The words a physio says slowly. 108 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.
A bone, which is the one injury with a calendar attached. Llaneros will name a return date and, unusually for this business, will probably be right about it.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Richard Moreno was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Marked 6.71 on 11 actions at both ends of the pitch. Midfielders like this get described as unspectacular by people who have never tried to play against one.
Half the programme played, position 1, 33 on the board. Doubling it is the sum every supporter has done and the only one nobody at the club will do out loud.
The words a physio says slowly. 21 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.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Llaneros will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
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.
A 2‑1 win over Deportivo Tachira, earned rather than given, and the sort of afternoon that sends everyone home talking about next week instead of this one.
2 goals before the ground had finished arriving. Deportivo Tachira spent the rest of the afternoon playing a match that had already been decided, and everybody in the stadium knew it.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Daniel Machis was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
42 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.
Jonathan Jesus 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.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Daniel Machis was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Rafael Gonzalez, and the manager let it.
The dugout1 Mar 2027
The manager’s verdict
“That is on me. I pick the team and I picked wrong.” Managers say that when they mean it and when they need to be seen to, and after 1‑2 Juan Rondon left the room before anybody could ask which.
Every manager keeps a short list in his head of the men he wants on the pitch when the stakes rise, and it is never published. The team sheets for the big afternoons say Carlos Soteldo is on it.
Daniel Marín had done his part in building a 2-goal cushion. What happened after that was collective, and Atletico Venezuela were allowed back into a match that had been finished with.
He won it back and then made something of it, which is two jobs and the reason the scoreline looks the way it does. 13 combined actions and a mark of 7.57, and not one of them will make a highlights package.
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.
8 without defeat on their own grass. The pitch has not changed; the crowd has — louder earlier, and quicker to sense when the opposition would rather be somewhere else.
Marked 8.33 — 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.
Squad15 Feb 2027
Words at Llaneros training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Carlos Carranza 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.
2 goals before the ground had finished arriving. Estudiantes de Caracas spent the rest of the afternoon playing a match that had already been decided, and everybody in the stadium knew it.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Daniel Machis was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
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.
“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 Llaneros, and it is not being withdrawn.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 37 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Jonathan Jesus is 22, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
Carlos Soteldo 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.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Richard Moreno was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Cruzeiro have kept their man, and Llaneros go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
Every manager keeps a short list in his head of the men he wants on the pitch when the stakes rise, and it is never published. The team sheets for the big afternoons say Sergio Rincon is on it.
A season-long look at somebody else’s player: Jonathan Jesus arrives from Cruzeiro with something to prove and a return ticket in the drawer. Good loans make everybody richer; this one starts Saturday.
3 kept out from twelve yards, and a stadium that will describe each of them for twenty years. A goalkeeper needs one night like this in a career, and this was it.
A 1‑1 win over Deportivo La Guaira, a place in the next round, and the quiet arithmetic every supporter does on the walk home: how many more until a final?
3‑4 against Central Córdoba SdE, and an evening that measured the gap rather than the ninety minutes. Nothing about it was a disgrace and nothing about it was close.
7 goals in one match, Noah Blanco on the scoresheet, and a scoreline that will look like a misprint. Neutrals could not have asked more of Llaneros and Central Córdoba SdE.
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Maximiliano Acosta and Llaneros agree another 1 years.
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 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.
Victor Rincon 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 manager did not use many words, and he did not need to.” Andres Herrera has his answer from Llaneros; what he does with it is the next window’s story.
A loan enquiry to Gimnasia La Plata: cover, or a look at somebody the club cannot afford to buy yet. Either way the answer will come back inside the week.
Llaneros have made the call to America de Cali. No fee, a share of the wages, and a spare shirt in the position where the squad has been thinnest all season.
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 Alejandro Osorio trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
“I will play as long as the body lets me and stop the day it does not.” He is 38, with 0 appearances behind him, and the club has to plan for a decision that is not yet made.
In brief
BoardroomOpen for business: Llaneros enter the window
2‑2 against La Equidad, and a performance that will be described to people who were not there for the rest of the season. Noah Blanco was at the centre of the description.
“If you cannot run for the shirt, somebody else will wear it.” No name was used and none was needed; every player in that room knew who it was for.
Player ratings30 Nov 2026
Sergio Rincon was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.18. There are performances a supporter describes to somebody who was not there and cannot quite convey; this was one, and the number does not help either.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Daniel Machis was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
A player who expected to start watched it instead. The manager will call it a decision for the team; Maximiliano Acosta will call it something else in private.
It is never announced and it is entirely visible: the biggest afternoons of the season keep containing him. A press box works this out long before anybody at the club confirms a word of it.
The dugout30 Nov 2026
The view from the dugout
“We did not lose. Some weeks that is all you get, and I would rather have the point than not.” Juan Rondon chose the glass-half-full version of 2‑2; the supporters left with the other one.
Another week, another link, another denial nobody quite believes. Llaneros know the market decides these things, not the back pages — but the back pages are louder.
33 days, the scan says, and scans are kinder than reality. The fixtures in that window have just become somebody else’s job.
Squad9 Nov 2026
Words at Llaneros training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Daniel Machis 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.
A player who expected to start watched it instead. The manager will call it a decision for the team; Luis Savarino will call it something else in private.
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.
The dugout9 Nov 2026
The manager’s verdict
“I am frustrated, honestly. We did enough to win and we did not win.” Juan Rondon was not hiding it after 0‑0, and nobody in the Llaneros dressing room was either.
The one version of being left out a player cannot argue with, and the one he takes worst. Somebody else has been better and the team sheet says so, in public, every week until it changes.
Richard Moreno 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.
Squad28 Sep 2026
Daniel Machis 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.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Llaneros can pretend not to have heard.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the whole of the defence. 6 saves, several of them the kind nobody expects to see made, and ten outfield players who owe him a drink.
Match9 Sep 2026
Another one collected away from home
4 on the bounce on the road for Llaneros. The coaches leave early, arrive at unlovely grounds in the dark, and keep coming home with three points.
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.
At 20 he is being sung about by people twice his age, which is an affection a signing has to earn over years and a local kid gets for turning up. It is also the hardest thing in football to live up to.
There is a particular helplessness in conceding 2 times before the twentieth minute. Zamora tried to reorganise, Llaneros did not allow it, and the result was written long before it was confirmed.
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.
Daniel Cordova 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.
It is never announced and it is entirely visible: the biggest afternoons of the season keep containing him. A press box works this out long before anybody at the club confirms a word of it.
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Sergio Rincon. 3‑1 against Deportivo Lara, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
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 Llaneros this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
2 goals inside twenty minutes with Sergio Rincon in the middle of it, and Deportivo Lara unable to get near the ball long enough to change anything. Some matches are won before the first drink.
Two goals and a mark of 8.56 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
The offer from Persis for Chiqui was heard out and sent back the same day. First bids are rarely meant to succeed; they are meant to find out how loudly the door closes.
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.
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.
There is a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 20-year-old it feels ownership of. Chiqui has it now, and everything he does for the rest of his time here will be measured against the goodwill he was handed for free.
“I never wanted to be anywhere else. There is unfinished business here.” Victor Otero commits to Llaneros for another 2 years.
The dugout3 Aug 2026
The view from the dugout
“We controlled it. There were spells I did not like and we will look at them, but the group showed me something.” Juan Rondon, on a 3‑0 win that he was already picking apart on the walk to the press room.
In brief
The dugoutRichard Moreno asks for a word with the manager