Duván Viáfara 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.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Omar Preciado trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
Agustín Echaide 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 Aug 2029
Duván Viáfara 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.
Squad13 Aug 2029
6 new faces, and Tigres 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.
He is doing things every Saturday that nobody around him can answer. It is flattering for a season and a problem after that, and Tigres know which stage they are at.
Another week, another link, another denial nobody quite believes. Tigres know the market decides these things, not the back pages — but the back pages are louder.
A conversation in the manager’s office, and a commitment that came out of it. Promises like that are cheap to make and expensive to break, and Duván Viáfara has written the date down.
Romario Murcia 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.
There is a version of every career where the player ends up somewhere he chose rather than somewhere that chose him. Óscar Segura is living that version at Tigres, and it tends to show in the first month.
A deal that was a phone call from completion at lunchtime was dead by midnight. Tigres will try again when the window opens; Jaguares may not be selling by then.
Squad6 Aug 2029
Brandon Rossi 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 best deals are the ones the accountants never notice. Leandro Angulo arrives at Tigres with his wages the only cost and something to prove the only clause.
The fee was agreed and the flight was looked at — and then the phone stopped ringing. La Equidad moved on, José García reports back to Tigres, and everybody pretends Monday is just Monday.
The clubs have shaken hands with Cortulua; the player has not yet. Personal terms are next, and personal terms are where more deals die than anybody prints.
Boardroom23 Jul 2029
Tigres close the window on a squad of their own making
1 in and 7 out, and no more changes for months. The manager has what he has, the supporters have their opinion of it, and the table will have the last word.
Independiente Medellin wanted more than $30.0K and the board would not go there. Walked away, for now, which in a transfer window means until somebody blinks.
A deal that was a phone call from completion at lunchtime was dead by midnight. Tigres will try again when the window opens; Deportivo Cali may not be selling by then.
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Duván Viáfara, and the manager let it.
Squad23 Jul 2029
Words at Tigres training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Máximo Ferulano 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.
A medical, a signature, a shirt held up in front of a sponsor’s board. Tigres have done the hard part with Deportivo Pasto, and the part that remains is the part supporters actually see.
Tigres have gone to Independiente Medellin 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.
Andrés Cuadros 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.
Squad9 Jul 2029
Nicolás Ruiz 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 is not much of a headline and it is the reason players believe the next promise. Tigres told Gustavo Sanchez something would happen and then it happened, which in this industry passes for remarkable.
The words a physio says slowly. 48 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.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Nicolás Ruiz was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
The dugout21 May 2029
The manager’s verdict
“That is on me. I pick the team and I picked wrong.” Managers say that when they mean it and when they need to be seen to, and after 0‑2 Oscar Giraldo left the room before anybody could ask which.
Clubs make promises constantly and the page usually only hears about them when they are broken. This one was honoured, and the dressing room noticed that faster than any supporter did.
Nobody at Tigres is suggesting he is out of form. The manager simply wanted somebody with a different set of qualities for ninety specific minutes, and there is nothing a player can train to fix that.
The words a physio says slowly. 99 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 agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Tigres is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
Andrés Cuadros 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.
A month is long enough that nobody gets in by accident. Nicolás Ruiz is in the division's best eleven for it, which is a quieter compliment than an award and a more reliable one.
The team at the top of the table next, and the honest measure of where this side actually is. Anybody can beat the club below them; the question is what happens against Aguilas Doradas.
Nobody at Tigres 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 Tigres. The team sheets over the next month will show whether it was worth having.
In brief
The dugoutOmar Preciado knocks on the manager's door
Words at Tigres training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Máximo Ferulano 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 Tigres this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
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.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Máximo Ferulano was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
He asked about his future and was given an answer with minutes in it. The manager has now made a promise in a building where promises are remembered, and the clock on it has started.
In brief
The dugoutJoseph Ruiz knocks on the manager's door
The clubs had agreed and the player had not. A snub, and a public one: Cortulua keep him, and the supporters here are left wondering what he had heard about the place.
Tigres ran out of time with Cortulua. The paperwork was open when the deadline passed, and a transfer that was almost done is now a transfer that never happened.
Andrés Cuadros 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.
He is not being dropped. There is simply nowhere in the formation Tigres are playing to put a man who does what he does, which is a harder thing to be told than any team sheet.
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 had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Tigres, and both men came out saying it was fine.
“I have done everything asked of me in training and it has not changed a thing on a Saturday.” The most familiar complaint in football, and one Tigres will have to answer with minutes or with a transfer.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Tigres can pretend not to have heard.
The accountants will call it good business and they will be right, which is not the point anybody outside the boardroom is making. Debinson Mateus was one of the reasons people came, and $790.0K does not replace that by itself.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Tigres have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Tigres they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
Every footballer has an answer to the question about his boyhood club, and most of them never get to act on it. Jorge Tolentino has, at Tigres, and the first month will show what that does to a man.
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.