“The easiest signature of my career.” Joel Contreras and Union Magdalena agree another 4 years, and the manager can plan around him rather than about him.
Ricardo Márquez 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.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Juan Diego Giraldo 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.
10 days with the chair empty, a list of names that grows and shrinks by the day, and not one signature on anything. Every week that passes takes the best candidates off it.
Ninety minutes, no goals, and the argument started before the car park emptied: a point gained, or two thrown away against Deportivo Pasto? Both sides of it will still be going on Thursday.
Another week, another link, another denial nobody quite believes. Union Magdalena know the market decides these things, not the back pages — but the back pages are louder.
Nobody upstairs has said anything, which is the loudest thing they could do. Results buy silence in this game; the account at Union Magdalena is running low.
8 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.
Milton Delgado 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.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Juan Diego Giraldo 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.
Juan Sebastián Toncel is 19, and for one weekend he was the best of everybody his age in the division. Nobody should build a career on it and everybody quietly does.
Another week, another link, another denial nobody quite believes. Union Magdalena know the market decides these things, not the back pages — but the back pages are louder.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Union Magdalena this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Juan Diego Giraldo 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.
“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 Union Magdalena will have to give him a reason to stay or an exit.
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Víctor Cabezas signs something — a contract at Union Magdalena or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
Marked 5.73. Nothing he attempted worked and by the hour mark he had stopped attempting much, which is the part a manager notices rather than the mistakes.
Successful dribbles: 29. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Player ratings1 Mar 2027
Hílder Arboleda, 21, plays like he has been here for years — 8.09
A mark of 8.09 means one thing beside a twenty-nine-year-old's name and something else entirely beside a 21-year-old's. Nobody at the ground needed telling which this was.
There is an age at which every good afternoon gets described as a throwback, which is unfair and also accurate. 8.25 at 35, and nobody on the pitch was better.
It is the most legitimate ambition in the sport and the hardest for most clubs to satisfy. Hugo Palacios wants continental football; whether Union Magdalena can provide it is a question about the next two seasons, not about him.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Union Magdalena this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
At 21 he is being sung about by people twice his age, which is an affection a signing has to earn over years and a local kid gets for turning up. It is also the hardest thing in football to live up to.
It is the most legitimate ambition in the sport and the hardest for most clubs to satisfy. Víctor Cabezas wants continental football; whether Union Magdalena can provide it is a question about the next two seasons, not about him.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Union Magdalena this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
In brief
SquadGabriel Arrieta falls out with a teammate over standards
It is the most legitimate ambition in the sport and the hardest for most clubs to satisfy. Víctor Cabezas wants continental football; whether Union Magdalena can provide it is a question about the next two seasons, not about him.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Union Magdalena this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Andrés Ibargüen 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.
There is no fee, no unveiling and no agent on the steps. Santiago Ramirez 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.
There is no fee, no unveiling and no agent on the steps. Javier Uribe 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.
There is no fee, no unveiling and no agent on the steps. Julian Garcia 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.
The academy exists for exactly this morning. Duvan Mejia 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.
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.
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.
The crowd waited for a goal that never came. Cortulua defended in numbers and left with what they came for, and the two sides could be playing still without troubling a scorer.
The offer from Hapoel Kiryat Shmona for Bautista Farías 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.
Víctor Cabezas 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.
“We keep meeting, and we keep leaving the room with the same numbers we walked in with.” Another round of talks at Union Magdalena, another week without a signature from Cristian Iguarán.
Still no offer on the table, and Víctor Cabezas’s deal keeps shrinking. In boardroom language, silence this long stops being an oversight and starts being an answer.
In brief
SquadWords at Union Magdalena training over how hard people work
Squad14 new faces, and Union Magdalena are still learning each other