“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.
“The easiest signature of my career.” Cristhian Valencia and Valledupar agree another 2 years, and the manager can plan around him rather than about him.
Squad5 Oct 2026
Felipe Vargas 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 system has changed and his position has not. A footballer can improve his form; he cannot improve the manager’s formation, and that is the whole of the problem.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Valledupar this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
The standards have slipped, and in a building where everybody watches everybody it has not gone unremarked. This is how a player loses a place before he loses one.
Through a full week of training without a reaction, and already asking for a place. Valledupar will be careful with him and he will resent every day of it.
“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 The request is on a desk at Valledupar, and it is not being withdrawn.
Felipe Vargas and a teammate said things this week that will take longer than a week to unsay. It was not about football, and both of them play on Saturday.
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
SquadQuestions about Hector Borja on the training pitch
Felipe Vargas 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.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Valledupar this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
A manager forgives a bad Saturday far more readily than a bad Tuesday, because one of them he can explain and the other one he chose. The reports this week have not been good.