Marked for Leonardo Herrera
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Squad1 Feb 2027
A knee injury of the worst kind for Leonardo Herrera
73 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.
Player ratings1 Feb 2027
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.
Match30 Jan 2027
5 matches without a win for Cortulua
The run now stands at 5, and the questions being asked around Cortulua are no longer polite ones.
Market1 Feb 2027
It is the most legitimate ambition in the sport and the hardest for most clubs to satisfy. Felipe Mejia wants continental football; whether Cortulua can provide it is a question about the next two seasons, not about him.
Squad1 Feb 2027
Brayan Palacios 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.
Market1 Feb 2027
Richard Borja is free to find somewhere else
“I was told straight, and I would rather have it straight.” The manager at Cortulua has been clear about where Richard Borja stands, which is more than many ever get.
Match30 Jan 2027
Beaten 0‑1, and beaten fairly. The manager kept his words short afterwards, which was probably wise.
Squad1 Feb 2027
“The easiest signature of my career.” Wilmar Arias and Cortulua agree another 4 years, and the manager can plan around him rather than about him.
Loan watch1 Feb 2027
“I did not go to Real Cartagena to sit and watch. I want to come back to Cortulua and fight for my place.” 1 appearances in 5 matches say the rest.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad25 Jan 2027
A knee injury of the worst kind for Leonardo Herrera
80 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.
Market25 Jan 2027
“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 The request is on a desk at Cortulua, and it is not being withdrawn.
Match23 Jan 2027
4 matches without a win for Cortulua
The run now stands at 4, and the questions being asked around Cortulua are no longer polite ones.
Squad25 Jan 2027
Felipe Mejia in a row with a teammate
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.
Player ratings25 Jan 2027
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. 14 actions, 6.71, and a manager who will not be substituting him again in a hurry.
Boardroom25 Jan 2027
Graduation day at Cortulua
5 boys move up, and somewhere in the building the people who coached them at twelve are quietly having the best morning of their working year. Nothing about this shows up in a result and it is why the academy exists.
The terraces25 Jan 2027
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.
Market25 Jan 2027
The academy exists for exactly this morning. Jefferson Vargas has come through every age group the club runs and has now been handed a senior number, and the people who coached him at twelve will be the proudest in the building.
Market25 Jan 2027
There is no fee, no unveiling and no agent on the steps. Sebastian Rangel 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.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad18 Jan 2027
A knee injury of the worst kind for Leonardo Herrera
87 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
“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.
Squad18 Jan 2027
Too much change too quickly at Cortulua
8 signings in three months. Every one of them may be an upgrade and the team can still be worse for a while, which is the part of a rebuild that never appears in the transfer-window verdicts.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad11 Jan 2027
A knee injury of the worst kind for Leonardo Herrera
94 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.
Squad11 Jan 2027
“I remember the meeting. I remember exactly what was promised in it.” Cortulua may remember it differently, which is precisely the problem.
Squad11 Jan 2027
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.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad4 Jan 2027
A knee injury of the worst kind for Leonardo Herrera
101 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.
Squad4 Jan 2027
Felipe Mejia 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.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad3 Aug 2026
4 goals in one game. The first was taken well, the second was taken greedily, and by the third the crowd were simply waiting for him to get the ball.
Match1 Aug 2026
4 goals to the good, and then a slow surrender of everything that had been earned. Jorge Valencia will not be the one blamed for it, but nobody at Cortulua escapes the conversation that follows a collapse like this.
Squad3 Aug 2026
A one-man rearguard from Juan Perez
There were 7 saves in it, and at least three that had no business being saves at all. The ten outfield players owe him a drink and they know it.
Market3 Aug 2026
Cortulua say no — this time
The offer from AS Nancy for Santiago Giraldo 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.
Market3 Aug 2026
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.
Squad3 Aug 2026
Carlos Bacca in a row with a teammate
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.
Player ratings3 Aug 2026
There is a version of this player everybody suspected was in there, and on this evidence it is. 9.79, and no argument anywhere in the ground.
Squad3 Aug 2026
Oscar Valencia 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.
Player ratings3 Aug 2026
Successful dribbles: 20. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.