Marked for Phillippe Oviedo
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad5 May 2031
A knee injury of the worst kind for Omar Cassiani
51 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Barranquilla lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Match3 May 2031
10 without a win is the sort of run that changes how a town talks about its club, and Universitario Popayan were the afternoon it stopped. Nothing is fixed by one result and everything feels different by one.
Market5 May 2031
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Barranquilla can pretend not to have heard.
Player ratings5 May 2031
Up for the corner, and Nicola Profeta delivers — 7.92
Centre-halves are allowed forward twice a season and are judged on what they do when they get there. Nicola Profeta scored, was marked 7.92, and got back before anybody noticed he had gone.
Player ratings5 May 2031
Successful dribbles: 23. He went past people as if he had been told there was a prize for it, and by the end the full-back had stopped pretending to try.
Squad5 May 2031
Jhon Navia 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.
Squad5 May 2031
Cristian Rivas and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
The dugout5 May 2031
“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.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad14 Apr 2031
72 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Barranquilla lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
Match12 Apr 2031
8 matches without a win for Barranquilla
The run now stands at 8, and the questions being asked around Barranquilla are no longer polite ones.
Match14 Apr 2031
Every point is an argument now for Barranquilla
Position 18 and 5 points, and the table gets read bottom-up in this part of town. The calendar has stopped being a schedule and started being a countdown.
Squad14 Apr 2031
There were 6 saves in it, and at least three that had no business being saves at all. The ten outfield players owe him a drink and they know it.
Player ratings14 Apr 2031
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.
Market14 Apr 2031
Johan Brausin has one foot out of the door
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Barranquilla they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
Market14 Apr 2031
It is not a grievance and it is not a demand: he wants to play continental football, and he has stopped hiding it. Whether Barranquilla can give him that is a question about the club, not about him.
Squad14 Apr 2031
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Jhon Navia was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Match12 Apr 2031
A point taken on 95 minutes is worth exactly one point and considerably more than that to a dressing room. This side does not stop, which is a reputation worth more than the result.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Squad17 Feb 2031
A knee injury of the worst kind for Omar Cassiani
128 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Barranquilla lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Player ratings17 Feb 2031
Successful dribbles: 27. There was always a defender in front of him and there was never a defender in front of him for long.
Market17 Feb 2031
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Barranquilla can pretend not to have heard.
Market17 Feb 2031
Johan Brausin has one foot out of the door
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Barranquilla they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
Match15 Feb 2031
No end in sight to Barranquilla's wait for a win
4 matches now without a victory, and the excuses have worn thinner than the patience. Somebody at Barranquilla has to find a result from somewhere.
Match15 Feb 2031
4 games without scoring. Strikers stop looking up, midfielders take the extra touch, and every shot that clears the bar is followed by a groan that has been building since the last goal.
Squad17 Feb 2031
Fabián Correa 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.
Match15 Feb 2031
La Equidad left with the points after a 0‑2 defeat that will take some explaining on the terraces.
The dugout17 Feb 2031
The manager’s verdict
“That is on me. I pick the team and I picked wrong.” Managers say that when they mean it and when they need to be seen to, and after 0‑2 Interim Coach left the room before anybody could ask which.
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Market20 Jan 2031
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.
Squad20 Jan 2031
Jhon Navia 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.
Squad20 Jan 2031
Juan Diego Verdeza 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.
The dugout20 Jan 2031
“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.
The dugout20 Jan 2031
Jhoynner Lozano 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.
Looking ahead20 Jan 2031
He used to wear the other shirt. On Saturday he plays against Deportivo Cali in this one, and whatever he says this week about it being just another game will be untrue.
Market20 Jan 2031
Barranquilla have let the market know Jhordy Camacho can be had. No price in the advert, but everyone in the trade knows roughly what it says.
Boardroom20 Jan 2031
The Barranquilla production line keeps running
59 graduates out of an academy now rated 9 out of 20. Clubs this size survive on exactly that, and the town knows every name.
Looking ahead20 Jan 2031
They sit in position 5 and they will be waiting. Away form is where a season shows its true character, and this side has a point to make about its own.
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Market6 Jan 2031
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Barranquilla they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
Squad6 Jan 2031
Howell Mena honoured for the season
The kind of year that ends with a name being read out in a hall. Barranquilla had the benefit of it every week and now have the problem of everybody else knowing.
Transfer targets6 Jan 2031
Terms were offered and declined. Whether it was the wages, the role or the town, nobody at Union Magdalena is saying, and nobody at Barranquilla is enjoying the guessing.
Transfer targets6 Jan 2031
Barranquilla asked and Deportivo Pereira said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
The dugout6 Jan 2031
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Cristian Rivas, and the manager let it.
Squad6 Jan 2031
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Barranquilla this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
The dugout6 Jan 2031
Diego Montien 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.
Squad6 Jan 2031
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.
The dugout6 Jan 2031
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.