Marked for Alejandro Benítez
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad3 Jan 2028
A knee injury of the worst kind for Carlos Robles
65 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. America de Cali lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Squad3 Jan 2028
There is a version of every career where the player ends up somewhere he chose rather than somewhere that chose him. Helibelton Palacios is living that version at America de Cali, and it tends to show in the first month.
Transfer targets3 Jan 2028
The offer went to Bogota this week and it is theirs to answer. First bids are rarely meant to succeed; they are meant to find out how loud the door closes.
Market3 Jan 2028
The interest is real enough to have reached print. America de Cali have said nothing, which in a transfer window is its own kind of answer.
Squad3 Jan 2028
Jean and a teammate said things this week that will take longer than a week to unsay. It was not about football, and both of them play on Saturday.
Market3 Jan 2028
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.
Squad3 Jan 2028
Words at America de Cali training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Darwin Machís 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.
Market3 Jan 2028
Deportivo Pereira pay $140.0K, and the deal is done. The number reads well on a balance sheet; whether it reads well on the pitch is next season's question.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Boardroom3 Jan 2028
James Diaz has until the next board meeting
What was said behind closed doors has now been said in front of a microphone. Everybody at Real Santander can do the arithmetic, including the man it is aimed at.
Market3 Jan 2028
Fee agreed, wages agreed, and Universitario Popayan waiting with a shirt. Nobody at Real Santander is pretending otherwise, and the supporters have stopped asking whether and started asking when.
Boardroom3 Jan 2028
The official line will be that it was routine. It was not routine, the timing says so, and every person in that room knows what the next bad result costs.
Market3 Jan 2028
“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.
Squad3 Jan 2028
A move Nicolás Osorio would have made for nothing
There is a version of every career where the player ends up somewhere he chose rather than somewhere that chose him. Nicolás Osorio is living that version at Real Santander, and it tends to show in the first month.
Transfer targets3 Jan 2028
Real Santander and Santa Fe have settled on $300.0K. The rest belongs to the player and his agent, and a supporter who has watched one of these before knows not to buy the shirt yet.
Squad3 Jan 2028
Camilo Durán and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Transfer targets3 Jan 2028
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Once Caldas have kept their man, and Real Santander go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
Transfer targets3 Jan 2028
A deal that was a phone call from completion at lunchtime was dead by midnight. Real Santander will try again when the window opens; La Equidad may not be selling by then.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Market27 Dec 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.
Transfer targets27 Dec 2027
Everything agreed with America de Cali, everything agreed with the player; a doctor is the only person left to persuade. The photograph is a day or two away.
The dugout27 Dec 2027
news_b_frozen_out_of_the_side
Squad27 Dec 2027
Camilo Durán 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 Real Santander this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Transfer targets27 Dec 2027
Real Santander asked and Santa Fe said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
Market27 Dec 2027
Santiago Ahumada has left for Once Caldas in a $88.0K deal. The accountants are pleased; the supporters are less certain.
Squad27 Dec 2027
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Junior García and Real Santander agree another 3 years.
Boardroom27 Dec 2027
The accounts are being read more closely than the results. Wages before ambition is the order of business now, and the manager has been told so.
Squad27 Dec 2027
The system has changed and his position has not. A footballer can improve his form; he cannot improve the manager’s formation, and that is the whole of the problem.