“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.
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.
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to José Luis Caicedo, and the manager let it.
Squad20 Sep 2027
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.
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.
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.
“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.
Squad23 Aug 2027
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.
Nobody at Barranquilla will say this on the record and the team sheets have been saying it for weeks. There is a small group in every squad who get picked when the fixture is difficult, and he has joined it.
In brief
The dugoutJaime Acosta knocks on the manager's door
SquadQuestions about Howell Mena on the training pitch
SquadMiguel Agámez is training like a man with a point to make
“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.
He is 21, he is averaging 7.22, and older professionals have started passing to him in the difficult minutes. That last part is the real scouting report.
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.
The name of Jhoynner Lozano has come up in conversations Barranquilla were not part of. Nothing formal, nothing signed — but nothing about it accidental either.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Howell Mena was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Deportivo Cali have kept their man, and Barranquilla go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
Barranquilla have made the call to Deportes Quindio. No fee, a share of the wages, and a spare shirt in the position where the squad has been thinnest all season.
Union Magdalena have been asked whether they would lend him. Loans are agreed quickly or not at all, and this one will be one or the other by the weekend.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and José Luis Caicedo trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
36 months left and silence from upstairs — no offer, no talks, nothing for his people to answer. Clubs that let a calendar do their negotiating usually end up negotiating with the calendar.
The clubs have shaken hands with Valledupar; the player has not yet. Personal terms are next, and personal terms are where more deals die than anybody prints.
It is the most legitimate ambition in the sport and the hardest for most clubs to satisfy. Howell Mena wants continental football; whether Barranquilla can provide it is a question about the next two seasons, not about him.
The deal with Once Caldas 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.
The system has changed and his position has not. A footballer can improve his form; he cannot improve the manager’s formation, and that is the whole of the problem.
Nothing in writing and nothing in public: a word about playing time, given face to face at Barranquilla. The team sheets over the next month will show whether it was worth having.
In brief
The dugoutJaime Acosta knocks on the manager’s door
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Marlon Carabali will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Barranquilla the goodbyes have quietly begun.
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.
Boardroom30 Nov 2026
140% of the income goes out in wages at Barranquilla
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.
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 Carlos Durán has written the date down.
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.
Nobody at Barranquilla will say this on the record and the team sheets have been saying it for weeks. There is a small group in every squad who get picked when the fixture is difficult, and he has joined it.
It is the most legitimate ambition in the sport and the hardest for most clubs to satisfy. Howell Mena wants continental football; whether Barranquilla can provide it is a question about the next two seasons, not about him.
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.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Marlon Carabali will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Barranquilla the goodbyes have quietly begun.
He will play here until the summer and then walk out of the door for free, having already signed elsewhere. Supporters will manage the first part of that sentence; it is the second they will struggle with.
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.
There is a figure at which a wage bill stops being ambitious and becomes the reason nothing else is possible, and this club has reached it. Nothing is left over for a transfer, a stand or a rainy afternoon.
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 Carlos Durán has written the date down.
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.
Squad28 Sep 2026
11 new faces, and Barranquilla are still learning each other
A squad rebuilt inside one window pays for it in a currency nobody budgets for. The football is not worse than the sum of the players; it is worse than the sum of the players who have played together before.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and José Luis Caicedo trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
3 months left, and both sides know what that means: every week without a signature, the fee Barranquilla could ask drops and the wages Marlon Carabali can ask rise.
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.