“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Puebla have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
3 wins on the spin now, and the question has changed from whether the run ends to who ends it. Confidence like this cannot be bought; it has to be earned exactly this way.
Juan Pablo Vargas 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 Puebla they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
Marked 9.24 — 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.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Puebla have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
The deal that would have taken Alan Arboleda to Dorados has collapsed at the last stage, and he reports back to Puebla with a summer to forget and a season still to play. Nobody is saying which side walked away.
Juan Pablo Vargas 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.
Cade Cowell 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.
Everything was agreed until it was not, and Eduardo Ramsés Navarro reports back to Puebla with a summer to forget. Neither club is saying who walked away from the table.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Pablo trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the team. 7 saves, several of them the sort nobody expects to see stopped, and a scoreline that flatters everybody in front of him.
“This is not anger. I have thought about it for months, and nothing that has happened lately changed my mind.” The request is on a desk at Puebla, and it is not being withdrawn.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Puebla they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
Juan Pablo Vargas 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.
Juan Pablo Vargas 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.
“This is not anger. I have thought about it for months, and nothing that has happened lately changed my mind.” The request is on a desk at Puebla, and it is not being withdrawn.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Puebla this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Puebla can pretend not to have heard.
Édgar Guerra 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.
“Some mornings you wake up and you are still a long way from everything you know.” It is not the football and it never was; Puebla are dealing with a man who wants a different country.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Puebla this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Marked 8.74 — 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.
Headers, blocks, tackles, interceptions — 32 of them, and not one goal behind him. The sort of performance that never makes a highlight reel and wins football matches.
“This is not anger. I have thought about it for months, and nothing that has happened lately changed my mind.” The request is on a desk at Puebla, and it is not being withdrawn.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Puebla this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
“I watch every Puebla game from here. That says everything about where my head is.” The loan at Toluca runs its course, but his heart never made the trip.
“Some mornings you wake up and you are still a long way from everything you know.” It is not the football and it never was; Puebla are dealing with a man who wants a different country.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Puebla this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
“I watch every Puebla game from here. That says everything about where my head is.” The loan at Toluca runs its course, but his heart never made the trip.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Puebla this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
An error at the back is a moment; an error in goal is a goal. Julio González knows it, the crowd knew it instantly, and there was nobody behind him to make it anything else.
“I watch every Puebla game from here. That says everything about where my head is.” The loan at Toluca runs its course, but his heart never made the trip.
A season average of 7.31 at an age when most of his year group are still in the youth team. Toluca know what they have, and so, by now, does everybody else.
Sebastián Córdova 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.
Shots: 7. Goals: none. The chances were there and they were good ones, and they went into the stand, the goalkeeper's arms and the side netting in roughly that order.
“I want to win things, and I would like to do it here.” Nothing has been demanded and nothing has been threatened — but a boardroom at Toluca hears a sentence like that exactly as it was built.
Sebastián Córdova 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.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Puebla this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
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.
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Federico Pereira signs something — a contract at Toluca or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Puebla this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Marked 8.83 — 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 award is a small thing with a heavy meaning: for four weeks nobody in this division did his job better. Puebla have the trophy on a shelf and the player in the side.
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.
Marked 8.76 — 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.
5 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.
Juan Pablo Vargas 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.
Juan Pablo Vargas 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; Kyle Kelly will call it something else in private.
Juan Pablo Vargas 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.
Position 17 and 15 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.
Alejandro Organista 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.
Another week, another link, another denial nobody quite believes. Puebla know the market decides these things, not the back pages — but the back pages are louder.