The words a physio says slowly. 54 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.
Jorge Ramirez 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.
Squad3 May 2027
Words at Tijuana training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Unai Bilbao 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 go to Los Angeles Football Club to sit and watch. I want to come back to Tijuana and fight for my place.” 0 appearances in 6 matches say the rest.
62 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Tijuana lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Tijuana have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Tijuana this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
In brief
SquadAldahir Pérez falls out with a teammate over standards
Santiago Ramirez 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 at Veracruz 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. 69 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.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Tijuana this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
In brief
SquadUnai Bilbao falls out with a teammate over standards
Santiago Ramirez 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.
77 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Tijuana lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Jorge Ramirez 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 Tijuana training over how hard people work
The words a physio says slowly. 85 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.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Tijuana this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
It is the most legitimate ambition in the sport and the hardest for most clubs to satisfy. Domingo Blanco wants continental football; whether Tijuana can provide it is a question about the next two seasons, not about him.
Squad5 Apr 2027
Aldahir Pérez 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.
The words a physio says slowly. 92 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.
Jorge Ramirez 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.
Jorge Ramirez 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 chances are being made and something is happening between the making and the finishing. 4 matches now, and the anxiety in the ground arrives a little earlier every week.
Squad15 Mar 2027
Words at Tijuana training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Aldahir Pérez 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 watch every Tijuana game from here. That says everything about where my head is.” The loan at Morelia runs its course, but his heart never made the trip.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Tijuana this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Successful dribbles: 22. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
Squad8 Mar 2027
Unai Bilbao 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.
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.
Kevin Corona is 15, and Tijuana have signed him for the player he will be rather than the one he is. The first team can wait; the point of a deal like this is the years it buys.
Jorge Ramirez 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.
Squad1 Mar 2027
Words at Tijuana training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Unai Bilbao 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.
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.
Ninety minutes, no goals, and the argument started before the car park emptied: a point gained, or two thrown away against Tigres? Both sides of it will still be going on Thursday.
In brief
Player ratingsIván Tona spends the afternoon fouling
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Tijuana this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Successful dribbles: 16. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Squad22 Feb 2027
Aldahir Pérez 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.
“I did not go to Minnesota United FC to sit and watch. I want to come back to Tijuana and fight for my place.” 5 appearances in 27 matches say the rest.
There is an age at which every good afternoon gets described as a throwback, which is unfair and also accurate. 8.06 at 33, and nobody on the pitch was better.
Jorge Ramirez 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.
Squad15 Feb 2027
Words at Tijuana training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Unai Bilbao 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 respect the manager and I am not going to sit here and pretend I am happy.” It is the most common sentence in football and it has never once been the end of a story.
16 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Tijuana lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Tijuana will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
6 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.
6 matches, no goals, and a training ground that has tried everything. It will end — droughts always do — but nobody at Tijuana can tell you which week it ends in.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Tijuana this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
A season-long audition: Veracruz still own him, but the shirt and the minutes are Tijuana's to give. A loan is a bet both clubs believe they are winning.
In brief
Loan watchThe goals keep arriving from Gilberto Mora’s exile
The phone has started ringing about Jorge Ramirez again, and this time the name on the line is Tijuana. Veracruz are listening politely and promising nothing.
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.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Veracruz this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
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.
Nobody at Veracruz 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 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.
Two goals and a mark of 8.38 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Veracruz this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
There is a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 22-year-old it feels ownership of. Luis Lozano has it now, and everything he does for the rest of his time here will be measured against the goodwill he was handed for free.
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.
Nobody at Veracruz 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.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Veracruz this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Ciro Thompson is 21, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
Squad28 Dec 2026
Words at Veracruz training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Gustavo Canto 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.
Marked 8.20 — the sort of number a correspondent writes down twice to be sure. Everything he tried came off, and what he did not try was not worth trying.
At 34 he is supposed to be managing his minutes. Instead he was marked 7.95 and looked, for ninety minutes, exactly like the player everybody remembers.
“I have ambitions, and I would like the club to share them.” Nobody has asked to leave and nobody has been shown the door — but a player chooses that sentence carefully, and a boardroom hears it exactly as it was meant.
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.
Paulo Ramírez 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.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Veracruz will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
Two goals and a mark of 9.31 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
Jorge Ramirez 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.
At 22 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.
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.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Veracruz will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Veracruz this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad16 Nov 2026
Words at Veracruz training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Agustín Bouzat 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.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Veracruz will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
There is an age at which every good afternoon gets described as a throwback, which is unfair and also accurate. 8.07 at 33, and nobody on the pitch was better.
“I want to be playing for trophies while my legs still let me.” Nothing in that sentence is a transfer request, and nobody at Veracruz heard it as anything else.
3 wins on the spin now, and the question has changed from whether the run ends to who ends it. Confidence like this cannot be bought; it has to be earned exactly this way.
Jorge Ramirez 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.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Veracruz will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
Two goals and a mark of 9.00 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Veracruz this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Involvement in 2 goals, from a player who spent the ninety minutes doing the thing a manager actually wants: being where the ball was going to end up. 7.96 beside his name.
Squad19 Oct 2026
Words at Veracruz training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Agustín Bouzat 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.
In brief
Squad10 new faces, and Veracruz are still learning each other
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 98 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
6 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.
Jorge Ramirez 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 sells a season ticket on a signing like this. Every manager who has been through a bad October wants one anyway, and Veracruz have gone and got theirs early.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Veracruz will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
There is an age at which every good afternoon gets described as a throwback, which is unfair and also accurate. 7.86 at 33, and nobody on the pitch was better.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Veracruz this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Agustín Bouzat, and the manager let it.
Squad21 Sep 2026
8 new faces, and Veracruz 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.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Veracruz will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
“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 Veracruz, and it is not being withdrawn.
Successful dribbles: 20. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
Squad7 Sep 2026
Words at Veracruz training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Agustín Bouzat 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.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Veracruz this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
A month is long enough that nobody gets in by accident. Oribe Reyes is in the division's best eleven for it, which is a quieter compliment than an award and a more reliable one.
$6.5M is a serious amount of money and it does not play centre-forward. Everybody in the dressing room knows who used to be looked at when it went wrong.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Veracruz will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
He is going to Mainz 05, the club has $6.5M it did not have on Friday, and the phone-ins have already decided how they feel about that. Selling well and selling somebody they loved are not the same skill.
Jorge Ramirez 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 paperwork is done long before the player is. Jaziel Martínez has agreed terms to come here when his current deal runs out, which means Veracruz have spent a summer's transfer budget on a phone call.
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.
There is no crueller way to lose a football match. Veracruz scored in the 107th minute, the restart barely happened, and the away end was still standing when the whistle went.
The hardest thing about being 21 in a senior side is that nobody makes allowances. Erick Arteaga did not need any: 7.88, and he looked the most comfortable man on the pitch.
The offer from Tigres for Jonathan Guardado 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.
There is an age at which every good afternoon gets described as a throwback, which is unfair and also accurate. 7.90 at 33, and nobody on the pitch was better.
“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 Veracruz, and it is not being withdrawn.
Squad24 Aug 2026
Words at Veracruz training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Agustín Bouzat 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.
Wolverhampton paid $5.5M and Veracruz took it, which is the whole story in one sentence. The longer version involves a wage budget and will be told all season.
Footballers are asked about their boyhood club so often that nobody listens to the answer. Gustavo Canto has just signed for Veracruz, and for once the answer mattered.
“I want to be playing for trophies while my legs still let me.” Nothing in that sentence is a transfer request, and nobody at Veracruz heard it as anything else.