Marked for Donovan Moreno
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Match30 Jan 2027
0‑5 to Toluca, and it was every bit as bad as the number suggests. There are defeats you argue about and defeats you apologise for; this was the second kind.
The terraces1 Feb 2027
The ground has had enough
“We travel everywhere and we get this.” 8 of the 37 senior players heard it walking off, and the ones who did not hear it were not playing.
Market1 Feb 2027
“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 The request is on a desk at Chiapas, and it is not being withdrawn.
Squad1 Feb 2027
108 days, the scan says, and scans are kinder than reality. The fixtures in that window have just become somebody else’s job.
Squad1 Feb 2027
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Chiapas this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad1 Feb 2027
Ralph Orquin gets it from the manager
“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 ratings1 Feb 2027
Successful dribbles: 19. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
Squad1 Feb 2027
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Donovan Moreno and Chiapas agree another 4 years.
Boardroom1 Feb 2027
Nobody left the Chiapas dressing room in a hurry
The door stayed shut a long time after the final whistle. What was said in there is between them; whether it worked is between them and Saturday.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Market25 Jan 2027
“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 The request is on a desk at Chiapas, and it is not being withdrawn.
Market25 Jan 2027
The paperwork is done: Donovan Moreno joins from Toluca in a deal worth $200.0K. Now comes the harder part.
Squad25 Jan 2027
Erik Pimentel 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.
Match23 Jan 2027
0‑1 to Club America, and no complaints worth printing. The performance asked for nothing more than it got.
Squad25 Jan 2027
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Antonio De María y Campos, and the manager let it.
Squad25 Jan 2027
“I never wanted to be anywhere else. There is unfinished business here.” Frankie Amaya commits to Chiapas for another 4 years.
Player ratings25 Jan 2027
Successful dribbles: 15. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Squad25 Jan 2027
He found out with everybody else, an hour before kick-off, from a sheet of paper on a wall. Nobody at Chiapas pretended it was anything other than a decision about him.
Player ratings25 Jan 2027
Shots: 5. 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.
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Match25 Jan 2027
Toluca are in among the leaders
Position 3 and 51 points on the board. Nobody at the ground will say the word out loud yet, and everybody at the ground is thinking it.
Match23 Jan 2027
Still nobody has beaten Toluca
The unbeaten run reaches 10. Some of them were wins and some were escapes, but a side that refuses to lose is a side other dressing rooms talk about.
Squad25 Jan 2027
There were 6 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.
Market25 Jan 2027
Toluca say no — this time
The offer from Veracruz for William Barboza was heard out and sent back the same day. First bids are rarely meant to succeed; they are meant to find out how loudly the door closes.
Squad25 Jan 2027
Alexis Vega in a row with a teammate
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.
Squad25 Jan 2027
10 goals and a season average of 7.51. Form like that gets noticed well beyond this town.
Market25 Jan 2027
The phone has started ringing about Everardo López again, and this time the name on the line is Morelia. Toluca are listening politely and promising nothing.
Market25 Jan 2027
Donovan Moreno has left for Chiapas in a $200.0K deal. The accountants are pleased; the supporters are less certain.
Match23 Jan 2027
It finished 2‑1, and it was Sebastián Córdova’s afternoon: on the scoresheet when it mattered, and the reason the points belong to Toluca.
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Market5 Oct 2026
Frankie Amaya 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 Toluca can pretend not to have heard.
Squad5 Oct 2026
Alexis Vega in a row with a teammate
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.
Player ratings5 Oct 2026
Nobody could get near Helinho
Successful dribbles: 22. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Player ratings5 Oct 2026
There is a version of this player everybody suspected was in there, and on this evidence it is. 9.20, and no argument anywhere in the ground.
Boardroom5 Oct 2026
424% of the income goes out in wages at Toluca
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.
Squad5 Oct 2026
Every paper's favourite story and every manager's least. What happened is being dealt with internally, which is the phrase clubs use when they would rather nobody asked again.
Match3 Oct 2026
A 1‑0 win over Chiapas, earned rather than given, and the sort of afternoon that sends everyone home talking about next week instead of this one.
Player ratings5 Oct 2026
Marked 8.36 — 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.
Player ratings5 Oct 2026
A performance of 8.03 does not come along often, and when it does the rest of the team becomes scenery. He was magnificent.