“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Cortulua can pretend not to have heard.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Cortulua have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Luis Zapata 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.
Squad6 Dec 2027
Oscar Gomez 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 watch every Cortulua game from here. That says everything about where my head is.” The loan at Deportes Tolima runs its course, but his heart never made the trip.
“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 The request is on a desk at Cortulua, and it is not being withdrawn.
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.
Squad8 Nov 2027
Words at Cortulua training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Kevin Núñez 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.
26 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.
“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 The request is on a desk at Cortulua, and it is not being withdrawn.
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.
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.
Beaten 0‑1, and beaten fairly. The manager kept his words short afterwards, which was probably wise.
Squad11 Oct 2027
Words at Cortulua training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Camilo Rangel 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 defender on the scoresheet, which happens rarely enough that everybody in the ground remembers who took the corner. 1 for him, and a mark of 6.96 for the rest of it.
Luis Zapata 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 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.
Depor will keep picking him until June and will get nothing for him after it. Athos Thawan has pre-agreed a move to Cortulua, and the only people who lose in that arrangement are the ones who let the contract run down.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Cortulua 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 Cortulua this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
1‑2 to Deportes Tolima, and no complaints worth printing. The performance asked for nothing more than it got.
Squad16 Aug 2027
Words at Cortulua training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Kevin Núñez 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.
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Juan Martín Aguirre and Cortulua agree another 2 years.
“I watch every Cortulua game from here. That says everything about where my head is.” The loan at Deportes Tolima runs its course, but his heart never made the trip.
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.
Anderson Angulo 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 unbeaten run reaches 6. Some of them were wins and some were escapes, but a side that refuses to lose is a side other dressing rooms talk about.
Squad16 Aug 2027
Edwar López 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.
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.
He is the name in every column and on every phone-in, which is a heavy thing to carry at any age. Some footballers thrive on it; others are quietly finished by it.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Cortulua can pretend not to have heard.
The chase for Juan Miguel Betancourth ended with $290.0K changing hands and Deportivo Pereira out of reasons to say no. The supporters will judge the fee the only way that matters: on Saturdays.
Luis Zapata 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: Nicolas Cordoba. 1‑0 against Atletico Bucaramanga, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
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.
A defender on the scoresheet, which happens rarely enough that everybody in the ground remembers who took the corner. 1 for him, and a mark of 7.91 for the rest of it.
Anderson Angulo 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: 21. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Squad19 Jul 2027
Edwar López 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 have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Cortulua can pretend not to have heard.
Player ratings21 Jun 2027
Ivan Giraldo, 19, plays like he has been here for years — 7.89
A mark of 7.89 means one thing beside a twenty-nine-year-old's name and something else entirely beside a 19-year-old's. Nobody at the ground needed telling which this was.
The accountants will call it good business and they will be right, which is not the point anybody outside the boardroom is making. Luis Torres was one of the reasons people came, and $620.0K does not replace that by itself.
Luis Zapata 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.
La Equidad paid $620.0K and Cortulua took it, which is the whole story in one sentence. The longer version involves a wage budget and will be told all season.
Three points for Cortulua, 1‑0 the final word against Patriotas in a contest settled by the finer margins.
Squad21 Jun 2027
Words at Cortulua training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Kevin Núñez 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.
“I am grateful for the games, but I did not become a footballer to be somebody else's spare part.” He wants to be at Cortulua, and 0 appearances in 23 say he has earned the hearing.
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.
Player ratings17 May 2027
Alejandro Moreno, 19, plays like he has been here for years — 8.15
A mark of 8.15 means one thing beside a twenty-nine-year-old's name and something else entirely beside a 19-year-old's. Nobody at the ground needed telling which this was.
Oscar Gomez 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 19 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.
“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.
Squad17 May 2027
The manager has not finished forgetting Luis Zapata's mistake
Publicly it is behind everybody. It is not behind the man who picks the team, and the only place that shows is a team sheet. He will get another chance; he will get it in a match that matters less.
“I watch every Cortulua game from here. That says everything about where my head is.” The loan at Deportes Tolima runs its course, but his heart never made the trip.
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.
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.
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 watch every Cortulua game from here. That says everything about where my head is.” The loan at Deportes Tolima runs its course, but his heart never made the trip.
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.
Juan Manuel Valencia 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.
“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.
Squad22 Mar 2027
Words at Cortulua training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Kevin Núñez 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.
“I am grateful for the games, but I did not become a footballer to be somebody else's spare part.” He wants to be at Cortulua, and 0 appearances in 10 say he has earned the hearing.
5 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.
At 33 he is supposed to be managing his minutes. Instead he was marked 8.41 and looked, for ninety minutes, exactly like the player everybody remembers.
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.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Deportes Tolima this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Bryan Rovira 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.
Squad18 Jan 2027
5 new faces, and Deportes Tolima 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.
Nobody makes a documentary about a hamstring and everybody in the game fears one. Deportes Tolima will be careful with the return date, because the second one is always worse than the first.
Anderson Angulo 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. Cortulua will be quietly delighted and privately nervous.
Edwin Uribe 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.
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 19 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.
Qualification is done, and next season the floodlights come on for something bigger. A stage for the players, oxygen for the accounts and a passport for everybody else.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 18 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
Squad21 Dec 2026
A season's verdict on Ivan Giraldo: the best of his age
Cortulua have a 19-year-old the division has just voted its finest young footballer. The club's next problem is that everybody else now knows it too.
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. Cortulua will be quietly delighted and privately nervous.
The fee is $1.4M, the contract is signed, and the argument about whether he is worth it can begin. Deportivo Cali drove a hard bargain; time will say who won it.
The offer from Real Cartagena for Richard Ramirez 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.