Supporters who sing when it goes badly are supporters. Supporters who gather afterwards are a problem, and everybody inside the building knows which of the two this now is.
19 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Toluca lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
7 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.
Alexis Vega 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 chances are being made and something is happening between the making and the finishing. 3 matches now, and the anxiety in the ground arrives a little earlier every week.
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.
55 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Toluca lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the team. 9 saves, several of them the sort nobody expects to see stopped, and a scoreline that flatters everybody in front of him.
At 39 he is supposed to be managing his minutes. Instead he was marked 8.62 and looked, for ninety minutes, exactly like the player everybody remembers.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Santiago Martin will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Toluca the goodbyes have quietly begun.
Alexis Vega 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.
117 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Toluca lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 16 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
At 38 he is supposed to be managing his minutes. Instead he was marked 7.90 and looked, for ninety minutes, exactly like the player everybody remembers.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Toluca this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
4 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.
The unbeaten run reaches 7. Some of them were wins and some were escapes, but a side that refuses to lose is a side other dressing rooms talk about.
Squad17 Aug 2037
Words at Toluca training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Jinairo Johnson 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.
124 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Toluca lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 23 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
At 35 he is supposed to be managing his minutes. Instead he was marked 8.59 and looked, for ninety minutes, exactly like the player everybody remembers.
Alexis Vega 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 clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Toluca is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Alexis Vega signs something — a contract at Toluca or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 81 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
Alexis Vega 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.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Toluca they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
In brief
SquadWords at Toluca training over how hard people work
1‑6 to Club America, and it was every bit as bad as the number suggests. There are defeats you argue about and defeats you apologise for; this was the second kind.
It has stopped being a mood in the stands and started being something organised. Boards can ignore a bad atmosphere for a long time; they cannot ignore this stage of it for very long at all.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Toluca have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Toluca this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Osciel De La Cruz will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Toluca the goodbyes have quietly begun.
7 goals. Both benches spent the second half looking at each other rather than at the pitch. Purists will complain about Toluca and Club America in equal measure; everybody else had a wonderful time.
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Robert Morales, and the manager let it.
Player ratings9 Feb 2037
Jinairo Johnson was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.37. 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.
In brief
BoardroomNobody left the Toluca dressing room in a hurry
It has stopped being a mood in the stands and started being something organised. Boards can ignore a bad atmosphere for a long time; they cannot ignore this stage of it for very long at all.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Toluca can pretend not to have heard.
There is an age at which every good afternoon gets described as a throwback, which is unfair and also accurate. 8.26 at 39, and nobody on the pitch was better.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Toluca this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
“I have given this everything, but my family is not here and neither am I, not really.” A footballer can be coached out of bad form. Nobody has ever been coached out of this, and Toluca know it.
Squad15 Dec 2036
A last season at home is what Ivan Mandić is after
It is sentimental, it is completely genuine, and it is the beginning of a departure nobody has announced. The club can be gracious about it or it can pretend not to have heard.
6 goals. Both benches spent the second half looking at each other rather than at the pitch. Purists will complain about Toluca and Pumas UNAM in equal measure; everybody else had a wonderful time.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Ivan Mandić will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Toluca the goodbyes have quietly begun.
There is an age at which every good afternoon gets described as a throwback, which is unfair and also accurate. 8.00 at 35, and nobody on the pitch was better.
Alexis Vega 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.
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.