Marked for Luis Riascos
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
The dugout9 Aug 2027
“I remember the meeting. I remember exactly what was promised in it.” Depor may remember it differently, which is precisely the problem.
Transfer targets9 Aug 2027
$400.0K was the most the club would pay and Deportivo Cali were asking for more. Deals like this are revived in the last week of a window roughly half the time, and everybody involved knows it.
Squad9 Aug 2027
Tempers go at Depor
Cristian Mejia 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.
Squad9 Aug 2027
Words at Depor training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Gabriel Eraso 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.
Transfer targets9 Aug 2027
The window shuts on the Jaider Pérez deal
Depor ran out of time with Llaneros. The paperwork was open when the deadline passed, and a transfer that was almost done is now a transfer that never happened.
Squad9 Aug 2027
“I never wanted to be anywhere else. There is unfinished business here.” Jean Rentería commits to Depor for another 2 years.
The dugout9 Aug 2027
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Carlos Cabezas, and the manager let it.
Squad9 Aug 2027
“I did not come here to warm up in front of people.” He is out of contract eventually, he is old enough to count the weeks, and Depor will have to give him a reason to stay or an exit.
Market9 Aug 2027
“There is a gap, and pretending there is not helps nobody.” Neither side has moved, and the calendar is working for exactly one of them.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
The terraces2 Aug 2027
Supporters organise against the Depor board
A bad atmosphere can be waited out. A group of people meeting afterwards to decide what to do about it cannot, and everybody in the building knows which stage this is.
Transfer targets2 Aug 2027
Depor had done everything except persuade the man himself. He stays at Atletico Nacional, and the manager goes back to the drawing board with the money still in the bank.
Squad2 Aug 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 Depor this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad2 Aug 2027
A row about effort at Depor
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Alejandro Oñate was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Transfer targets2 Aug 2027
The clock did what Jaguares would not, and ended it. Supporters who watched the countdown will spend the next window doing it again.
Squad2 Aug 2027
This league is too small for Didier Dawson
He is doing things on a Saturday afternoon that nobody around him can answer, which is flattering for about one season and a problem after that. Depor will not keep him by pretending otherwise.
The dugout2 Aug 2027
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.
Market2 Aug 2027
“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.
Squad2 Aug 2027
He used to be one of the options. He is now one of the men the options are picked around, and the change happened quietly enough that only the dressing room noticed on the day.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Match28 Jun 2027
Depor sink to position 12
15 points, and a fixture list that is running out. The mathematics are not yet cruel, but they are no longer kind.
Squad28 Jun 2027
Alfredo Ramirez damages knee ligaments — 28 days out
The words a physio says slowly. 28 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.
Match26 Jun 2027
The wait goes on for Depor
10 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.
Match26 Jun 2027
Luis Riascos had done his part in building a 2-goal cushion. What happened after that was collective, and Real Santander were allowed back into a match that had been finished with.
Match28 Jun 2027
Depor finish in position 12
15 points, and the season has a number on it. Whatever it felt like from the inside, this is what it will look like in a book.
Player ratings28 Jun 2027
Two goals and a mark of 8.33 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
Market28 Jun 2027
Fee agreed, wages agreed, and Barranquilla waiting with a shirt. Nobody at Depor is pretending otherwise, and the supporters have stopped asking whether and started asking when.
The terraces28 Jun 2027
Depor sell a favourite for $110.0K
The accountants will call it good business and they will be right, which is not the point anybody outside the boardroom is making. Juan David Viáfara was one of the reasons people came, and $110.0K does not replace that by itself.
Market28 Jun 2027
“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.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Match8 May 2027
Beaten 1‑3, and beaten fairly. The manager kept his words short afterwards, which was probably wise.
Squad10 May 2027
Alejandro Oñate 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 ratings10 May 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.
The dugout10 May 2027
“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.
Squad10 May 2027
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Juan David Velasco and Depor agree another 3 years.
The dugout10 May 2027
“The supporters are entitled to be angry. So am I. We will put it right.” 1‑3, a manager saying the necessary things, and a dressing room that heard a different version of them.
Squad10 May 2027
Luis Riascos 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 Depor this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Market10 May 2027
“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.
The dugout10 May 2027
Somebody else is better right now than Stiwar Veira
The team sheet says it in public every week until it changes. The only version of being dropped a footballer cannot argue with, and the one he takes hardest.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Squad12 Apr 2027
There were 8 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.
Squad12 Apr 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 Depor this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad12 Apr 2027
Gabriel Eraso 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.
Match10 Apr 2027
Beaten 0‑2, and beaten fairly. The manager kept his words short afterwards, which was probably wise.
The dugout12 Apr 2027
“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.
Match12 Apr 2027
Depor at the halfway mark
Half the programme played, position 9, 11 on the board. Doubling it is the sum every supporter has done and the only one nobody at the club will do out loud.
The dugout12 Apr 2027
The manager’s verdict
“That is on me. I pick the team and I picked wrong.” Managers say that when they mean it and when they need to be seen to, and after 0‑2 Edwin Gonzalez left the room before anybody could ask which.
The dugout12 Apr 2027
Eder Balanta knocks on the manager’s door
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Eder Balanta trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
The dugout12 Apr 2027
David Agudelo has become a man the manager trusts
Nobody at Depor will say this on the record and the team sheets have been saying it for weeks. There is a small group in every squad who get picked when the fixture is difficult, and he has joined it.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Match13 Mar 2027
Depor taken apart
0‑5 to Envigado, 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.
Squad15 Mar 2027
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the team. 6 saves, several of them the sort nobody expects to see stopped, and a scoreline that flatters everybody in front of him.
Squad15 Mar 2027
Words at Depor training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Gabriel Eraso 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 ratings15 Mar 2027
Alejandro Oñate ran the middle of the pitch — 6.49
He won it back and then made something of it, which is two jobs and the reason the scoreline looks the way it does. 11 combined actions and a mark of 6.49, and not one of them will make a highlights package.
The dugout15 Mar 2027
“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.
Boardroom15 Mar 2027
Inquest at Depor
The manager kept them in and said what needed saying. A response is expected on Saturday, and if it does not come the questions move upstairs.
The dugout15 Mar 2027
The manager’s verdict
“That is on me. I pick the team and I picked wrong.” Managers say that when they mean it and when they need to be seen to, and after 0‑5 Edwin Gonzalez left the room before anybody could ask which.
Squad15 Mar 2027
A falling-out at Depor
Luis Riascos and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Player ratings15 Mar 2027
Shots: 4, 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
Crisis
Boardroom25 Jan 2027
5 academy graduates step up at Depor
Senior shirt numbers handed to boys the coaches have known since they were twelve. Most will not make it and all of them have already done the hard part.
Squad25 Jan 2027
A row about effort at Depor
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Alejandro Oñate was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Match23 Jan 2027
1‑2 to Barranquilla, and no complaints worth printing. The performance asked for nothing more than it got.
Player ratings25 Jan 2027
Ronaldo Royero did the work nobody counts — 6.74
12 combined actions and 6.74. The job he did is the one that shows up as other people looking good, and the only reliable way to notice it is to watch what happens on the afternoons he is missing.
Market25 Jan 2027
There is no fee, no unveiling and no agent on the steps. Diego Muriel has been at this club since he was a boy and is now, formally, one of the first-team squad — which for a local readership beats any signing of any size.
Market25 Jan 2027
The academy exists for exactly this morning. Jose Diaz 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.
Market25 Jan 2027
The academy exists for exactly this morning. Jesus Caicedo 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.
Market25 Jan 2027
One of our own: Hugo Uribe joins the Depor first team
Clubs spend fortunes looking for players and occasionally find one down the corridor. Hugo Uribe is that, and the reception he gets on his first appearance will be different in kind from the one any signing receives.
The dugout25 Jan 2027
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Juan Diego Jaramillo, and the manager let it.
In brief
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The dugout
Edwin Gonzalez: “No excuses”
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Squad
Words exchanged at Depor
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Boardroom
No investment in the facilities at Depor
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Market12 Oct 2026
Luis Díaz puts it in writing
“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 Depor, and it is not being withdrawn.
Squad12 Oct 2026
A row about effort at Depor
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Alejandro Oñate was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Squad12 Oct 2026
Tempers go at Depor
Luis Riascos 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 dugout12 Oct 2026
Nobody at Depor will say this on the record and the team sheets have been saying it for weeks. There is a small group in every squad who get picked when the fixture is difficult, and he has joined it.
Market12 Oct 2026
Another week, another link, another denial nobody quite believes. Depor know the market decides these things, not the back pages — but the back pages are louder.
The dugout12 Oct 2026
Oscar Bacca knocks on the manager's door
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Depor, and both men came out saying it was fine.