Marked for Jorge Ramirez
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Match19 Sep 2026
5 matches without a win for Veracruz
The run now stands at 5, and the questions being asked around Veracruz are no longer polite ones.
Squad21 Sep 2026
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.
Squad21 Sep 2026
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Alan Acosta, and the manager let it.
Squad21 Sep 2026
Nobody will confirm this and nothing else explains the last month of selections. A costly error buys a player a period of being second choice that is always longer than the error was.
Player ratings21 Sep 2026
Defensive actions: 15, and a clean sheet at the end of it. A centre-half's best afternoons look like nothing happening, which is precisely the point.
Squad21 Sep 2026
Jorge Ramirez 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 ratings21 Sep 2026
A mark of 4.47 tells the story without any need for embellishment. He will want the tape of this one quietly lost.
Player ratings21 Sep 2026
Successful dribbles: 12. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Match19 Sep 2026
The crowd waited for a goal that never came. Pumas UNAM defended in numbers and left with what they came for, and the two sides could be playing still without troubling a scorer.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Match12 Sep 2026
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.
Player ratings14 Sep 2026
Successful dribbles: 21. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
Squad14 Sep 2026
Words at Veracruz training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Jorge Ramirez 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.
Squad14 Sep 2026
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Denis Bouanga, and the manager let it.
Squad14 Sep 2026
Eddy Davis 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 Veracruz this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad14 Sep 2026
Uriel Rodriguez 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.
Match12 Sep 2026
A 1‑1 draw with Tigres leaves the dressing room somewhere between relief and regret.
Player ratings14 Sep 2026
5.80. Every footballer has these and most of them happen away from a full ground; his did not, and he will be aware of that all week.
Market14 Sep 2026
Contract settled, hands shaken, no fee changing hands. Francisco Alvarez leaves Veracruz the quiet way, and the wage bill breathes a little easier.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Match5 Sep 2026
Nowhere to hide for Veracruz
1‑4 against Atlas, and no complaints that would survive the replay. The manager spoke about character afterwards; the terraces used shorter words.
Market7 Sep 2026
Veracruz say no — this time
The offer from Guadalajara for Oribe Vazquez 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.
Market7 Sep 2026
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Veracruz can pretend not to have heard.
Player ratings7 Sep 2026
Successful dribbles: 25. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Market7 Sep 2026
The deal that would have taken Gabriel Lainez to Pumas UNAM has collapsed at the last stage, and he reports back to Veracruz with a summer to forget and a season still to play. Nobody is saying which side walked away.
Squad7 Sep 2026
Oribe Vazquez 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.
Squad7 Sep 2026
Jorge Ramirez 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.
Squad7 Sep 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.
Boardroom7 Sep 2026
The music was off and the showers ran late. What was said in that dressing room stays there, but Saturday will publish the minutes.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad31 Aug 2026
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the team. 6 saves, several of them the sort nobody expects to see stopped, and a scoreline that flatters everybody in front of him.
Market31 Aug 2026
The offer was not close and it was refused without much discussion. Whether the second one is refused as quickly is another matter.
Market31 Aug 2026
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Veracruz can pretend not to have heard.
Squad31 Aug 2026
Denis Bouanga 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.
Match29 Aug 2026
Santos Laguna left with the points after a 1‑3 defeat that will take some explaining on the terraces.
Player ratings31 Aug 2026
Successful dribbles: 19. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Player ratings31 Aug 2026
Marked 8.35 — 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.
Squad31 Aug 2026
The manager makes an example of Cesar Herrera
“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.
Squad31 Aug 2026
Too much change too quickly at Veracruz
10 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
Upbeat
Match15 Aug 2026
Chastening afternoon for Veracruz
A 0‑6 beating by Queretaro was the sort of result that empties a stadium long before the final whistle.
The terraces17 Aug 2026
The ground has had enough
“We travel everywhere and we get this.” 13 of the 26 senior players heard it walking off, and the ones who did not hear it were not playing.
Market17 Aug 2026
The offer was not close and it was refused without much discussion. Whether the second one is refused as quickly is another matter.
Squad17 Aug 2026
Tiago Figueiredo 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.
Match15 Aug 2026
Defending was optional and nobody took up the option. 6 goals between Veracruz and Queretaro, and not one of the people who paid to be there will ask for the money back.
Market17 Aug 2026
Everyone has stopped pretending: Porto will make the call about Sebastian Gutierrez this week. Veracruz have a number in mind, and the number is not shy.
Squad17 Aug 2026
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Uriel Rodriguez, and the manager let it.
Squad17 Aug 2026
Whether it was the goalkeeper or the ten in front of him is the argument that will fill every conversation in town this week. 3 saves does not settle it either way.
Boardroom17 Aug 2026
Nobody left the Veracruz dressing room in a hurry
The door stayed shut a long time after the final whistle. What was said in there is between them; whether it worked is between them and Saturday.
From our football correspondent
Triumph
Market10 Aug 2026
Manchester City pay $50.4M, and the deal is done. The number reads well on a balance sheet; whether it reads well on the pitch is next season's question.
Market10 Aug 2026
Veracruz say no — this time
The offer from Deportivo La Coruña for Victor Pineda 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.
Market10 Aug 2026
Uriel Rodriguez wants to know where this is going
“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 Veracruz hears a sentence like that exactly as it was built.
Squad10 Aug 2026
“The easiest signature of my career.” Tiago Figueiredo and Veracruz agree another 4 years, and the manager can plan around him rather than about him.
Squad10 Aug 2026
Tiago Figueiredo 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.
Market10 Aug 2026
It is the most legitimate ambition in the sport and the hardest for most clubs to satisfy. Jefferson Cuadrado wants continental football; whether Veracruz can provide it is a question about the next two seasons, not about him.
Squad10 Aug 2026
Words at Veracruz training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Jorge Ramirez 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.
Match8 Aug 2026
It finished 2‑0, and it was Daniel Vazquez’s afternoon: on the scoresheet when it mattered, and the reason the points belong to Veracruz.
Match8 Aug 2026
Dorados blown away early
There is a particular helplessness in conceding 2 times before the twentieth minute. Dorados tried to reorganise, Veracruz did not allow it, and the result was written long before it was confirmed.
From our football correspondent
Triumph
Squad3 Aug 2026
3 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.
Market3 Aug 2026
The bid was some way short and Veracruz did not need long over it. Nobody in the game reads a first refusal as the end of anything.
Market3 Aug 2026
The name of Roberto Jimenez has come up in conversations Veracruz were not part of. Nothing formal, nothing signed — but nothing about it accidental either.
Market3 Aug 2026
“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.
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
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.
Player ratings3 Aug 2026
Marked 9.60 — 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.
Match1 Aug 2026
A 3‑1 win over Guadalajara, earned rather than given, and the sort of afternoon that sends everyone home talking about next week instead of this one.
Squad3 Aug 2026
Jorge Ramirez 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.