The club looked outside for a month, found nothing it preferred, and handed the job to the man who had been doing it anyway. He knows the building; now he has to prove he knows the rest.
“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 The request is on a desk at La Equidad, and it is not being withdrawn.
The deal that would have taken Juan Medina to Werder Bremen has collapsed at the last stage, and he reports back to La Equidad with a summer to forget and a season still to play. Nobody is saying which side walked away.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at La Equidad 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 Juan Medina was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Four or five weekends of consistency, measured against everybody else in the division. A quieter compliment than an award and a more reliable one.
Squad6 Sep 2027
A La Equidad teenager takes the young player award
Carlos Torres is 20, and for one weekend he was the best of everybody his age in the division. Nobody should build a career on it and everybody quietly does.
In brief
The dugoutBrian Mina asks for a word with the manager
A bad atmosphere can be waited out. A group of people meeting afterwards to decide what to do about it cannot, and everybody in the building knows which stage this is.
“I remember the meeting. I remember exactly what was promised in it.” La Equidad may remember it differently, which is precisely the problem.
Squad23 Aug 2027
Ruyery Blanco 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.
10 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.
The one version of being left out a player cannot argue with, and the one he takes worst. Somebody else has been better and the team sheet says so, in public, every week until it changes.
The dugout23 Aug 2027
The manager’s verdict
“I am frustrated, honestly. We did enough to win and we did not win.” Camilo Restrepo was not hiding it after 0‑0, and nobody in the La Equidad dressing room was either.
“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 La Equidad, and it is not being withdrawn.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Palmeiras have kept their man, and La Equidad go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
The name of Cristian Rodriguez has come up in conversations La Equidad were not part of. Nothing formal, nothing signed — but nothing about it accidental either.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Brian Mina was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
200 games in this shirt, through managers and relegations and everything else. Service like it is disappearing from the game and the crowd knows what it is watching.
8 without a win is the sort of run that changes how a town talks about its club, and Real Cartagena were the afternoon it stopped. Nothing is fixed by one result and everything feels different by one.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at La Equidad this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Ruyery Blanco was the name on every phone-in, and the club has gone and signed him for $6.9M. For one week the board can do no wrong, which is a week most boards never get.
At 23 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.
Real Cartagena made La Equidad work for it, but the scoreboard read 1‑0 at the end and the table does not ask how.
Squad12 Jul 2027
Words at La Equidad training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Brian Mina 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.
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 Jhon Labastidas is on it.
Another week, another link, another denial nobody quite believes. La Equidad know the market decides these things, not the back pages — but the back pages are louder.
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at La Equidad, and both men came out saying it was fine.
“Nobody outside is coming to save us.” It was short, it was not comfortable, and by all accounts the La Equidad squad were quieter afterwards than they had been all season.
Successful dribbles: 15. 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 is a point and I will take it, but we should have had all three.” Carlos Medina after the 0‑0 draw, and the sentence every manager in the country said at some stage this weekend.
The one version of being left out a player cannot argue with, and the one he takes worst. Somebody else has been better and the team sheet says so, in public, every week until it changes.
Squad17 May 2027
A La Equidad teenager takes the young player award
Carlos Torres is 20, and for one weekend he was the best of everybody his age in the division. Nobody should build a career on it and everybody quietly does.
Nobody at La Equidad 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.
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.
5 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.
There is a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 23-year-old it feels ownership of. Pablo Rios 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.
Mateo Romero 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: 14. There was always a defender in front of him and there was never a defender in front of him for long.
The dugout26 Apr 2027
The view from the dugout
“We did not lose. Some weeks that is all you get, and I would rather have the point than not.” Carlos Medina chose the glass-half-full version of 0‑0; the supporters left with the other one.
There is no complaint available here and everybody involved knows it, which does not make the walk to the bench any shorter. Form is the only currency in football that cannot be borrowed against.
Position 20 and 5 points, and the table gets read bottom-up in this part of town. The calendar has stopped being a schedule and started being a countdown.
7 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.
4 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.
Mateo Romero 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.
It is the most legitimate ambition in the sport and the hardest for most clubs to satisfy. Carlos Barrios wants continental football; whether La Equidad can provide it is a question about the next two seasons, not about him.
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at La Equidad, and both men came out saying it was fine.
In brief
The dugoutThe plan did not have a place for Brian Mina
“It is not the end of the world and it is not good enough. Both of those are true.” The manager, after a 0‑0 draw, said the honest thing and then went to say it again inside.
The one version of being left out a player cannot argue with, and the one he takes worst. Somebody else has been better and the team sheet says so, in public, every week until it changes.
A window away with the national side, and a shirt at La Equidad that briefly doubles as an advertisement. A call-up flatters the player and the club that built him in the same breath.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at La Equidad is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at La Equidad this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
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 could talk about decisions and I could talk about luck. I will not. We lost.” The manager, 0‑1, and a press conference that lasted four minutes.
Squad15 Feb 2027
6 new faces, and La Equidad 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 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.
“We earned that. I asked them for a reaction and I got one, and now I want the same again on Saturday.” Carlos Medina on a 1‑0 afternoon that pleased him more than he was prepared to show.
He used to be one of the options. He is now one of the men the options are picked around, and the change happened quietly enough that only the dressing room noticed on the day.
Cortulua next, and one man in the La Equidad dressing room knows their training ground better than his own. The reception will tell him what they thought of him.
The shape wanted a different profile against this opponent, which is a real football answer and no comfort at all to the man it is about. He did nothing wrong and he did not play.
$15.9M 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.
21 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. La Equidad lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
The terraces4 Jan 2027
Supporters turn on the $15.9M sale of Carlos Viana
He is going to Bragantino, the club has $15.9M 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 clubs have shaken hands with Atletico Nacional; the player has not yet. Personal terms are next, and personal terms are where more deals die than anybody prints.
La Equidad asked and Barranquilla said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
The kind of year that ends with a name being read out in a hall. La Equidad had the benefit of it every week and now have the problem of everybody else knowing.
The deal that would have taken Carlos Barrios to Millonarios has collapsed at the last stage, and he reports back to La Equidad with a summer to forget and a season still to play. Nobody is saying which side walked away.
Mateo Romero 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 words a physio says slowly. 31 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.
Everyone has stopped pretending: Bragantino will make the call about Carlos Viana this week. La Equidad have a number in mind, and the number is not shy.
Boards get told what they have done wrong for years and hear nothing on the days they get it right. This is one of those days: Sebastián del Castillo from Millonarios for $830.0K, and a ticket office having a very good morning.
The phone has started ringing about Carlos Barrios again, and this time the name on the line is Depor. La Equidad are listening politely and promising nothing.
A loan enquiry to Independiente Medellin: cover, or a look at somebody the club cannot afford to buy yet. Either way the answer will come back inside the week.
The system has changed and his position has not. A footballer can improve his form; he cannot improve the manager’s formation, and that is the whole of the problem.
The words a physio says slowly. 40 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 kind of year that ends with a name being read out in a hall. La Equidad had the benefit of it every week and now have the problem of everybody else knowing.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Carlos Barrios will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around La Equidad the goodbyes have quietly begun.
$830.0K on the table at Millonarios. 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 had agreed and the player had not. A snub, and a public one: Krasnodar keep him, and the supporters here are left wondering what he had heard about the place.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Monterrey have kept their man, and La Equidad go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
9 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.
The words a physio says slowly. 65 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.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what La Equidad can pretend not to have heard.
Mateo Romero 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.
Another week, another link, another denial nobody quite believes. La Equidad know the market decides these things, not the back pages — but the back pages are louder.
“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 La Equidad will have to answer with minutes or with a transfer.
99 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. La Equidad lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
“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 La Equidad hears a sentence like that exactly as it was built.
“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.
Squad2 Nov 2026
A place in the month's best eleven for Carlos Torres
Four or five weekends of consistency, judged against everybody in the division doing his job. Carlos Torres has come out of that comparison in the side, and La Equidad have had the benefit of every one of those afternoons.
“It is not the end of the world and it is not good enough. Both of those are true.” The manager, after a 0‑0 draw, said the honest thing and then went to say it again inside.
Successful dribbles: 13. 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.
133 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. La Equidad lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Santiago Santos is 18, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
Mateo Romero 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.
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Michael Ortega. 1‑0 against Union Magdalena, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
Squad5 Oct 2026
Fabian Castillo is the division's best young player this month
At 19 he has spent a month being better than everybody his age in the league, which is a different and harder thing than one good afternoon. La Equidad will try very hard not to make too much of it.
The dugout5 Oct 2026
The view from the dugout
“We controlled it. There were spells I did not like and we will look at them, but the group showed me something.” Carlos Medina, on a 1‑0 win that he was already picking apart on the walk to the press room.
6 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.
The paperwork is done long before the player is. David Contreras has agreed terms to come here when his current deal runs out, which means La Equidad have spent a summer's transfer budget on a phone call.
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.
“It is not the end of the world and it is not good enough. Both of those are true.” The manager, after a 0‑0 draw, said the honest thing and then went to say it again inside.
There is no complaint available here and everybody involved knows it, which does not make the walk to the bench any shorter. Form is the only currency in football that cannot be borrowed against.
The shape wanted a different profile against this opponent, which is a real football answer and no comfort at all to the man it is about. He did nothing wrong and he did not play.
5 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.
Beaten 0‑1, and beaten fairly. The manager kept his words short afterwards, which was probably wise.
The dugout31 Aug 2026
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 0‑1 Carlos Medina left the room before anybody could ask which.
Cristian Rodriguez 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.
The dugout31 Aug 2026
Somebody else is better right now than Oscar Zapata
The team sheet says it in public every week until it changes. The only version of being dropped a footballer cannot argue with, and the one he takes hardest.
What was a back-page link has become a chant, and the chant is not friendly. La Equidad would rather it were settled quietly, and it has stopped being quiet.
Mateo Romero 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 8.15 — 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.
“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.
Juan Medina 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 Aug 2026
Words at La Equidad training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Brian Mina 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.
12 combined actions and 6.92. 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.
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at La Equidad, and both men came out saying it was fine.
“A point is a point and I will take it, but we should have had all three.” Carlos Medina after the 0‑0 draw, and the sentence every manager in the country said at some stage this weekend.