The hardest thing about being 18 in a senior side is that nobody makes allowances. Oribe Montes did not need any: 7.77, and he looked the most comfortable man on the pitch.
At 21 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.
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.
He is 22 and the ground already sings his name, which is a thing that happens to local boys and almost never to signings. Everything from here is measured against an affection he did nothing to earn except be from here.
At 36, 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.
“The players deserve the credit. My job was easy today.” It was not, and everybody in the room knew it; after 1‑0, Hugo Lozano could afford to be generous.
1‑5 to Atlas, and it was every bit as bad as the number suggests. There are defeats you argue about and defeats you apologise for; this was the second kind.
There is an age at which every good afternoon gets described as a throwback, which is unfair and also accurate. 8.27 at 33, and nobody on the pitch was better.
Everything was agreed until it was not, and Oribe Montes reports back to Veracruz with a summer to forget. Neither club is saying who walked away from the table.
6 goals in one match, Manuel Rodriguez on the scoresheet, and a scoreline that will look like a misprint. Neutrals could not have asked more of Veracruz and Atlas.
$110.0K was the most the club would pay and Puebla were asking for more. Deals like this are revived in the last week of a window roughly half the time, and everybody involved knows it.
Fee agreed, wages agreed, and Tigres waiting with a shirt. Nobody at Veracruz is pretending otherwise, and the supporters have stopped asking whether and started asking when.
The clubs have shaken hands with Santos Laguna; the player has not yet. Personal terms are next, and personal terms are where more deals die than anybody prints.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Veracruz can pretend not to have heard.
The deadline has passed and the squad is the squad. 7 arrived, 6 left, and everything else printed about this club last month was a rumour that stayed one.
Veracruz had done everything except persuade the man himself. He stays at Gimnasia La Plata, and the manager goes back to the drawing board with the money still in the bank.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Veracruz can pretend not to have heard.
Successful dribbles: 27. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
Player ratings24 Aug 2026
Kevin Rodriguez, 17, plays like he has been here for years — 7.82
A mark of 7.82 means one thing beside a twenty-nine-year-old's name and something else entirely beside a 17-year-old's. Nobody at the ground needed telling which this was.
The number the board signed off was not enough. It has been asked again and raised its own offer to $204.8K — a club that wants Paul Bellón enough to be asked twice.
Everything agreed with Ferro Carril Oeste, everything agreed with the player; a doctor is the only person left to persuade. The photograph is a day or two away.
In brief
Transfer targetsAn offer of $190.0K for Paul Bellón
$10.7M 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.
Successful dribbles: 39. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
Player ratings10 Aug 2026
Oribe Montes, 18, plays like he has been here for years — 7.83
A mark of 7.83 means one thing beside a twenty-nine-year-old's name and something else entirely beside a 18-year-old's. Nobody at the ground needed telling which this was.
He is going to Newcastle United, the club has $10.7M 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.
The phone has started ringing about Rodolfo Romo again, and this time the name on the line is Pachuca. Veracruz are listening politely and promising nothing.
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Daniel Moreno. 3‑1 against Dorados, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
Jesus Romo 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.