Marked for Patrick Preciado
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Squad30 Nov 2026
Fáiner Torijano damages knee ligaments — 130 days out
The words a physio says slowly. 130 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.
Squad30 Nov 2026
Mayer Gil 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.
Market30 Nov 2026
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.
Squad30 Nov 2026
Jesús Quintero 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.
The dugout30 Nov 2026
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Santiago Córdoba trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
The dugout30 Nov 2026
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.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Squad9 Nov 2026
154 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Deportivo Pasto lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
Squad9 Nov 2026
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 Pasto this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
The dugout9 Nov 2026
“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.
Squad9 Nov 2026
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Gian Cabezas was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Squad9 Nov 2026
The formation has left Cristian Díaz behind
Every shape has positions in it and this one does not have his. Deportivo Pasto will either change the shape, change his job, or change his club, and he is waiting to hear which.
The dugout9 Nov 2026
The manager makes Sergio Román a promise
Nothing in writing and nothing in public: a word about playing time, given face to face at Deportivo Pasto. The team sheets over the next month will show whether it was worth having.
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Player ratings21 Sep 2026
Marked 7.85 at 21, in a side that makes no allowances for age. He did not need any, and he looked the least nervous man on the pitch.
Match19 Sep 2026
Momentum is a hard thing to buy and an easy thing to lose, and right now Deportivo Pasto have 3 straight wins of it.
Squad21 Sep 2026
Fáiner Torijano 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 ratings21 Sep 2026
Mayer Gil runs at them all day
Successful dribbles: 21. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
Match19 Sep 2026
A 3‑2 win over Alianza Petrolera, earned rather than given, and the sort of afternoon that sends everyone home talking about next week instead of this one.
The terraces21 Sep 2026
There is a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 21-year-old it feels ownership of. Patrick Preciado has it now, and everything he does for the rest of his time here will be measured against the goodwill he was handed for free.
The dugout21 Sep 2026
“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.
Player ratings21 Sep 2026
Ninety minutes of Jorge Obregón at his very best
Marked 8.69. Players have careers without a single afternoon like this in them, and he has just had one in front of everybody at Deportivo Pasto.
Player ratings21 Sep 2026
There was one mistake and it ended in the net. Defenders are judged on the worst thing they did rather than on the eighty-nine minutes either side of it, which is unfair and is also the job.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Player ratings10 Aug 2026
Mayer Gil beats them one at a time
Successful dribbles: 23. There was always a defender in front of him and there was never a defender in front of him for long.
Squad10 Aug 2026
Mayer Gil 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 Deportivo Pasto this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad10 Aug 2026
“The easiest signature of my career.” Esneyder Mena and Deportivo Pasto agree another 4 years, and the manager can plan around him rather than about him.
Market10 Aug 2026
The academy exists for exactly this morning. Mateo Garcia 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.
Market10 Aug 2026
There is no fee, no unveiling and no agent on the steps. Victor Gonzalez 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.
Market10 Aug 2026
Clubs spend fortunes looking for players and occasionally find one down the corridor. Camilo Martinez is that, and the reception he gets on his first appearance will be different in kind from the one any signing receives.
Market10 Aug 2026
There is no fee, no unveiling and no agent on the steps. Jose Vargas 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.
Squad10 Aug 2026
200 games in this shirt, through managers and relegations and everything else. Service like it is disappearing from the game and the crowd knows what it is watching.
The dugout10 Aug 2026
“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.