It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Palmeiras this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
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.
In brief
SquadJhon Arias has become a man the manager trusts
Paulinho 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.
Squad8 Mar 2027
Words at Palmeiras training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Juan Ramírez 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.
Juan Ramírez 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.
Squad22 Feb 2027
Words at Palmeiras training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Paulinho 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 season average of 7.11 at an age when most of his year group are still in the youth team. Palmeiras know what they have, and so, by now, does everybody else.
Squad15 Feb 2027
Juan Ramírez 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.
“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 Palmeiras hears a sentence like that exactly as it was built.
Juan Ramírez 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.
Squad8 Feb 2027
Words at Palmeiras training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Paulinho 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.
He is 15, and nobody at Palmeiras signed him for this season. Deals like this are judged in four years, by people who may not still be in the building.
Daniel Carvalho is 17, and Palmeiras have signed him for the player he will be rather than the one he is. The first team can wait; the point of a deal like this is the years it buys.
“I want to be playing for trophies while my legs still let me.” Nothing in that sentence is a transfer request, and nobody at Palmeiras heard it as anything else.
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 was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Palmeiras this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
In brief
SquadJhon Arias has become a man the manager trusts
Words at Palmeiras training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Juan Ramírez 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 Palmeiras 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.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Palmeiras this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
A season average of 7.11 at an age when most of his year group are still in the youth team. Palmeiras know what they have, and so, by now, does everybody else.
In brief
SquadPaulinho falls out with a teammate over standards
Juan Ramírez 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.
Squad11 Jan 2027
Words at Palmeiras training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Paulinho 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 is not much of a headline and it is the reason players believe the next promise. Palmeiras told Paulinho something would happen and then it happened, which in this industry passes for remarkable.
3 goals in 20 games at Club America — numbers that travel home faster than he does. Somebody at Palmeiras updates a spreadsheet every Monday, and it makes better reading each week.
There comes a point where a club either backs its own ambition or admits it does not have any. Palmeiras have paid $26.3M for Juan Ramírez, which is the loudest way there is of saying which one it chose.
7 wins on the spin now, and the question has changed from whether the run ends to who ends it. Confidence like this cannot be bought; it has to be earned exactly this way.
Footballers are asked about their boyhood club so often that nobody listens to the answer. Juan Ramírez has just signed for Palmeiras, and for once the answer mattered.
Player ratings4 Jan 2027
Vitor Roque, 21, plays like he has been here for years — 8.32
A mark of 8.32 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.
An individual honour is a strange thing in a team game, and the best of them are never argued with. He has had the sort of year that ends with his name being read out, and Palmeiras have had the benefit of it.
“I want to be playing for trophies while my legs still let me.” Nothing in that sentence is a transfer request, and nobody at Palmeiras heard it as anything else.
Alexander Barboza 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.
There are footballers who have a good season and footballers a season is remembered for, and the second kind get their names read out in a hall in the summer. Veracruz will be quietly delighted and privately nervous.
The accountants will call it good business and they will be right, which is not the point anybody outside the boardroom is making. Juan Ramírez was one of the reasons people came, and $26.3M does not replace that by itself.
4 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.
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.
The name of Juan Ramírez has come up in conversations Veracruz were not part of. Nothing formal, nothing signed — but nothing about it accidental either.
Juan Ramírez 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.
A brace, and Raul Ramirez takes the afternoon — 8.45
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Raul Ramirez provided it, and the 8.45 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
Club America held the lead for 3 minutes, which is not long enough to enjoy it. Veracruz answered before the celebration had properly finished, and the shape of the afternoon changed with it.
1 error, one goal, and a night in front of the same three seconds. He will see it tonight, tomorrow and probably in February, and everybody who has played knows exactly which frame he keeps stopping on.
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.
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.
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.
Squad7 Dec 2026
Raul 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.
There is a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 23-year-old it feels ownership of. Raul Ramirez 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.
Dorados made Veracruz work for it, but the scoreboard read 1‑0 at the end and the table does not ask how.
Player ratings7 Dec 2026
Santiago Vega was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.39. There are performances a supporter describes to somebody who was not there and cannot quite convey; this was one, and the number does not help either.
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.
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.
Juan Ramírez 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.
Defending was optional and nobody took up the option. 6 goals between Veracruz and Guadalajara, and not one of the people who paid to be there will ask for the money back.
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.
Jorge Torres Nilo 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.
“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 ratings23 Nov 2026
Rodrygo Rangel was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.25. There are performances a supporter describes to somebody who was not there and cannot quite convey; this was one, and the number does not help either.
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.
In brief
Player ratingsThe pass was always on for Juan Ramírez
Two goals and a mark of 9.04 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
Juan Ramírez 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.
8 goals. Both benches spent the second half looking at each other rather than at the pitch. Purists will complain about Veracruz and Toluca in equal measure; everybody else had a wonderful time.
Beaten 5 times, with 5 saves for company. Goalkeepers carry these scorelines on their record whoever actually caused them, which is the quiet injustice of the job.
Another week, another link, another denial nobody quite believes. Veracruz know the market decides these things, not the back pages — but the back pages are louder.
A brace, and Juan Ramírez takes the afternoon — 9.10
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Juan Ramírez provided it, and the 9.10 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
3 wins on the spin now, and the question has changed from whether the run ends to who ends it. Confidence like this cannot be bought; it has to be earned exactly this way.
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.
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.
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Veracruz, and both men came out saying it was fine.
Cup ties wait for somebody to seize them, and Juan Ramírez obliged against Club America. 3‑1 on the night, and the name in the next round’s hat is Veracruz.
The hardest thing about being 21 in a senior side is that nobody makes allowances. Uriel Ochoa did not need any: 7.76, and he looked the most comfortable man on the pitch.
“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.
Marked 7.91. There is a kind of forward whose value only shows up when you count what he was involved in rather than what he finished, and this is the day that argument makes itself.
At 21 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.
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.
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.
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.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the team. 10 saves, several of them the sort nobody expects to see stopped, and a scoreline that flatters everybody in front of him.
The 2-goal deficit was real and so was the recovery. Rodrygo Rangel was at the centre of it, Puebla were at the end of it, and everybody who left early will hear about this one for years.
Juan Ramírez 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.
Marked 9.93 — 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.
Player ratings19 Oct 2026
Juan Ramírez was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.97. There are performances a supporter describes to somebody who was not there and cannot quite convey; this was one, and the number does not help either.
Another week, another link, another denial nobody quite believes. Veracruz know the market decides these things, not the back pages — but the back pages are louder.
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.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the team. 7 saves, several of them the sort nobody expects to see stopped, and a scoreline that flatters everybody in front of him.
“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.
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.
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.
It is the most legitimate ambition in the sport and the hardest for most clubs to satisfy. Raul Ramirez wants continental football; whether Veracruz can provide it is a question about the next two seasons, not about him.
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.
A month is long enough that nobody gets in by accident. Matías Pandiella is in the division's best eleven for it, which is a quieter compliment than an award and a more reliable one.
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.
It is the most legitimate ambition in the sport and the hardest for most clubs to satisfy. Hernán Acosta wants continental football; whether Veracruz can provide it is a question about the next two seasons, not about him.
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.
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.
Juan Ramírez 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.
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.
Marked 8.26 — 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.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Hernán Acosta trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
One weekend, judged against everybody else's. Rodrygo Rangel has come out on top of it, and for most footballers a weekly award is the only silverware a career ever produces.
“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.
7 goals in one match, Rodrygo Rangel on the scoresheet, and a scoreline that will look like a misprint. Neutrals could not have asked more of Veracruz and Tigres.
Marked 8.08 — 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 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.
In brief
SquadThe division's best last weekend was a Veracruz man
Player ratingsOff the bench and decisive: Rodolfo Reyes
Two goals and a mark of 8.88 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
The deal that would have taken Raul Ramirez to Paris Saint-Germain 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.
“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 Veracruz, and it is not being withdrawn.
Alejandro Viniegra 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
A place in the month's best eleven for Uriel Ochoa
Four or five weekends of consistency, judged against everybody in the division doing his job. Uriel Ochoa has come out of that comparison in the side, and Veracruz have had the benefit of every one of those afternoons.
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.
Another week, another link, another denial nobody quite believes. Veracruz know the market decides these things, not the back pages — but the back pages are louder.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the team. 8 saves, several of them the sort nobody expects to see stopped, and a scoreline that flatters everybody in front of him.
“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.
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.
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: Yerko Leiva from Union La Calera for $3.9M, and a ticket office having a very good morning.
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.
Arsenal arrived with $13.0M and left with the best player in the building. The board will call it business; the queue at the ticket office will use other words.
The accountants will call it good business and they will be right, which is not the point anybody outside the boardroom is making. Carlos Guardado was one of the reasons people came, and $13.0M does not replace that by itself.
“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.
Santos Laguna paid $350.0K and Veracruz took it, which is the whole story in one sentence. The longer version involves a wage budget and will be told all season.
Squad24 Aug 2026
Words at Veracruz training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Juan Ramírez 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 Veracruz this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
There were 86 minutes on the clock and Queretaro had all but banked the point. Football rarely reads the room, and Veracruz did not stop to explain themselves.
Guadalajara pay $2.2M, 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.
Squad17 Aug 2026
Juan Ramírez 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.
Jorge Torres Nilo 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 finished 2‑1, and it was Raul Ramirez’s afternoon: on the scoresheet when it mattered, and the reason the points belong to Veracruz.
Player ratings17 Aug 2026
Raul Ramirez was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.17. There are performances a supporter describes to somebody who was not there and cannot quite convey; this was one, and the number does not help either.
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.
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.
7 goals. Both benches spent the second half looking at each other rather than at the pitch. Purists will complain about Veracruz and Dorados in equal measure; everybody else had a wonderful time.
Squad10 Aug 2026
Raul 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.