It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Valledupar this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
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.
Squad18 Oct 2027
6 new faces, and Valledupar 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.
In brief
SquadWords at Valledupar training over how hard people work
At 18 he is doing things this season that he could not do last season, and doing them every week. Form comes and goes; this has stayed long enough to be called something else.
Everybody at Valledupar saw it before anybody said it, which is how this always goes. At 36 the decline is real and measurable — 3 points — and the only question left is how the club handles somebody it owes a great deal to.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Valledupar this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Nobody will confirm this and nothing else explains the last month of selections. A costly error buys a player a period of being second choice that is always longer than the error was.
6 signings in three months. Every one of them may be an upgrade and the team can still be worse for a while, which is the part of a rebuild that never appears in the transfer-window verdicts.
“I was told straight, and I would rather have it straight.” The manager at Valledupar has been clear about where Federico Soria stands, which is more than many ever get.
In brief
The dugoutEmilio Vélez asks for a word with the manager
37 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Valledupar lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Felipe Ospina will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Valledupar the goodbyes have quietly begun.
The rules permit it and it stings anyway. Felipe Ospina has agreed terms with Cortulua for the summer, and until then he pulls on this shirt as a player who has already chosen his next one.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Valledupar this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
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.
In brief
SquadRodrigo Pereira falls out with a teammate over standards
The words a physio says slowly. 66 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.
The offer was not close and it was refused without much discussion. Whether the second one is refused as quickly is another matter.
Boardroom26 Jul 2027
Deadline passes with 4 signed and 14 gone
That is the business done at Valledupar until the window opens again. Whether it was enough will be answered on Saturdays rather than in a column, and the first Saturday is close.
Everything agreed with Aguilas Doradas, everything agreed with the player; a doctor is the only person left to persuade. The photograph is a day or two away.
Terms were offered and declined. Whether it was the wages, the role or the town, nobody at Depor is saying, and nobody at Valledupar is enjoying the guessing.
There is a version of every career where the player ends up somewhere he chose rather than somewhere that chose him. Marcelo Bastías is living that version at Valledupar, and it tends to show in the first month.
The phone has started ringing about Nicolas Valencia again, and this time the name on the line is Yenisey. Valledupar are listening politely and promising nothing.
Rodrigo Pereira 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.
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.
The words a physio says slowly. 94 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.
The last league game has been played and the table has stopped moving: 27 points. The summer begins on Monday, and so does the argument about what it all meant.
A medical, a signature, a shirt held up in front of a sponsor’s board. Valledupar have done the hard part with La Equidad, and the part that remains is the part supporters actually see.
At 37, 3 points below where he was, and a body that has started charging interest. It happens to all of them and it is still the hardest paragraph on this page.
Nobody will confirm this and nothing else explains the last month of selections. A costly error buys a player a period of being second choice that is always longer than the error was.
Valledupar have made the call to Deportes Tolima. No fee, a share of the wages, and a spare shirt in the position where the squad has been thinnest all season.
Valledupar have made the call to Atletico Nacional. No fee, a share of the wages, and a spare shirt in the position where the squad has been thinnest all season.
12 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.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the team. 7 saves, several of them the sort nobody expects to see stopped, and a scoreline that flatters everybody in front of him.
3 games without scoring. Strikers stop looking up, midfielders take the extra touch, and every shot that clears the bar is followed by a groan that has been building since the last goal.
Barranquilla next, and both sides can do the sum. Win and the table looks different; lose and it looks the way everybody has been fearing.
The dugout10 May 2027
The view from the dugout
“We will look at it, we will learn from it, and we go again.” The three sentences every manager keeps for a 0‑2 defeat, delivered by Jorge Gomez to a room that had heard them before.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Roy Castillo trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
Position 10 and 15 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.
“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 Valledupar, and it is not being withdrawn.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Valledupar have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
“The supporters are entitled to be angry. So am I. We will put it right.” 0‑2, a manager saying the necessary things, and a dressing room that heard a different version of them.
Rodrigo Pereira 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
SquadWords at Valledupar training over how hard people work
Miguel Moreno 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.
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 dugout17 Aug 2026
The view from the dugout
“We will look at it, we will learn from it, and we go again.” The three sentences every manager keeps for a 0‑1 defeat, delivered by Jorge Gomez to a room that had heard them before.
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.
Every manager keeps a short list in his head of the men he wants on the pitch when the stakes rise, and it is never published. The team sheets for the big afternoons say Cristian Montero is on it.
Ninety specific minutes wanted a different sort of player, and the manager picked one. He is not out of form and he is not in the side, and both are true.