Marked for Alejandro Rincon
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad11 Feb 2036
A knee injury of the worst kind for Matías González
63 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Atletico Nacional lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Squad11 Feb 2036
The match ball belongs to Miguel Monsalve, whose 3 goals turned a difficult afternoon into a procession.
Market11 Feb 2036
“I have given everything here and I need a new challenge.” The request is formal, and the relationship will never be quite the same again.
Market11 Feb 2036
“I want to be playing for trophies while my legs still let me.” Nothing in that sentence is a transfer request, and nobody at Atletico Nacional heard it as anything else.
Squad11 Feb 2036
Yéicar Perlaza 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.
Market11 Feb 2036
Only the photograph left for Brian Cordoba
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Brian Cordoba will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Atletico Nacional the goodbyes have quietly begun.
Player ratings11 Feb 2036
Marked 10.00 — 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.
Squad11 Feb 2036
Miguel Monsalve 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.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad24 Dec 2035
Matías González damages knee ligaments — 113 days out
The words a physio says slowly. 113 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.
Market24 Dec 2035
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Atletico Nacional they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
Market24 Dec 2035
“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 The request is on a desk at Atletico Nacional, and it is not being withdrawn.
Market24 Dec 2035
The offer was not close and it was refused without much discussion. Whether the second one is refused as quickly is another matter.
Market24 Dec 2035
It is the most legitimate ambition in the sport and the hardest for most clubs to satisfy. Juan José Arias wants continental football; whether Atletico Nacional can provide it is a question about the next two seasons, not about him.
Squad24 Dec 2035
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Atletico Nacional this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Boardroom24 Dec 2035
He will play here until the summer and then walk out of the door for free, having already signed elsewhere. Supporters will manage the first part of that sentence; it is the second they will struggle with.
Squad24 Dec 2035
Words at Atletico Nacional training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Miguel Monsalve 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.
Squad24 Dec 2035
“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.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Squad17 Dec 2035
Matías González damages knee ligaments — 120 days out
The words a physio says slowly. 120 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 ratings17 Dec 2035
Two goals and a mark of 10.00 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
Match11 Dec 2035
2 in front and in complete control, and it finished with Libertad the happier side. There is no version of this afternoon that Atletico Nacional will enjoy reviewing.
Match11 Dec 2035
3‑4 away to the standard of Libertad. Nobody will pretend this was a scandal; the gap is real, it is measurable, and closing it is a project rather than a team talk.
Squad17 Dec 2035
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.
Squad17 Dec 2035
18 goals and a season average of 7.66. Form like that gets noticed well beyond this town.
Squad17 Dec 2035
Santiago Patroni: that is not what I was promised
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Atletico Nacional have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Market17 Dec 2035
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Atletico Nacional can pretend not to have heard.
Market17 Dec 2035
The offer was not close and it was refused without much discussion. Whether the second one is refused as quickly is another matter.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad26 Nov 2035
A knee injury of the worst kind for Matías González
142 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Atletico Nacional lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Squad26 Nov 2035
A fracture rules Jose Perez out for 23 days
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Atletico Nacional will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
Market26 Nov 2035
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Atletico Nacional can pretend not to have heard.
Market26 Nov 2035
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.
Squad26 Nov 2035
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Atletico Nacional this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Squad29 Oct 2035
There were 11 saves in it, and at least three that had no business being saves at all. The ten outfield players owe him a drink and they know it.
Squad29 Oct 2035
Jose Perez breaks a bone — 54 days out
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 54 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
Match23 Oct 2035
2‑4 away to the standard of Santos. Nobody will pretend this was a scandal; the gap is real, it is measurable, and closing it is a project rather than a team talk.
Market29 Oct 2035
“I have given everything here and I need a new challenge.” The request is formal, and the relationship will never be quite the same again.
Match23 Oct 2035
No end in sight to Atletico Nacional's wait for a win
6 matches now without a victory, and the excuses have worn thinner than the patience. Somebody at Atletico Nacional has to find a result from somewhere.
Squad29 Oct 2035
A season average of 7.62 with 13 goals behind it. Opponents have started planning around him, which is the sincerest compliment football pays.
Squad29 Oct 2035
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Atletico Nacional this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Market29 Oct 2035
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Atletico Nacional is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
Match23 Oct 2035
6 goals. Both benches spent the second half looking at each other rather than at the pitch. Purists will complain about Atletico Nacional and Santos in equal measure; everybody else had a wonderful time.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad1 Oct 2035
Jose Perez breaks a bone — 82 days out
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 82 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
Squad1 Oct 2035
“I remember the meeting. I remember exactly what was promised in it.” Atletico Nacional may remember it differently, which is precisely the problem.
Player ratings1 Oct 2035
Successful dribbles: 29. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Market1 Oct 2035
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Atletico Nacional can pretend not to have heard.
Market1 Oct 2035
“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.
Market1 Oct 2035
It is the most legitimate ambition in the sport and the hardest for most clubs to satisfy. Miguel Monsalve wants continental football; whether Atletico Nacional can provide it is a question about the next two seasons, not about him.
Squad1 Oct 2035
Juan José Arias 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.
Squad1 Oct 2035
9 goals and a season average of 7.52. Form like that gets noticed well beyond this town.
Market1 Oct 2035
James Castillo has one foot out of the door
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Atletico Nacional they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Squad3 Sep 2035
Emerson Rodríguez damages knee ligaments — 27 days out
The words a physio says slowly. 27 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.
Squad3 Sep 2035
Jose Perez breaks a bone — 111 days out
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 111 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
Market3 Sep 2035
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Atletico Nacional can pretend not to have heard.
Squad3 Sep 2035
There were 6 saves in it, and at least three that had no business being saves at all. The ten outfield players owe him a drink and they know it.
Squad3 Sep 2035
Defences have started doubling up on Miguel Monsalve
15 goals and a season average of 7.57 will do that. The space he used to find has gone; he keeps scoring anyway, which is the mark of the real thing.
Market3 Sep 2035
“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 Atletico Nacional hears a sentence like that exactly as it was built.
Market3 Sep 2035
It is the most legitimate ambition in the sport and the hardest for most clubs to satisfy. Franco González wants continental football; whether Atletico Nacional can provide it is a question about the next two seasons, not about him.
Market3 Sep 2035
Only the photograph left for James Castillo
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. James Castillo will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Atletico Nacional the goodbyes have quietly begun.
Match1 Sep 2035
1‑2 to Deportivo Cali, and no complaints worth printing. The performance asked for nothing more than it got.
From our football correspondent
Triumph
Squad20 Aug 2035
A knee injury of the worst kind for Emerson Rodríguez
42 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Atletico Nacional lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Player ratings20 Aug 2035
31 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.
Squad20 Aug 2035
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.
Match18 Aug 2035
5 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.
Market20 Aug 2035
“I have given everything here and I need a new challenge.” The request is formal, and the relationship will never be quite the same again.
Player ratings20 Aug 2035
28 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.
Squad20 Aug 2035
Alejandro Rincon: that is not what I was promised
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Atletico Nacional have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Market20 Aug 2035
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.
Squad20 Aug 2035
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Atletico Nacional this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Squad6 Aug 2035
A knee injury of the worst kind for Emerson Rodríguez
56 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Atletico Nacional lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Player ratings6 Aug 2035
Defensive actions: 33, and a clean sheet at the end of it. A centre-half's best afternoons look like nothing happening, which is precisely the point.
Market6 Aug 2035
“I have given everything here and I need a new challenge.” The request is formal, and the relationship will never be quite the same again.
Squad6 Aug 2035
There were 6 saves in it, and at least three that had no business being saves at all. The ten outfield players owe him a drink and they know it.
Market6 Aug 2035
“I want to be playing for trophies while my legs still let me.” Nothing in that sentence is a transfer request, and nobody at Atletico Nacional heard it as anything else.
Squad6 Aug 2035
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Atletico Nacional this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Match4 Aug 2035
Momentum is a hard thing to buy and an easy thing to lose, and right now Atletico Nacional have 3 straight wins of it.
Player ratings6 Aug 2035
Defensive actions: 24, and a clean sheet at the end of it. A centre-half's best afternoons look like nothing happening, which is precisely the point.
Market6 Aug 2035
James Castillo has one foot out of the door
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Atletico Nacional they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Player ratings14 May 2035
37 times he got in the way of something. Centre-halves get written about when they make mistakes and ignored when they do not, so an afternoon like this needs saying out loud: he is the reason the scoreline reads as it does.
Match9 May 2035
A 1‑0 win over Fortaleza CEIF, a place in the next round, and the quiet arithmetic every supporter does on the walk home: how many more until a final?
Player ratings14 May 2035
34 times he got in the way of something. Centre-halves get written about when they make mistakes and ignored when they do not, so an afternoon like this needs saying out loud: he is the reason the scoreline reads as it does.
Player ratings14 May 2035
A defender's afternoon for Sergio Díaz
Defensive actions: 34. He was first to everything and second to nothing, and the goalkeeper had an easy day because of it.
Match9 May 2035
Alejandro Rincon wins it after the whistle should have gone
120 minutes played. Alejandro Rincon found the finish in time that only existed because of earlier delays, and Fortaleza CEIF went from a point to nothing inside one movement.
Player ratings14 May 2035
Successful dribbles: 30. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Squad14 May 2035
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.
Squad14 May 2035
Juan Moreno: that is not what I was promised
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Atletico Nacional have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Market14 May 2035
“I want to be playing for trophies while my legs still let me.” Nothing in that sentence is a transfer request, and nobody at Atletico Nacional heard it as anything else.
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Match10 Mar 2035
Rarely has this fixture seen a display like it: 4‑0 against Tigres, and it could have been more.
Player ratings12 Mar 2035
2 goals, and the second was the one that settled it. Marked 8.78, and he could have had a third with better luck at the near post.
Player ratings12 Mar 2035
Defensive actions: 31, and a clean sheet at the end of it. A centre-half's best afternoons look like nothing happening, which is precisely the point.
Market12 Mar 2035
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Atletico Nacional can pretend not to have heard.
Squad12 Mar 2035
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Atletico Nacional this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Player ratings12 Mar 2035
24 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.
Market12 Mar 2035
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Atletico Nacional is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
Player ratings12 Mar 2035
Successful dribbles: 22. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Squad12 Mar 2035
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Alfredo Rios is 18, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Market15 Jan 2035
“I have given everything here and I need a new challenge.” The request is formal, and the relationship will never be quite the same again.
Market15 Jan 2035
Franco González 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 Atletico Nacional hears a sentence like that exactly as it was built.
Squad15 Jan 2035
Juan José Arias 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.
Market15 Jan 2035
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Atletico Nacional is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
Squad15 Jan 2035
Luis Moreira gets the move he always wanted
Footballers are asked about their boyhood club so often that nobody listens to the answer. Luis Moreira has just signed for Atletico Nacional, and for once the answer mattered.
Squad15 Jan 2035
Juan Manuel Zapata 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.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad25 Dec 2034
“I was told what my role would be, and I signed on that basis. It has not happened.” A grievance with a date attached is the hardest kind to settle.
Market25 Dec 2034
The offer was not close and it was refused without much discussion. Whether the second one is refused as quickly is another matter.
Market25 Dec 2034
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Atletico Nacional is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
Market25 Dec 2034
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.
Squad25 Dec 2034
Juan José Arias 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.
Squad25 Dec 2034
Footballers are asked about their boyhood club so often that nobody listens to the answer. Alejandro Rincon has just signed for Atletico Nacional, and for once the answer mattered.