Marked for Brayan Llanos
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad24 Jan 2028
A knee injury of the worst kind for Brayan Llanos
19 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Atletico Bucaramanga lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Squad24 Jan 2028
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Atletico Bucaramanga have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Match22 Jan 2028
The unbeaten run reaches 9. Some of them were wins and some were escapes, but a side that refuses to lose is a side other dressing rooms talk about.
Squad24 Jan 2028
Luciano Pons 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 Atletico Bucaramanga this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Boardroom24 Jan 2028
6 academy players handed senior numbers at Atletico Bucaramanga
The morning the pathway stops being a brochure and becomes a team sheet. Most of them will not be here in three years; all of them have already done the hard part, which was getting to today.
Squad24 Jan 2028
Aldair Zárate 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.
Market24 Jan 2028
The academy exists for exactly this morning. Pablo Ramirez 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.
Market24 Jan 2028
Clubs spend fortunes looking for players and occasionally find one down the corridor. Felipe Muriel is that, and the reception he gets on his first appearance will be different in kind from the one any signing receives.
Market24 Jan 2028
Clubs spend fortunes looking for players and occasionally find one down the corridor. Brian Mina is that, and the reception he gets on his first appearance will be different in kind from the one any signing receives.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Squad17 Jan 2028
A knee injury of the worst kind for Brayan Llanos
26 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Atletico Bucaramanga lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Squad17 Jan 2028
Aldair Zárate 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.
Squad17 Jan 2028
Milton Gerez 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.
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Squad10 Jan 2028
Brayan Llanos damages knee ligaments — 34 days out
The words a physio says slowly. 34 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.
Squad10 Jan 2028
Aldair Gutiérrez 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.
Squad10 Jan 2028
Aldair Zárate 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.
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Squad3 Jan 2028
A knee injury of the worst kind for Brayan Llanos
43 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Atletico Bucaramanga lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Squad3 Jan 2028
There are footballers who have a good season and footballers a season is remembered for, and the second kind get their names read out in a hall in the summer. Atletico Bucaramanga will be quietly delighted and privately nervous.
Squad3 Jan 2028
Aldair Gutiérrez 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
Upbeat
Squad27 Dec 2027
A knee injury of the worst kind for Brayan Llanos
50 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Atletico Bucaramanga lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Market27 Dec 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 Atletico Bucaramanga, and it is not being withdrawn.
Market27 Dec 2027
It is the most legitimate ambition in the sport and the hardest for most clubs to satisfy. Carlos De Las Salas wants continental football; whether Atletico Bucaramanga can provide it is a question about the next two seasons, not about him.
Squad27 Dec 2027
Aldair Zárate 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 Dec 2027
5 new faces, and Atletico Bucaramanga are still learning each other
A squad rebuilt inside one window pays for it in a currency nobody budgets for. The football is not worse than the sum of the players; it is worse than the sum of the players who have played together before.
Squad27 Dec 2027
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Jefferson Mena, and the manager let it.