Marked for Daniel Suárez
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad13 Dec 2027
Dionicio Escalante damages knee ligaments — 56 days out
The words a physio says slowly. 56 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.
Squad13 Dec 2027
“I remember the meeting. I remember exactly what was promised in it.” Veracruz may remember it differently, which is precisely the problem.
Player ratings13 Dec 2027
Successful dribbles: 22. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
Squad13 Dec 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 Veracruz this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad13 Dec 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.
Player ratings13 Dec 2027
Ninety minutes of Jorge Herrera at his very best
Marked 8.35. Players have careers without a single afternoon like this in them, and he has just had one in front of everybody at Veracruz.
Match11 Dec 2027
It needed Jorge Herrera to find the net to bring anything home at all: 1‑1 against Queretaro, and half the dressing room will call it a point won.
The terraces13 Dec 2027
The spotlight tightens on Miguel Vega
Every touch is being weighed now, in print and everywhere else. Some players grow into that and some are quietly ruined by it, and nobody knows which in advance.
Market13 Dec 2027
The name of Jorge Herrera keeps appearing in other people's back pages. Veracruz say nothing, which says plenty.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Squad6 Dec 2027
Dionicio Escalante damages knee ligaments — 63 days out
The words a physio says slowly. 63 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 ratings6 Dec 2027
Successful dribbles: 25. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
Squad6 Dec 2027
Jorge Herrera 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.
Player ratings6 Dec 2027
A performance of 8.93 does not come along often, and when it does the rest of the team becomes scenery. He was magnificent.
Squad6 Dec 2027
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Miguel Vega, and the manager let it.
Match4 Dec 2027
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Carlos Ochoa. 2‑0 against Dorados, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Squad11 Oct 2027
Dionicio Escalante damages knee ligaments — 129 days out
The words a physio says slowly. 129 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.
Match9 Oct 2027
The wait goes on for Veracruz
8 without a win now, and the ground has developed the special quiet of a crowd that expects the worst. One scrappy 1-0 would cure most of it; that is the maddening part.
Match11 Oct 2027
Veracruz sink to position 16
9 points, and a fixture list that is running out. The mathematics are not yet cruel, but they are no longer kind.
Player ratings11 Oct 2027
Amaury Morales, 21, plays like he has been here for years — 7.98
A mark of 7.98 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.
Match9 Oct 2027
No clean sheets in sight for Veracruz
7 games now with at least two against. The back line has been rearranged, the goalkeeper has been backed publicly, and the goals keep going in anyway.
Squad11 Oct 2027
Christian Lainez 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.
Match9 Oct 2027
1‑2 to Tijuana, and no complaints worth printing. The performance asked for nothing more than it got.
The terraces11 Oct 2027
There is a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 21-year-old it feels ownership of. Amaury Morales 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.
Squad11 Oct 2027
“I never wanted to be anywhere else. There is unfinished business here.” Daniel Suárez commits to Veracruz for another 1 years.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Match7 Aug 2027
Javier Gallardo wins it after the whistle should have gone
93 minutes played. Javier Gallardo found the finish in time that only existed because of earlier delays, and Dorados went from a point to nothing inside one movement.
Market9 Aug 2027
The offer was not close and it was refused without much discussion. Whether the second one is refused as quickly is another matter.
Squad9 Aug 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 Veracruz this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Match7 Aug 2027
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Javier Gallardo. 2‑1 against Dorados, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
Player ratings9 Aug 2027
A performance of 8.59 does not come along often, and when it does the rest of the team becomes scenery. He was magnificent.
Squad9 Aug 2027
The manager makes an example of Erik Pimentel
“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.
Squad9 Aug 2027
“The easiest signature of my career.” Daniel Suárez and Veracruz agree another 1 years, and the manager can plan around him rather than about him.
Squad9 Aug 2027
Jorge Herrera has become a man the manager trusts
Nobody at Veracruz 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.
Player ratings9 Aug 2027
Shots: 9, not one of them in. A centre forward is paid for one thing, and on this evidence he has forgotten which thing it is.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Market2 Aug 2027
Veracruz say no — this time
The offer from Feyenoord for Miguel Vega 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.
Player ratings2 Aug 2027
Two goals and a mark of 8.59 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
Match31 Jul 2027
4 matches without a win for Veracruz
The run now stands at 4, and the questions being asked around Veracruz are no longer polite ones.
Squad2 Aug 2027
Jorge Herrera 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.
Player ratings2 Aug 2027
Successful dribbles: 19. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
Squad2 Aug 2027
Words at Veracruz training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Mateo Mamani 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.
Squad2 Aug 2027
Mateo Mamani gets it from the manager
“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.
Match31 Jul 2027
It finished 2‑2, and it somehow always looked like it would. One of those afternoons where the table moves less than the tempers.
Squad2 Aug 2027
Amaury Morales named in the team of the month
A month is long enough that nobody gets in by accident. Amaury Morales is in the division's best eleven for it, which is a quieter compliment than an award and a more reliable one.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad21 Jun 2027
61 days, the medical staff say, and medical staff are optimists by profession. The team sheet will look wrong without him.
Squad21 Jun 2027
Sebastián Venegas is a better footballer than he was
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.
Market21 Jun 2027
The chase for Jesús Serrato ended with $240.0K changing hands and Atlas out of reasons to say no. The supporters will judge the fee the only way that matters: on Saturdays.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
The terraces30 Nov 2026
The ground has had enough
“We travel everywhere and we get this.” 7 of the 25 senior players heard it walking off, and the ones who did not hear it were not playing.
Squad30 Nov 2026
“I remember the meeting. I remember exactly what was promised in it.” Veracruz may remember it differently, which is precisely the problem.
Squad30 Nov 2026
Jorge Herrera 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.
Match28 Nov 2026
Guadalajara left with the points after a 0‑2 defeat that will take some explaining on the terraces.
Squad30 Nov 2026
“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.
Squad30 Nov 2026
36 days, the scan says, and scans are kinder than reality. The fixtures in that window have just become somebody else’s job.
Player ratings30 Nov 2026
Ten men and a goalkeeper behind him, and it still finished in the net. He knew before anybody told him, and nobody at Veracruz needed to.
Player ratings30 Nov 2026
There was no pressure on him and nowhere he had to be. Veracruz lost a goal to a decision that took half a second and will be discussed all week.
Player ratings30 Nov 2026
3.76 on the card. Some afternoons a footballer looks like a man who has only just been introduced to the game, and this was one of them.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad21 Sep 2026
Jesus Lozano breaks a bone — 20 days out
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 20 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
Player ratings21 Sep 2026
27 defensive actions and a clean sheet at the end of them. A defender's afternoon can only be told by what did not happen, which is why nobody makes a highlights package out of one and every manager in the division would take it.
Squad21 Sep 2026
Jorge Herrera 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.
Squad21 Sep 2026
Words at Veracruz training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. André Gomes 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.
Squad21 Sep 2026
The manager makes an example of Daniel Suárez
“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.
Player ratings21 Sep 2026
Successful dribbles: 16. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.