“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Once Caldas can pretend not to have heard.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the team. 6 saves, several of them the sort nobody expects to see stopped, and a scoreline that flatters everybody in front of him.
It is not a grievance and it is not a demand: he wants to play continental football, and he has stopped hiding it. Whether Once Caldas can give him that is a question about the club, not about him.
Marked 8.15 — the sort of number a correspondent writes down twice to be sure. Everything he tried came off, and what he did not try was not worth trying.
The dugout30 Apr 2029
The view from the dugout
“We controlled it. There were spells I did not like and we will look at them, but the group showed me something.” Juan Murillo, on a 3‑1 win that he was already picking apart on the walk to the press room.
The dugout30 Apr 2029
Somebody else is better right now than Andrés Correa
The team sheet says it in public every week until it changes. The only version of being dropped a footballer cannot argue with, and the one he takes hardest.
In brief
The dugoutAndrés Correa has become a man the manager trusts
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Once Caldas can pretend not to have heard.
“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.
Squad2 Apr 2029
A place in the month's best eleven for Luis Vivero
Four or five weekends of consistency, judged against everybody in the division doing his job. Luis Vivero has come out of that comparison in the side, and Once Caldas have had the benefit of every one of those afternoons.
The demotion a club never announces and a dressing room always notices. Déinner Quiñónes is further from the side than he was, and the reason will not be given until he asks.
“I respect the manager and I am not going to sit here and pretend I am happy.” It is the most common sentence in football and it has never once been the end of a story.
Nobody at Once Caldas 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 dugoutMauro Carrizo asks for a word with the manager
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Once Caldas can pretend not to have heard.
Luis Palacios 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.
A player who expected to start watched it instead. The manager will call it a decision for the team; Andrés Correa will call it something else in private.
He is 19, and nobody at Once Caldas signed him for this season. Deals like this are judged in four years, by people who may not still be in the building.
Once Caldas paid $1.9M and Junior took it, which is the whole story in one sentence. The longer version involves a wage budget and will be told all season.
The phone has started ringing about Kevin Pérez again, and this time the name on the line is Bogota. Junior are listening politely and promising nothing.
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 had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Junior, and both men came out saying it was fine.
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 18 he is doing things at this level he could not do at the start of the season, and the coaching staff will tell you exactly which of them.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Junior this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
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 had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Junior, and both men came out saying it was fine.