Sergio Pabón damages knee ligaments — 127 days out
The words a physio says slowly. 127 days is what the club will announce and everybody who has heard this diagnosis before knows the number is the least of it: the knee comes back before the player does.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Deportes Quindio can pretend not to have heard.
At 20 he is doing things this season that he could not do last season, and doing them every week. Form comes and goes; this has stayed long enough to be called something else.
In brief
SquadWords at Deportes Quindio training over how hard people work
Deportivo Pasto go through and Deportes Quindio go home, 0‑1 the scoreline that did it. The dressing room will call the league the priority now, because that is what dressing rooms say.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Andrés Tello was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
“We were not good enough today and I am not going to dress it up.” Camilo Castillo after 0‑1, in the tone of a man who knows the next question and does not intend to answer it.
The shape wanted a different profile against this opponent, which is a real football answer and no comfort at all to the man it is about. He did nothing wrong and he did not play.
“Nobody outside is coming to save us.” It was short, it was not comfortable, and by all accounts the Deportes Quindio squad were quieter afterwards than they had been all season.
Not dropped, not injured, looked after. The staff decided the legs mattered more than the afternoon, and that is the least dramatic line on this page for a reason.
José Lloreda 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 academy exists for exactly this morning. Pablo Martinez has come through every age group the club runs and has now been handed a senior number, and the people who coached him at twelve will be the proudest in the building.
There is no fee, no unveiling and no agent on the steps. Camilo Medina has been at this club since he was a boy and is now, formally, one of the first-team squad — which for a local readership beats any signing of any size.
Clubs spend fortunes looking for players and occasionally find one down the corridor. Mateo Montero is that, and the reception he gets on his first appearance will be different in kind from the one any signing receives.
The academy exists for exactly this morning. Luis Lemos has come through every age group the club runs and has now been handed a senior number, and the people who coached him at twelve will be the proudest in the building.
Every shape has positions in it and this one does not have his. Deportes Quindio will either change the shape, change his job, or change his club, and he is waiting to hear which.