Marked for Kevin Martínez
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Player ratings9 Nov 2026
Successful dribbles: 33. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
Match7 Nov 2026
Toluca throw away a 2-goal lead
2 in front and in complete control, and it finished with Queretaro the happier side. There is no version of this afternoon that Toluca will enjoy reviewing.
Match7 Nov 2026
Still nobody has beaten Toluca
The unbeaten run reaches 12. Some of them were wins and some were escapes, but a side that refuses to lose is a side other dressing rooms talk about.
Player ratings9 Nov 2026
2 goals, and the second was the one that settled it. Marked 8.32, and he could have had a third with better luck at the near post.
Squad9 Nov 2026
Tempers go at Toluca
Alexis Vega 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.
Market9 Nov 2026
“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.
Squad9 Nov 2026
No hiding place for Luan
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Luan, and the manager let it.
Loan watch9 Nov 2026
“I am grateful for the games, but I did not become a footballer to be somebody else's spare part.” He wants to be at Toluca, and 0 appearances in 13 say he has earned the hearing.
Match7 Nov 2026
A 2‑2 draw with Queretaro leaves the dressing room somewhere between relief and regret.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Squad12 Oct 2026
A fracture rules Hugo González out for 40 days
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Toluca will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
Player ratings12 Oct 2026
Successful dribbles: 28. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
Squad12 Oct 2026
Tempers go at Toluca
Alexis Vega 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.
Match10 Oct 2026
Whatever happens, Toluca do not lose
7 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.
Market12 Oct 2026
Toluca may not be able to give Bruno Méndez what he wants
It is the most legitimate ambition in the sport and the hardest for most clubs to satisfy. Bruno Méndez wants continental football; whether Toluca can provide it is a question about the next two seasons, not about him.
Loan watch12 Oct 2026
“I watch every Toluca game from here. That says everything about where my head is.” The loan at Real Salt Lake runs its course, but his heart never made the trip.
Player ratings12 Oct 2026
Marked 7.26 on an afternoon he ran from the first whistle to the last. Whatever else went wrong, Toluca had the best player on the pitch.
Squad12 Oct 2026
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Paolo Medina, and the manager let it.
Squad12 Oct 2026
It is not much of a headline and it is the reason players believe the next promise. Toluca told Luis Manuel García something would happen and then it happened, which in this industry passes for remarkable.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad14 Sep 2026
Hugo González breaks a bone — 73 days out
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 73 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
Player ratings14 Sep 2026
Successful dribbles: 27. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Market14 Sep 2026
The offer was not close and it was refused without much discussion. Whether the second one is refused as quickly is another matter.
Squad14 Sep 2026
Tempers go at Toluca
Alexis Vega 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.
Squad14 Sep 2026
Sebastián Córdova 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.
Loan watch14 Sep 2026
“I watch every Toluca game from here. That says everything about where my head is.” The loan at Real Salt Lake runs its course, but his heart never made the trip.
Match12 Sep 2026
Toluca and Puebla take a point apiece
It finished 1‑1, and it somehow always looked like it would. One of those afternoons where the table moves less than the tempers.
Squad14 Sep 2026
The first one is the one every signing is asked about until it arrives. It has arrived, and he can stop being asked.
Market14 Sep 2026
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Diego Barbosa signs something — a contract at Toluca or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Match19 Aug 2026
LA Galaxy are out and Real Salt Lake go through, 2‑1 the final word. The bracket opens up a little, and everyone allows themselves a look at it.
Player ratings24 Aug 2026
No sign of nerves from Ariath Piol at 21 — 7.88
The hardest thing about being 21 in a senior side is that nobody makes allowances. Ariath Piol did not need any: 7.88, and he looked the most comfortable man on the pitch.
Squad24 Aug 2026
Morgan Guilavogui 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.
Match22 Aug 2026
The unbeaten run reaches 6. Some of them were wins and some were escapes, but a side that refuses to lose is a side other dressing rooms talk about.
The terraces24 Aug 2026
There is a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 22-year-old it feels ownership of. Dominik Marczuk 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.
Match22 Aug 2026
It finished 1‑0, and it was Dominik Marczuk’s afternoon: on the scoresheet when it mattered, and the reason the points belong to Real Salt Lake.
Squad24 Aug 2026
Justen Glad 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 ratings24 Aug 2026
Nobody could get near Zach Booth
Successful dribbles: 17. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Player ratings24 Aug 2026
Some games turn on a moment; this one turned on a man. 7.74 on the card, and the Real Salt Lake support went home talking about one name.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Market3 Aug 2026
Toluca say no — this time
The offer from Porto for Marcel Ruiz 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.
Squad3 Aug 2026
170 appearances across 9 seasons in one shirt. Nobody builds a career like that on purpose any more; it happens to a certain kind of footballer at a certain kind of club.
Market3 Aug 2026
“I want to be playing for trophies while my legs still let me.” Nothing in that sentence is a transfer request, and nobody at Toluca heard it as anything else.
Squad3 Aug 2026
“I never wanted to be anywhere else. There is unfinished business here.” Marcel Ruiz commits to Toluca for another 4 years.
Squad3 Aug 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.
Market3 Aug 2026
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.
Market3 Aug 2026
The name of Kevin Martínez has come up in conversations Toluca were not part of. Nothing formal, nothing signed — but nothing about it accidental either.
Squad3 Aug 2026
Words at Toluca training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Luan 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.
Player ratings3 Aug 2026
Nobody could get near Helinho
Successful dribbles: 18. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.