The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Barranquilla is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
Squad4 Oct 2027
Words at Barranquilla training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Sebastián Guerra 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.
Neymar Uribe 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.
Clubs make promises constantly and the page usually only hears about them when they are broken. This one was honoured, and the dressing room noticed that faster than any supporter did.
The last league game has been played and the table has stopped moving: 32 points. The summer begins on Monday, and so does the argument about what it all meant.
The clubs have shaken hands with Fortaleza CEIF; the player has not yet. Personal terms are next, and personal terms are where more deals die than anybody prints.
José Luis Caicedo 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.
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Daniel Castillo and Barranquilla agree another 4 years.
Squad21 Jun 2027
Words at Barranquilla training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Howell Mena 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 20 he was better than everybody his age in the division for four weeks running, which is harder than one good afternoon. Barranquilla will try not to make too much of it.
The dugout8 Feb 2027
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 Diego Barrios to a room that had heard them before.
A month is long enough that nobody gets in by accident. Jordan Barrera is in the division's best eleven for it, which is a quieter compliment than an award and a more reliable one.
“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 Barranquilla, and it is not being withdrawn.
Every footballer has an answer to the question about his boyhood club, and most of them never get to act on it. Silvio López has, at Barranquilla, and the first month will show what that does to a man.
The deal with Tigres is done in every sense but the one that puts him on the pitch. Nothing goes wrong at this stage, except on the occasions when it does.
José Luis Caicedo 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.
Barranquilla asked and Aguilas Doradas said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Alberto Higgins and Barranquilla agree another 4 years.
The manager has re-ordered his thinking and Cristian Peñate has come out of it lower. He will be told it is temporary, and the players who have heard that before will avoid his eye.
“We keep meeting, and we keep leaving the room with the same numbers we walked in with.” Another round of talks at Barranquilla, another week without a signature from Darwin Torres.
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.