It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Cortulua this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
9 matches unbeaten here. Every visiting manager is asked about it in the week before, which is precisely why it keeps going.
Squad5 Apr 2027
Edwin Gomez 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.
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Cristian Romero. 1‑0 against Deportes Tolima, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
Marked 8.37. Players have careers without a single afternoon like this in them, and he has just had one in front of everybody at Cortulua.
Squad5 Apr 2027
Sergio Cordoba is the division's best young player this month
At 19 he has spent a month being better than everybody his age in the league, which is a different and harder thing than one good afternoon. Cortulua will try very hard not to make too much of it.
“I am grateful for the games, but I did not become a footballer to be somebody else's spare part.” He wants to be at Cortulua, and 2 appearances in 13 say he has earned the hearing.
The words a physio says slowly. 21 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.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Cortulua will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
“I am not thinking past Saturday, and I would advise nobody else to.” The caretaker’s first rule is to pretend the job is small; Sebastian Herrera recited it perfectly.
The hardest thing about being 20 in a senior side is that nobody makes allowances. Jorge Giraldo did not need any: 8.28, and he looked the most comfortable man on the pitch.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Cortulua this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
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.
43 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Cortulua lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Squad18 Jan 2027
Words at Cortulua training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Edwin Gomez 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 Cortulua this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
The phone has started ringing about Yerry Vargas again, and this time the name on the line is Millonarios. Cortulua are listening politely and promising nothing.
“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 Cortulua, and it is not being withdrawn.
The offer from Alianza Lima for Leonardo Moretti 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.
“I never wanted to be anywhere else. There is unfinished business here.” Nicolás Roa commits to Cortulua for another 2 years.
Squad7 Dec 2026
Words at Cortulua training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Edwin Gomez 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 is the most legitimate ambition in the sport and the hardest for most clubs to satisfy. Alejandro Escobar wants continental football; whether Cortulua can provide it is a question about the next two seasons, not about him.
Squad30 Nov 2026
Edwin Gomez 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.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Cortulua 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. Leonardo Mina 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 crueller way to lose a football match. Cortulua scored in the 94th minute, the restart barely happened, and the away end was still standing when the whistle went.
The hardest thing about being 20 in a senior side is that nobody makes allowances. Jorge Giraldo did not need any: 7.93, and he looked the most comfortable man on the pitch.
“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 Cortulua, and it is not being withdrawn.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Cortulua this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Everyone has stopped pretending: Sivasspor will make the call about Sergio Cordoba this week. Cortulua have a number in mind, and the number is not shy.
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.
Jorge Giraldo is 20, 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.