Marked for Manuel Valle
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad26 Jul 2038
A knee injury of the worst kind for Wilmar Moreno
24 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Patriotas lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Squad26 Jul 2038
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Patriotas this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad26 Jul 2038
Iván Camacho 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.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad27 Apr 2037
A fracture rules Manuel Valle out for 24 days
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Patriotas will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
Squad27 Apr 2037
Juan José Hurtado 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.
Squad27 Apr 2037
Words at Patriotas training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Kevin Álvarez 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.
Squad27 Apr 2037
“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.
Player ratings27 Apr 2037
Marked 7.60 on an afternoon he ran from the first whistle to the last. Whatever else went wrong, Patriotas had the best player on the pitch.
Player ratings27 Apr 2037
Successful dribbles: 12. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad20 Apr 2037
A fracture rules Manuel Valle out for 31 days
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Patriotas will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
Market20 Apr 2037
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Patriotas is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
Market20 Apr 2037
“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 Patriotas, and it is not being withdrawn.
Squad20 Apr 2037
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Patriotas this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad20 Apr 2037
Iván Camacho 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.
Squad20 Apr 2037
“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.
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Match11 Apr 2037
Alejandro Pósito wins it after the whistle should have gone
90 minutes played. Alejandro Pósito found the finish in time that only existed because of earlier delays, and Depor went from a point to nothing inside one movement.
Squad13 Apr 2037
A fracture rules Manuel Valle out for 38 days
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Patriotas will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
Squad13 Apr 2037
Juan José Hurtado 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.
Match11 Apr 2037
Hard to beat is not the same as winning, but 7 matches without defeat is a foundation Patriotas did not have in the autumn.
Squad13 Apr 2037
Words at Patriotas training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Kevin Álvarez 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.
Match11 Apr 2037
Three points for Patriotas, 2‑1 the final word against Depor in a contest settled by the finer margins.
Player ratings13 Apr 2037
Marked 8.97 — 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.
Squad13 Apr 2037
The manager makes an example of Carlos Copete
“If you cannot run for the shirt, somebody else will wear it.” No name was used and none was needed; every player in that room knew who it was for.
Player ratings13 Apr 2037
Successful dribbles: 14. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad6 Apr 2037
A fracture rules Manuel Valle out for 45 days
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Patriotas will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
Squad6 Apr 2037
“I never wanted to be anywhere else. There is unfinished business here.” Sebastián Moreno commits to Patriotas for another 2 years.
Squad6 Apr 2037
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Patriotas this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Player ratings6 Apr 2037
A defender's afternoon for Sergio Ortuño
Defensive actions: 22. He was first to everything and second to nothing, and the goalkeeper had an easy day because of it.
Squad6 Apr 2037
Kevin Álvarez 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.
Player ratings6 Apr 2037
Successful dribbles: 21. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
Match4 Apr 2037
Whatever happens, Patriotas do not lose
6 games unbeaten now. Some were earned and some were survived, but a habit is forming — and habits are the hardest thing in football to play against.
Player ratings6 Apr 2037
Defensive actions: 21. He was first to everything and second to nothing, and the goalkeeper had an easy day because of it.
Player ratings6 Apr 2037
Felipe Riascos was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.99. There are performances a supporter describes to somebody who was not there and cannot quite convey; this was one, and the number does not help either.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad30 Mar 2037
A fracture rules Manuel Valle out for 52 days
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Patriotas will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
Squad30 Mar 2037
“I remember the meeting. I remember exactly what was promised in it.” Patriotas may remember it differently, which is precisely the problem.
Squad30 Mar 2037
Kevin Álvarez 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.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad23 Mar 2037
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the team. 11 saves, several of them the sort nobody expects to see stopped, and a scoreline that flatters everybody in front of him.
Squad23 Mar 2037
A fracture rules Manuel Valle out for 59 days
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Patriotas will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
Market23 Mar 2037
Only the photograph left for Felipe Riascos
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Felipe Riascos will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Patriotas the goodbyes have quietly begun.
Player ratings23 Mar 2037
Iván Camacho, 33, rolls back the years — 7.96
There is an age at which every good afternoon gets described as a throwback, which is unfair and also accurate. 7.96 at 33, and nobody on the pitch was better.
Market23 Mar 2037
Wilmar Borja hands in a written request
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Patriotas can pretend not to have heard.
Squad23 Mar 2037
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Patriotas this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad23 Mar 2037
Kevin Álvarez 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.
Player ratings23 Mar 2037
20 times he got in the way of something. Centre-halves get written about when they make mistakes and ignored when they do not, so an afternoon like this needs saying out loud: he is the reason the scoreline reads as it does.
Match21 Mar 2037
A 1‑0 win over Fortaleza CEIF, earned rather than given, and the sort of afternoon that sends everyone home talking about next week instead of this one.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad16 Mar 2037
A fracture rules Manuel Valle out for 66 days
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Patriotas will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
Match14 Mar 2037
The wait goes on for Patriotas
6 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.
Player ratings16 Mar 2037
25 defensive actions and a clean sheet at the end of them. A defender's afternoon can only be told by what did not happen, which is why nobody makes a highlights package out of one and every manager in the division would take it.
Market16 Mar 2037
The general version of this complaint is that a player wants more. The specific version names the thing: he wants to walk out under floodlights against clubs from other countries, and he has stopped pretending otherwise.
Squad16 Mar 2037
Juan José Hurtado 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.
Squad16 Mar 2037
Words at Patriotas training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Kevin Álvarez 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.
Squad16 Mar 2037
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Sebastián Moreno, and the manager let it.
Player ratings16 Mar 2037
Successful dribbles: 17. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Player ratings16 Mar 2037
14 defensive actions and a clean sheet at the end of them. A defender's afternoon can only be told by what did not happen, which is why nobody makes a highlights package out of one and every manager in the division would take it.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad9 Mar 2037
A fracture rules Manuel Valle out for 73 days
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Patriotas will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
Match7 Mar 2037
The wait goes on for Patriotas
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.
Squad9 Mar 2037
“The easiest signature of my career.” Juan José Hurtado and Patriotas agree another 2 years, and the manager can plan around him rather than about him.
Squad9 Mar 2037
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Patriotas this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Player ratings9 Mar 2037
Headers, blocks, tackles, interceptions — 22 of them, and not one goal behind him. The sort of performance that never makes a highlight reel and wins football matches.
Squad9 Mar 2037
Iván Camacho 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.
Boardroom9 Mar 2037
Wages eat 173% of everything Patriotas earn
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.
Player ratings9 Mar 2037
Successful dribbles: 16. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
Player ratings9 Mar 2037
Shots: 10, not one of them in. A centre forward is paid for one thing, and on this evidence he has forgotten which thing it is.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Match25 Feb 2037
The small margins put Patriotas out
Out, 0‑2 to Union Magdalena, and the long argument about which of the small moments decided it. The league is all there is now, and everybody knows it.
Squad2 Mar 2037
A fracture rules Manuel Valle out for 80 days
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Patriotas will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
Squad2 Mar 2037
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the team. 8 saves, several of them the sort nobody expects to see stopped, and a scoreline that flatters everybody in front of him.
The terraces2 Mar 2037
The ground has had enough
“We travel everywhere and we get this.” 6 of the 30 senior players heard it walking off, and the ones who did not hear it were not playing.
Squad2 Mar 2037
“The easiest signature of my career.” Juan José Hurtado and Patriotas agree another 2 years, and the manager can plan around him rather than about him.
Match28 Feb 2037
The wait goes on for Patriotas
4 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.
Squad2 Mar 2037
Juan José Hurtado 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.
Player ratings2 Mar 2037
Ninety minutes of Kevin Álvarez at his very best
Marked 8.70. Players have careers without a single afternoon like this in them, and he has just had one in front of everybody at Patriotas.
Player ratings2 Mar 2037
There is a version of this player everybody suspected was in there, and on this evidence it is. 8.30, and no argument anywhere in the ground.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Squad23 Feb 2037
A fracture rules Manuel Valle out for 87 days
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Patriotas will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
Market23 Feb 2037
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Patriotas is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
Market23 Feb 2037
Wilmar Borja hands in a written request
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Patriotas can pretend not to have heard.
Squad23 Feb 2037
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Patriotas this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad23 Feb 2037
Kevin Álvarez 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.
Match21 Feb 2037
Beaten 1‑2, and beaten fairly. The manager kept his words short afterwards, which was probably wise.
Squad23 Feb 2037
The manager makes an example of Samuel Bello
“If you cannot run for the shirt, somebody else will wear it.” No name was used and none was needed; every player in that room knew who it was for.
Player ratings23 Feb 2037
Ninety minutes of Alejandro Pósito at his very best
Marked 8.64. Players have careers without a single afternoon like this in them, and he has just had one in front of everybody at Patriotas.
Player ratings23 Feb 2037
Successful dribbles: 12. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad16 Feb 2037
A fracture rules Manuel Valle out for 94 days
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Patriotas will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
Squad16 Feb 2037
Kevin Álvarez 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.
Squad16 Feb 2037
Words at Patriotas training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Iván Camacho 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.
Squad16 Feb 2037
“If you cannot run for the shirt, somebody else will wear it.” No name was used and none was needed; every player in that room knew who it was for.
Player ratings16 Feb 2037
There is a version of this player everybody suspected was in there, and on this evidence it is. 8.06, and no argument anywhere in the ground.
Player ratings16 Feb 2037
Successful dribbles: 16. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Squad9 Feb 2037
Manuel Valle breaks a bone — 101 days out
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 101 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
Player ratings9 Feb 2037
Age has not caught Sergio Ortuño yet — 8.59
At 37 he is supposed to be managing his minutes. Instead he was marked 8.59 and looked, for ninety minutes, exactly like the player everybody remembers.
Squad9 Feb 2037
“I remember the meeting. I remember exactly what was promised in it.” Patriotas may remember it differently, which is precisely the problem.
Squad9 Feb 2037
Juan José Hurtado 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.
Player ratings9 Feb 2037
Headers, blocks, tackles, interceptions — 23 of them, and not one goal behind him. The sort of performance that never makes a highlight reel and wins football matches.
Match7 Feb 2037
Patriotas are at home on the road
4 straight away victories. Sides that win away are usually sides that can defend and can counter, and the table has begun to reflect what those journeys have earned.
Squad9 Feb 2037
Words at Patriotas training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Kevin Álvarez 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.
Boardroom9 Feb 2037
153% of the income goes out in wages at Patriotas
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.
Match7 Feb 2037
Three points for Patriotas, 2‑0 the final word against Llaneros in a contest settled by the finer margins.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Squad2 Feb 2037
Manuel Valle breaks a bone — 108 days out
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 108 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
Squad2 Feb 2037
“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.
Player ratings2 Feb 2037
Successful dribbles: 31. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Squad2 Feb 2037
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Patriotas this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Match31 Jan 2037
Beaten 1‑2, and beaten fairly. The manager kept his words short afterwards, which was probably wise.
Squad2 Feb 2037
Johan Murillo 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.
Player ratings2 Feb 2037
13 shots, and a count that reads like a good afternoon until you check the other column. Strikers survive weeks like this on the understanding that the chances keep arriving; the day they stop is the day it becomes a problem.
Player ratings2 Feb 2037
The substitution nobody applauded turned out to be the whole story. Patriotas were going nowhere until he came on.
Market2 Feb 2037
6 months remain and no agreement is close. Every week without a signature costs Patriotas money.
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Squad26 Jan 2037
There were 9 saves in it, and at least three that had no business being saves at all. The ten outfield players owe him a drink and they know it.
Squad26 Jan 2037
Manuel Valle breaks a bone — 115 days out
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 115 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
Market26 Jan 2037
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Patriotas is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
Player ratings26 Jan 2037
Sergio Ortuño, 37, rolls back the years — 8.68
There is an age at which every good afternoon gets described as a throwback, which is unfair and also accurate. 8.68 at 37, and nobody on the pitch was better.
Market26 Jan 2037
“I have given everything here and I need a new challenge.” The request is formal, and the relationship will never be quite the same again.
Squad26 Jan 2037
Kevin Álvarez 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.
Player ratings26 Jan 2037
22 times he got in the way of something. Centre-halves get written about when they make mistakes and ignored when they do not, so an afternoon like this needs saying out loud: he is the reason the scoreline reads as it does.
Boardroom26 Jan 2037
9 boys move up, and somewhere in the building the people who coached them at twelve are quietly having the best morning of their working year. Nothing about this shows up in a result and it is why the academy exists.
Squad26 Jan 2037
Words at Patriotas training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Iván Camacho 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.