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.
It is the most legitimate ambition in the sport and the hardest for most clubs to satisfy. Rafael Machis wants continental football; whether Zulia can provide it is a question about the next two seasons, not about him.
In brief
SquadWords at Zulia training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Sergio Moreno 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.
Luis Torres 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.
“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 The request is on a desk at Zulia, and it is not being withdrawn.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 Zulia 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 Zulia this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad21 Sep 2026
David 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.
Nobody at Zulia 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 at Zulia 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 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.
Squad14 Sep 2026
Juan Moreno is training like a man with a point to make
Nobody has promised him anything and he has not asked. The coaching staff have noticed, which at this stage of a season is the only thing that matters.
“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.
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.
Squad7 Sep 2026
David 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.
The hardest thing about being 19 in a senior side is that nobody makes allowances. Junior Murillo did not need any: 7.72, and he looked the most comfortable man on the pitch.
Luis Torres 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.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Juan Moreno 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.