97 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Llaneros lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Llaneros this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
106 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Llaneros lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
“I was told straight, and I would rather have it straight.” The manager at Llaneros has been clear about where Junior Rondon stands, which is more than many ever get.
Nobody at Llaneros 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.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Rafael Arango trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
The words a physio says slowly. 121 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.
Gabriel Cordova 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.