“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.
Santiago Pereira 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.
He found out with everybody else, an hour before kick-off, from a sheet of paper on a wall. Nobody at Barranquilla pretended it was anything other than a decision about him.
9 clean sheets from 17 appearances at Depor. That is the whole of a goalkeeper’s job done properly, and it is being done a long way from the club that owns him.
“A point is a point and I will take it, but we should have had all three.” Fabian Rios after the 1‑1 draw, and the sentence every manager in the country said at some stage this weekend.
Squad28 May 2029
Johan Brausin 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.
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.
Defending was optional and nobody took up the option. 6 goals between Barranquilla and Real Santander, and not one of the people who paid to be there will ask for the money back.
A 4‑2 win over Real Santander, earned rather than given, and the sort of afternoon that sends everyone home talking about next week instead of this one.
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.
There is a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 22-year-old it feels ownership of. Juan Diego Verdeza has it now, and everything he does for the rest of his time here will be measured against the goodwill he was handed for free.
“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 The request is on a desk at Barranquilla, and it is not being withdrawn.
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 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.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Daniel Castillo was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
“The supporters are entitled to be angry. So am I. We will put it right.” 0‑1, a manager saying the necessary things, and a dressing room that heard a different version of them.
“We are a long way apart, and pretending otherwise helps nobody.” Neither side is close, and the calendar is not on the club's side.
Squad19 Feb 2029
The division's best last weekend was a Barranquilla man
It is a small honour and it is not nothing: somebody watched every match in the division and decided that Jordan Barrera was the best thing in any of them.
“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 will confirm this and nothing else explains the last month of selections. A costly error buys a player a period of being second choice that is always longer than the error was.
$21.0K on the table at Tigres. The manager wanted him, the board agreed a number, and the only voices still to be heard are the ones at the other club.
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.
Every club 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 it has been tried.
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Howell Mena signs something — a contract at Barranquilla or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Sebastián Guerra will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Barranquilla the goodbyes have quietly begun.
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 dugout23 Oct 2028
The manager has not finished forgetting Yeferson Moreno's mistake
Publicly it is behind everybody. It is not behind the man who picks the team, and the only place that shows is a team sheet. He will get another chance; he will get it in a match that matters less.
6 new signings in one window. Every one may be an upgrade and the side can still be worse for a while, which is the part of a rebuild the verdicts never mention.
Words at Barranquilla training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Daniel Castillo is at the centre of it, and the squad will now find out whether the standard rises or the pair of them simply stop speaking.
Santiago Pereira 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 words a physio says slowly. 26 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.
Cristian Peñate 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.
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Kevin Varas, and the manager let it.
The dugout11 Sep 2028
Howell Mena is still being punished for one mistake
Nobody will confirm it and the team sheets confirm it every week. One error has bought him a spell as second choice that is already longer than the error deserved.
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Barranquilla, and both men came out saying it was fine.
“We keep meeting, and we keep leaving the room with the same numbers we walked in with.” Another round of talks at Barranquilla, another week without a signature from Manuel Valle.
The list is a quiet document with a loud meaning. Juan Diego Verdeza may talk to anybody who asks, and everybody at the club understands what that means.
He looks like a man who lives here now rather than one who is working here. It took most of a season, and at Barranquilla the difference is visible from the back of the stand.
In brief
MatchNothing left to play for but pride at Barranquilla
“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 Barranquilla, and it is not being withdrawn.
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.
It is the most legitimate ambition in the sport and the hardest for most clubs to satisfy. Yeferson Moreno wants continental football; whether Barranquilla can provide it is a question about the next two seasons, not about him.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Daniel Castillo was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
12 new signings in one window. Every one may be an upgrade and the side can still be worse for a while, which is the part of a rebuild the verdicts never mention.
Nobody will confirm this and nothing else explains the last month of selections. A costly error buys a player a period of being second choice that is always longer than the error was.
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Barranquilla, and both men came out saying it was fine.
“I was told what my role would be, and I signed on that basis. It has not happened.” A grievance with a date attached is the hardest kind to settle.
Squad22 May 2028
Words at Barranquilla training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. José Luis Caicedo is at the centre of it, and the squad will now find out whether the standard rises or the pair of them simply stop speaking.
Cristian Peñate 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.
He is 22 and the ground already sings his name, which is a thing that happens to local boys and almost never to signings. Everything from here is measured against an affection he did nothing to earn except be from here.
Marked 8.03 — 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.
A player who expected to start watched it instead. The manager will call it a decision for the team; Kevin Varas will call it something else in private.
“The players deserve the credit. My job was easy today.” It was not, and everybody in the room knew it; after 2‑0, Fabian Rios could afford to be generous.
60 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.
There is no worse way to lose a footballer. Ebaldo Pérez has pre-agreed a move away, which means every appearance between now and June is made by a man the club can no longer sell, and somebody upstairs will be asked why the contract was allowed to get here.
Squad14 Feb 2028
Words at Barranquilla training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. José Luis Caicedo is at the centre of it, and the squad will now find out whether the standard rises or the pair of them simply stop speaking.
Darwin Avendaño 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 Barranquilla, and it is not being withdrawn.
Cristian Peñate 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 had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Barranquilla, and both men came out saying it was fine.