Marked for Darwin Herrera
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad1 Feb 2027
A knee injury of the worst kind for Fernando García
67 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Zulia lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Squad1 Feb 2027
A fracture rules Miguel Cordova out for 65 days
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Zulia will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
Player ratings1 Feb 2027
Juan Arango, 19, plays like he has been here for years — 8.96
A mark of 8.96 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.
Market1 Feb 2027
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Zulia can pretend not to have heard.
Squad1 Feb 2027
Darwin Herrera: 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.” Zulia have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Squad1 Feb 2027
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Zulia this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad11 Jan 2027
Fernando García damages knee ligaments — 91 days out
The words a physio says slowly. 91 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.
Squad11 Jan 2027
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 89 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
Squad11 Jan 2027
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. João Marcos is 21, 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
Squad30 Nov 2026
Tempers go at Zulia
Stifensón Pérez 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.
Squad30 Nov 2026
Sergio Martinez 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.
Squad30 Nov 2026
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Darwin Herrera, and the manager let it.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad26 Oct 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 Zulia this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad26 Oct 2026
Words at Zulia training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Sergio Martinez 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.
Squad26 Oct 2026
The injury that keeps coming back, keeps being rushed back from, and quietly costs more careers than the dramatic ones. 14 days is the estimate; the honest figure depends on whether anybody is patient.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad5 Oct 2026
Tempers go at Zulia
Stifensón Pérez 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.
Squad5 Oct 2026
Sergio Martinez 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.
Squad5 Oct 2026
“I never wanted to be anywhere else. There is unfinished business here.” Miguel Arango commits to Zulia for another 1 years.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad28 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 Zulia this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad28 Sep 2026
Words at Zulia training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Sergio Martinez 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.
Squad28 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.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad31 Aug 2026
Tempers go at Zulia
Miguel Gonzalez 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.
Squad31 Aug 2026
Stifensón Pérez 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.
Squad31 Aug 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.