casseres has come through every age group the club runs and has now been handed a senior number, and the people who coached him at twelve will be the proudest in the building.
There is no fee, no unveiling and no agent on the steps. Roberto Castillo has been at this club since he was a boy and is now, formally, one of the first-team squad — which for a local readership beats any signing of any size.
He is doing things every Saturday that nobody around him can answer. It is flattering for a season and a problem after that, and Deportivo Miranda know which stage they are at.