Marked for Daniel Riascos
From our football correspondent
Steady
Market5 Jun 2028
Cortulua say no — this time
The offer from Smouha for Gabriel Pacheco was heard out and sent back the same day. First bids are rarely meant to succeed; they are meant to find out how loudly the door closes.
Player ratings5 Jun 2028
Successful dribbles: 26. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
Market5 Jun 2028
“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 The request is on a desk at Cortulua, and it is not being withdrawn.
Squad5 Jun 2028
Mateo Garcia 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.
Player ratings5 Jun 2028
Alfredo Diaz was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.00. There are performances a supporter describes to somebody who was not there and cannot quite convey; this was one, and the number does not help either.
Match3 Jun 2028
Cortulua caught on 93 minutes
The board was up, the win was priced in, and then Jaguares scored. There is no worse minute to concede in and the ground emptied in the silence that follows one.
Squad5 Jun 2028
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Brayan Aragón and Cortulua agree another 4 years.
Transfer targets5 Jun 2028
A loan move for Joaquín Freitas is in the works
Cortulua have made the call to Flamengo. No fee, a share of the wages, and a spare shirt in the position where the squad has been thinnest all season.
Squad5 Jun 2028
A place in the month's best eleven for Oscar Giraldo
Four or five weekends of consistency, judged against everybody in the division doing his job. Oscar Giraldo has come out of that comparison in the side, and Cortulua have had the benefit of every one of those afternoons.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Player ratings17 Apr 2028
Successful dribbles: 54. There was always a defender in front of him and there was never a defender in front of him for long.
Squad17 Apr 2028
35 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Cortulua lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
Match17 Apr 2028
Cortulua refuse to drop out of the race
Position 3, 29 points, and the result everyone checks first is now theirs. The word is still not being said around the ground, which is how you know everyone is thinking it.
The dugout17 Apr 2028
news_b_frozen_out_of_the_side
Market17 Apr 2028
It is the most legitimate ambition in the sport and the hardest for most clubs to satisfy. Carlos Hurtado wants continental football; whether Cortulua can provide it is a question about the next two seasons, not about him.
Squad17 Apr 2028
Mateo Garcia in a row with a teammate
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Cortulua this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Match15 Apr 2028
9 home matches unbeaten. Visiting sides arrive already talking about the atmosphere, which is usually the sign that they have half-lost before kickoff.
Match15 Apr 2028
A 2‑1 win over Millonarios, earned rather than given, and the sort of afternoon that sends everyone home talking about next week instead of this one.
Squad17 Apr 2028
“The easiest signature of my career.” Daniel Riascos and Cortulua agree another 3 years, and the manager can plan around him rather than about him.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Market15 Nov 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 Cortulua, and it is not being withdrawn.
Squad15 Nov 2027
A falling-out at Cortulua
Mateo Garcia and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Squad15 Nov 2027
A row about effort at Cortulua
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Keiner Estacio was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
The dugout15 Nov 2027
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.
The dugout15 Nov 2027
Leonardo Lemos asks for a word with the manager
“I would rather say it to his face than read about it.” The meeting was requested by the player, which tells you most of what you need to know.
Market15 Nov 2027
The Mateo Garcia story refuses to die
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Mateo Garcia signs something — a contract at Cortulua or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
Loan watch15 Nov 2027
24 starts and an average of 6.79. He went there to play and he is playing, which is the only thing a loan was ever for.
The dugout15 Nov 2027
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 Styven Monsalve has written the date down.
The dugout15 Nov 2027
The manager plants his flag on Pablo Santos
“Judge me on him.” Managers do not say that kind of thing by accident — it moves the pressure from Pablo Santos’s shoulders onto his own, and both of them know it.