Chiapas did not want to sell and the number is why they did. $10.5M for Alan Cervantes, and the expectation that arrives with him is the kind no amount of settling-in period softens.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Queretaro have kept their man, and Pumas UNAM go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
It is not a grievance and it is not a demand: he wants to play continental football, and he has stopped hiding it. Whether Pumas UNAM can give him that is a question about the club, not about him.
The name of José Juan Macías has come up in conversations Pumas UNAM were not part of. Nothing formal, nothing signed — but nothing about it accidental either.
Squad10 Jul 2028
Rubén Duarte 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.
Alan Cervantes was the name on every phone-in, and the club has gone and signed him for $10.5M. For one week the board can do no wrong, which is a week most boards never get.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Pumas UNAM this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, and a scan that said otherwise. He goes back to Chiapas; Monterrey go back to the market; and both will insist there is no story here.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Monterrey will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Queretaro have kept their man, and Monterrey go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
Monterrey have gone to Tigres with a bid, and the supporters have gone to the internet with an opinion about it. Whether either changes anything is up to the selling club.
The number the board signed off was not enough. It has been asked again and raised its own offer to $1.8M — a club that wants Juan Dinenno enough to be asked twice.
Fee agreed, wages agreed, and Queretaro waiting with a shirt. Nobody at Monterrey is pretending otherwise, and the supporters have stopped asking whether and started asking when.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 76 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
Óliver 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.
$290.0K was the most the club would pay and Pachuca 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.
Guadalajara paid $220.0K and Monterrey took it, which is the whole story in one sentence. The longer version involves a wage budget and will be told all season.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Oribe Montes was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
The clubs have settled the fee and he has settled his wages. What remains is a medical and a photograph, and around Monterrey people have started saying his name in the past tense.
The clubs have shaken hands with Veracruz; the player has not yet. Personal terms are next, and personal terms are where more deals die than anybody prints.
A bone, which is the one injury with a calendar attached. Monterrey will name a return date and, unusually for this business, will probably be right about it.
The offer from Leon for Oribe Montes 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.
Monterrey have gone to Guadalajara with a bid, and the supporters have gone to the internet with an opinion about it. Whether either changes anything is up to the selling club.
$840.0K on the table at Santos Laguna. The manager wanted him, the board agreed a number, and the only voices still to be heard are the ones at the other club.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Monterrey will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
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.
Óliver 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.
Squad22 May 2028
Marco Farfan 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 am grateful for the games, but I did not become a footballer to be somebody else's spare part.” He wants to be at Monterrey, and 6 appearances in 22 say he has earned the hearing.
Nobody at Monterrey 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.
Nothing in writing and nothing in public: a word about playing time, given face to face at Monterrey. The team sheets over the next month will show whether it was worth having.
In brief
The dugoutJohan Rojas asks for a word with the manager
SquadDiego Rossi is the talk of the training ground
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 107 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
Squad24 Apr 2028
Stefan Medina 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.
Diogo Bagüí 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.
“I watch every Monterrey game from here. That says everything about where my head is.” The loan at Universidad Catolica runs its course, but his heart never made the trip.
It is never announced and it is entirely visible: the biggest afternoons of the season keep containing him. A press box works this out long before anybody at the club confirms a word of it.
Nothing in writing and nothing in public: a word about playing time, given face to face at Monterrey. The team sheets over the next month will show whether it was worth having.
The agreement at Dorados has 34 days left in it, with 4 appearances to weigh. Three doors: keep him, sell him, lend him again — and none of them stays open long.
A defender on the scoresheet, which happens rarely enough that everybody in the ground remembers who took the corner. 1 for him, and a mark of 7.97 for the rest of it.
It is not a grievance and it is not a demand: he wants to play continental football, and he has stopped hiding it. Whether Universidad Catolica can give him that is a question about the club, not about him.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Nahuel Estévez was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
He is 23 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.
A 2‑0 win over Union La Calera, earned rather than given, and the sort of afternoon that sends everyone home talking about next week instead of this one.
Player ratings10 Apr 2028
Marcelino Núñez was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.36. There are performances a supporter describes to somebody who was not there and cannot quite convey; this was one, and the number does not help either.
200 games in the shirt. Nobody sets out to build a record like that; it happens to a certain kind of player at a certain kind of club, and this town knows what it has.
25 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Monterrey lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
A midfielder is measured on whether the team functions when he is on the pitch, which is nearly impossible to see and completely obvious in retrospect. 13 actions, 6.46, and a manager who will not be substituting him again in a hurry.
Uroš Đurđević 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.
0‑2 to Pumas UNAM, and no complaints worth printing. The performance asked for nothing more than it got.
Squad13 Mar 2028
Stefan Medina 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.
Warm-up bib, ninety minutes of watching, and a handshake at the end that fooled nobody. Big matches tell you who a manager trusts; this one told Fernando Tapia.
“I want to win things, and I would like to do it here.” Nothing has been demanded and nothing has been threatened — but a boardroom at Universidad Catolica hears a sentence like that exactly as it was built.
Successful dribbles: 22. He went past people as if he had been told there was a prize for it, and by the end the full-back had stopped pretending to try.
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.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Elías Báez 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.
Behind, and beaten by any honest reading, until minute 93. Union Espanola had the points in their pocket and a corner of the ground still believed, which is generally when it happens.
It is never announced and it is entirely visible: the biggest afternoons of the season keep containing him. A press box works this out long before anybody at the club confirms a word of it.
The words a physio says slowly. 22 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.
Player ratings28 Feb 2028
A brace, and Justo Giani takes the afternoon — 8.89
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Justo Giani provided it, and the 8.89 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
It is not a grievance and it is not a demand: he wants to play continental football, and he has stopped hiding it. Whether Universidad Catolica can give him that is a question about the club, not about him.
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.
Marked 8.11 — 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.
“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 Monterrey, and it is not being withdrawn.
$1.3M was the most the club would pay and Santos Laguna 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.
Everything was agreed until it was not, and Santiago Mele reports back to Monterrey with a summer to forget. Neither club is saying who walked away from the table.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Monterrey this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Every long career reaches the week the player starts thinking about the last one. He would like it to be at the club that first put him on a pitch, and Monterrey now know that too.
Veracruz left with the points after a 0‑1 defeat that will take some explaining on the terraces.
Squad14 Feb 2028
Stefan Medina 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.
“We keep meeting, and we keep leaving the room with the same numbers we walked in with.” Another round of talks at Monterrey, another week without a signature from Esteban Andrada.
In brief
BoardroomNobody left the Monterrey dressing room in a hurry
37 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Universidad Catolica lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
Two goals and a mark of 9.44 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Universidad Catolica have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
“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 Universidad Catolica, and it is not being withdrawn.
Justo Giani 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.
Senior shirt numbers handed to boys the coaches have known since they were twelve. Most will not make it and all of them have already done the hard part.
Squad14 Feb 2028
Elías Báez 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.
There is a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 20-year-old it feels ownership of. Oribe Montes 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.
The chase for Juan Pablo Cisternas ended with $210.0K changing hands and Antofagasta out of reasons to say no. The supporters will judge the fee the only way that matters: on Saturdays.
The chase for Diego Carreño ended with $190.0K changing hands and O'Higgins out of reasons to say no. The supporters will judge the fee the only way that matters: on Saturdays.
It is the most legitimate ambition in the sport and the hardest for most clubs to satisfy. Diego Valencia wants continental football; whether Universidad Catolica can provide it is a question about the next two seasons, not about him.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Elías Báez 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.
Roberto Fernández 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.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Palmeiras have kept their man, and Universidad Catolica go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Monterrey can pretend not to have heard.
“It was not right for me. I am not going to explain why to anybody except the people I owe an explanation to.” A deal agreed between two clubs, and a player who declined to be part of it.
Santiago Mele 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.
Squad13 Dec 2027
Oribe Montes 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 dugout13 Dec 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 0‑1 defeat, delivered by Uriel Salcedo to a room that had heard them before.
It is never announced and it is entirely visible: the biggest afternoons of the season keep containing him. A press box works this out long before anybody at the club confirms a word of it.
In brief
The dugoutThe manager makes an example of Santiago Mele
0‑0 against Junior, under lights, against people who do not speak the same language as the crowd. These are the evenings a club measures its decade in, and there are never as many of them as anybody expects.
$27.1M on the table at FC Augsburg. The manager wanted him, the board agreed a number, and the only voices still to be heard are the ones at the other club.
The clubs have settled the fee and he has settled his wages. What remains is a medical and a photograph, and around Universidad Catolica people have started saying his name in the past tense.
The kind of year that ends with a name being read out in a hall. Universidad Catolica had the benefit of it every week and now have the problem of everybody else knowing.
7.94, 1 on the scoresheet, and the specific comedy of a back-four player celebrating like somebody who does this every week. He does not, and that is exactly why the ground reacted the way it did.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Monterrey have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
The offer from Cerro for Oswaldo Virgen 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.
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 22 he is doing things at this level he could not do at the start of the season, and the coaching staff will tell you exactly which of them.
“Nobody here is above being told.” It was not said with a name attached, but the dressing room can count, and so can everybody who was listening.
Player ratings6 Dec 2027
Orbelín Pineda was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.26. There are performances a supporter describes to somebody who was not there and cannot quite convey; this was one, and the number does not help either.
Marked 8.21 — 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.
8.01. There are performances a supporter describes to somebody who was not there and cannot quite convey; this was one, and the number does not help either.
Two goals and a mark of 9.19 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Monterrey can pretend not to have heard.
Player ratings1 Nov 2027
Amaury Morales, 21, plays like he has been here for years — 7.75
A mark of 7.75 means one thing beside a twenty-nine-year-old's name and something else entirely beside a 21-year-old's. Nobody at the ground needed telling which this was.
At 20 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.
In brief
Player ratingsHugo Cuypers was on a different afternoon to everybody else
11 combined actions and 6.85. The job he did is the one that shows up as other people looking good, and the only reliable way to notice it is to watch what happens on the afternoons he is missing.
Diogo Bagüí 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 supporters are entitled to be angry. So am I. We will put it right.” 1‑2, a manager saying the necessary things, and a dressing room that heard a different version of them.
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 Alonso Aceves is on it.
Squad25 Oct 2027
Words at Monterrey training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Santiago Homenchenko 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 know what people will say. I know what I want, and it is here.” Zaragoza had the fee agreed and the shirt ready; they did not have the player, and now they will not.
Monterrey offered $1.3M; Pumas UNAM said it was not close. The manager will be told the money is still there for the right player, which is what managers are told.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Monterrey 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.
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.
Something was said to Diego Rossi and then it happened. In this industry that passes for remarkable, and the dressing room noticed faster than any supporter could.
“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 Monterrey, and it is not being withdrawn.
Guadalajara paid $5.9M and Monterrey took it, which is the whole story in one sentence. The longer version involves a wage budget and will be told all season.
Monterrey have gone to Toluca with a bid, and the supporters have gone to the internet with an opinion about it. Whether either changes anything is up to the selling club.
The number the board signed off was not enough. It has been asked again and raised its own offer to $3.3M — a club that wants Frankie Amaya enough to be asked twice.
Monterrey had done everything except persuade the man himself. He stays at Club America, and the manager goes back to the drawing board with the money still in the bank.
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.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Monterrey can pretend not to have heard.
At 34 he is supposed to be managing his minutes. Instead he was marked 7.99 and looked, for ninety minutes, exactly like the player everybody remembers.
Óliver 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.
Both sides expect a conversation in the coming days. Monterrey will name a price, and everything after that is arithmetic.
Boardroom26 Jul 2027
5 academy players handed senior numbers at Monterrey
The morning the pathway stops being a brochure and becomes a team sheet. Most of them will not be here in three years; all of them have already done the hard part, which was getting to today.
There is no fee, no unveiling and no agent on the steps. Eduardo Jimenez has been at this club since he was a boy and is now, formally, one of the first-team squad — which for a local readership beats any signing of any size.
The words a physio says slowly. 17 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 thing about a transfer that is still about the player is his signature on his own terms, and it is there. Monterrey have lost him in all but the paperwork.
Cruz Azul have accepted the money. What Monterrey do not yet have is the man, and between here and the photograph is a conversation about wages that both sides are dreading.
The chase for Diego González ended with $3.2M changing hands and Santos Laguna out of reasons to say no. The supporters will judge the fee the only way that matters: on Saturdays.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Veracruz have kept their man, and Monterrey go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
The phone has started ringing about Oribe Montes again, and this time the name on the line is Alianza Petrolera. Monterrey are listening politely and promising nothing.
Fernando Tapia 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.
In brief
SquadWords at Monterrey training over how hard people work
It is not a grievance and it is not a demand: he wants to play continental football, and he has stopped hiding it. Whether FC Cincinnati can give him that is a question about the club, not about him.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Bryan Ramírez was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
“We were not good enough today and I am not going to dress it up.” George Wright after 0‑1, in the tone of a man who knows the next question and does not intend to answer it.
“I did not come here to warm up in front of people.” He is out of contract eventually, he is old enough to count the weeks, and FC Cincinnati will have to give him a reason to stay or an exit.
It is never announced and it is entirely visible: the biggest afternoons of the season keep containing him. A press box works this out long before anybody at the club confirms a word of it.
Another week, another link, another denial nobody quite believes. FC Cincinnati know the market decides these things, not the back pages — but the back pages are louder.
72 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Monterrey lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Aldo de Nigris 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.
Squad10 May 2027
Words at Monterrey training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Santiago Homenchenko 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.
Nobody at Monterrey 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 had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Monterrey, and both men came out saying it was fine.
Successful dribbles: 41. He went past people as if he had been told there was a prize for it, and by the end the full-back had stopped pretending to try.
“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.
Boardroom26 Apr 2027
Deadline passes with 11 signed and 8 gone
That is the business done at FC Cincinnati 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.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Monterrey have kept their man, and FC Cincinnati go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
“Nobody here is above being told.” It was not said with a name attached, but the dressing room can count, and so can everybody who was listening.
Squad26 Apr 2027
Words at FC Cincinnati training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Samuel Gidi 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.
6 new signings in one window. Every one may be an upgrade and the side can still be worse for a while, which is the part of a rebuild the verdicts never mention.
He is not being dropped. There is simply nowhere in the formation FC Cincinnati are playing to put a man who does what he does, which is a harder thing to be told than any team sheet.
The words a physio says slowly. 89 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 Monterrey this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
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.
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 Hugo Cuypers is on it.
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Diego Rossi signs something — a contract at Monterrey or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
Position 4, 56 points, and a run-in that decides whether next season has Thursday nights in it. Nobody is calling it a race yet, which is what people say during one.
3 goals in 30 games at Queretaro — numbers that travel home faster than he does. Somebody at Monterrey updates a spreadsheet every Monday, and it makes better reading each week.
In brief
Loan watchThe goals keep arriving from Joaquín Moxica’s exile
It is not a grievance and it is not a demand: he wants to play continental football, and he has stopped hiding it. Whether FC Cincinnati can give him that is a question about the club, not about him.
FC Cincinnati had done everything except persuade the man himself. He stays at Monterrey, and the manager goes back to the drawing board with the money still in the bank.
Evander 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.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Bryan Ramírez was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
He used to wear the other shirt. On Saturday he plays against Inter Miami CF in this one, and whatever he says this week about it being just another game will be untrue.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Gerardo Valenzuela trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
98 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Monterrey lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
“I listened, I thought about it, and I am staying. That is the whole story.” The clubs had agreed a fee. Oribe Montes had not agreed to go, which turned out to be the part that mattered.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Monterrey this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Santiago Homenchenko was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
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 Alonso Aceves is on it.
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Hugo Cuypers signs something — a contract at Monterrey or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
Nothing in writing and nothing in public: a word about playing time, given face to face at Monterrey. The team sheets over the next month will show whether it was worth having.
“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 FC Cincinnati, and it is not being withdrawn.
FC Cincinnati asked and DC United said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Bryan Ramírez was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
“If you cannot run for the shirt, somebody else will wear it.” No name was used and none was needed; every player in that room knew who it was for.
The dugout12 Apr 2027
The manager’s verdict
“I am frustrated, honestly. We did enough to win and we did not win.” George Wright was not hiding it after 0‑0, and nobody in the FC Cincinnati dressing room was either.
105 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Monterrey lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Hugo Cuypers 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.
Marked 8.14 — 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.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Amaury Morales was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what FC Cincinnati can pretend not to have heard.
Miles Robinson 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.
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 21 he is doing things at this level he could not do at the start of the season, and the coaching staff will tell you exactly which of them.
“The easiest signature of my career.” Gerardo Valenzuela and FC Cincinnati agree another 4 years, and the manager can plan around him rather than about him.
FC Cincinnati asked and Estudiantes said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
114 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Monterrey lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Amaury Morales is 21, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
Add another name to the list: FC Cincinnati have asked the question everybody in the game has been asking about Oribe Montes. The answer from Monterrey has not changed — yet.
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 fee is $5.6M, the contract is signed, and the argument about whether he is worth it can begin. DC United drove a hard bargain; time will say who won it.
“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 FC Cincinnati, and it is not being withdrawn.
FC Cincinnati asked and Orlando City said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
“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 easiest signature of my career.” Ender Echenique and FC Cincinnati agree another 4 years, and the manager can plan around him rather than about him.
Teenage Hadebe 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.
Squad29 Mar 2027
Bryan Ramírez 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.
A loan enquiry to Monterrey: cover, or a look at somebody the club cannot afford to buy yet. Either way the answer will come back inside the week.
Squad29 Mar 2027
5 new faces, and FC Cincinnati 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.
$5.6M settles it between the clubs for Matti Peltola
DC United have accepted the money. What FC Cincinnati do not yet have is the man, and between here and the photograph is a conversation about wages that both sides are dreading.
“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 FC Cincinnati, and it is not being withdrawn.
Terms were offered and declined. Whether it was the wages, the role or the town, nobody at Monterrey is saying, and nobody at FC Cincinnati is enjoying the guessing.
The name of Brian Anunga has come up in conversations FC Cincinnati were not part of. Nothing formal, nothing signed — but nothing about it accidental either.
Nashville SC made FC Cincinnati work for it, but the scoreboard read 2‑1 at the end and the table does not ask how.
Squad22 Mar 2027
Words at FC Cincinnati training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Bryan Ramírez 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.
200 times in these colours, in all weathers and under four or five different managers. That kind of service is quietly disappearing from the game.
Player ratings22 Mar 2027
Evander was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.13. There are performances a supporter describes to somebody who was not there and cannot quite convey; this was one, and the number does not help either.
“I know what people will say. I know what I want, and it is here.” FC Cincinnati had the fee agreed and the shirt ready; they did not have the player, and now they will not.
Successful dribbles: 27. He went past people as if he had been told there was a prize for it, and by the end the full-back had stopped pretending to try.
Two of the goals had his name somewhere on them, which is the afternoon a manager wants from anybody asked to both create and finish. 7.74, and 2 involvements.
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.
“Some mornings you wake up and you are still a long way from everything you know.” It is not the football and it never was; FC Cincinnati are dealing with a man who wants a different country.
The chances are being made and something is happening between the making and the finishing. 3 matches now, and the anxiety in the ground arrives a little earlier every week.
A rule about passports rather than about football has decided he cannot play. FC Cincinnati had more of them than the form allows, and somebody had to be the name that did not fit.
Squad15 Mar 2027
Words at FC Cincinnati training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Samuel Gidi 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 offer from St. Louis CITY SC for Oribe Montes 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.
Óliver 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.
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.
Squad15 Mar 2027
Words at Monterrey training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Amaury Morales 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 supporters are entitled to be angry. So am I. We will put it right.” 1‑3, a manager saying the necessary things, and a dressing room that heard a different version of them.
A player who expected to start watched it instead. The manager will call it a decision for the team; Uroš Đurđević will call it something else in private.
$2.3M 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.
The words a physio says slowly. 36 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 clubs have settled the fee and he has settled his wages. What remains is a medical and a photograph, and around Veracruz people have started saying his name in the past tense.
“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.
He is going to Monterrey, the club has $2.3M 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.
Boardroom1 Feb 2027
Deadline passes with 3 signed and 3 gone
That is the business done at Veracruz 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.
Héctor 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.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Monterrey this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Monterrey asked and Pumas UNAM said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
Successful dribbles: 21. He went past people as if he had been told there was a prize for it, and by the end the full-back had stopped pretending to try.
A point taken on 92 minutes is worth exactly one point and considerably more than that to a dressing room. This side does not stop, which is a reputation worth more than the result.
44 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Veracruz lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Fee agreed, wages agreed, and Monterrey waiting with a shirt. Nobody at Veracruz is pretending otherwise, and the supporters have stopped asking whether and started asking when.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Cesar Marquez will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Veracruz the goodbyes have quietly begun.
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.
Veracruz asked and Tijuana said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
A conversation is coming this week. Veracruz will put a number on him, and from there it stops being football and becomes arithmetic.
The dugout25 Jan 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 Hugo Lozano to a room that had heard them before.
In brief
Player ratingsDaniel Moreno beats them one at a time
Transfer targetsA loan move for Oswaldo Virgen is in the works
The last thing about a transfer that is still about the player is his signature on his own terms, and it is there. Veracruz have lost him in all but the paperwork.
“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.
Everything agreed with Guadalajara, everything agreed with the player; a doctor is the only person left to persuade. The photograph is a day or two away.
Veracruz asked and Viktoria Plzen said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the whole of the defence. 9 saves, several of them the kind nobody expects to see made, and ten outfield players who owe him a drink.
Player ratings4 Jan 2027
A brace, and César Fonseca takes the afternoon — 8.77
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. César Fonseca provided it, and the 8.77 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
“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.
The name of Renato Lopes has come up in conversations Veracruz were not part of. Nothing formal, nothing signed — but nothing about it accidental either.
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.
At 22 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.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Pumas UNAM have kept their man, and Veracruz go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
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.