78 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Morelia lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
The board’s statement ran to three sentences and one of them mentioned results. Nestor Dos Santos has managed long enough to translate: win soon, or the next statement is shorter.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Morelia this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Every squad has men who were signed by a particular manager and men who were merely inherited. David Herrera is in the first group, and the man who wanted him here is no longer in the building.
Nobody at Morelia 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.
The words a physio says slowly. 100 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.
Hugo Juarez 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.
In brief
SquadJesus Sanchez has become a man the manager trusts
It has stopped being a mood in the stands and started being something organised. Boards can ignore a bad atmosphere for a long time; they cannot ignore this stage of it for very long at all.
115 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Morelia lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
It is never announced and it is entirely visible: the biggest afternoons of the season keep containing him. A press box works this out long before anybody at the club confirms a word of it.
It has stopped being a mood in the stands and started being something organised. Boards can ignore a bad atmosphere for a long time; they cannot ignore this stage of it for very long at all.
The words a physio says slowly. 84 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.
He found out with everybody else, an hour before kick-off, from a sheet of paper on a wall. Nobody at Morelia pretended it was anything other than a decision about him.
15 games now with at least two against. The back line has been rearranged, the goalkeeper has been backed publicly, and the goals keep going in anyway.
106 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Morelia lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
1 for Fernando Edson, marked 7.76, and a centre-half's name in the part of the report he normally only reaches by mistake. He will not be allowed to forget it in the dressing room for a month.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Morelia have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
The goal that put Tijuana ahead was still being replayed on the concourse when Morelia equalised, 3 minutes later. Leads are only worth what you do with them.
The one version of being left out a player cannot argue with, and the one he takes worst. Somebody else has been better and the team sheet says so, in public, every week until it changes.
In brief
The terracesEverybody has an opinion about Lisandro Musso
The words a physio says slowly. 129 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.
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.
Position 16 and 12 points, and the table gets read bottom-up in this part of town. The calendar has stopped being a schedule and started being a countdown.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Morelia this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
The words a physio says slowly. 45 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.
Two goals and a mark of 8.84 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Morelia have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
99 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Morelia lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Two goals and a mark of 8.99 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
At 34 he is supposed to be managing his minutes. Instead he was marked 8.06 and looked, for ninety minutes, exactly like the player everybody remembers.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Morelia this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
8 goals in one match, Jesus Sanchez on the scoresheet, and a scoreline that will look like a misprint. Neutrals could not have asked more of Morelia and Leon.
8.17. 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.
77 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Morelia lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Beaten 8 times, with 5 saves for company. Goalkeepers carry these scorelines on their record whoever actually caused them, which is the quiet injustice of the job.
10 goals. Both benches spent the second half looking at each other rather than at the pitch. Purists will complain about Morelia and Club America in equal measure; everybody else had a wonderful time.
There is no complaint available here and everybody involved knows it, which does not make the walk to the bench any shorter. Form is the only currency in football that cannot be borrowed against.
Every touch is being weighed now, in print and everywhere else. Some players grow into that and some are quietly ruined by it, and nobody knows which in advance.
The words a physio says slowly. 117 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.
There is no worse way to lose a footballer. Carlos Gallardo has pre-agreed a move away, which means every appearance between now and June is made by a man the club can no longer sell, and somebody upstairs will be asked why the contract was allowed to get here.
It has stopped being a mood in the stands and started being something organised. Boards can ignore a bad atmosphere for a long time; they cannot ignore this stage of it for very long at all.
Position 16, 23 points, and a fixture list with fewer games left in it than excuses. The arithmetic is not cruel yet, but it has stopped being kind.
Player ratings8 Jan 2046
A brace, and Diego Salcedo takes the afternoon — 8.50
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Diego Salcedo provided it, and the 8.50 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
Hugo Juarez 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.