Hector Romero 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 thought about how hard another man trains, and Freddy Caicedo was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Hector Romero trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
Nobody at Valledupar 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.
A few words of the language, a friend at the next peg, and a training ground that has stopped feeling foreign. Nothing measurable, and everything visible on Saturdays.
3 wins in a row changes how opponents warm up: quieter, more glances across. Runs end, everybody knows that — but nobody in this dressing room is planning for it.
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 19 he is doing things at this level he could not do at the start of the season, and the coaching staff will tell you exactly which of them.
Marked 8.29 — 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.
“The players deserve the credit. My job was easy today.” It was not, and everybody in the room knew it; after 4‑0, Mateo Ramirez could afford to be generous.
Headers, blocks, tackles, interceptions — 14 of them, and not one goal behind him. The sort of performance that never makes a highlight reel and wins football matches.
In brief
SquadEdwin Castillo falls out with a teammate over standards
The dugoutCarlos Sanchez dropped after a run of poor form
Junior go through and Valledupar go home, 0‑2 the scoreline that did it. The dressing room will call the league the priority now, because that is what dressing rooms 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 Valledupar this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
He won it back and then made something of it, which is two jobs and the reason the scoreline looks the way it does. 9 combined actions and a mark of 6.93, and not one of them will make a highlights package.
Level with 89 minutes on the clock, after an afternoon Valledupar had all but put away. Depor will call it a point earned; the home dressing room will call it two given away, and both of them are right.
There is a figure at which a wage bill stops being ambitious and becomes the reason nothing else is possible, and this club has reached it. Nothing is left over for a transfer, a stand or a rainy afternoon.
“There are things I liked and things we will be doing on Tuesday until they are right.” 1‑1, and a manager who had already decided what Tuesday looked like.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Andrés Tovar trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
The last thing about a transfer that is still about the player is his signature on his own terms, and it is there. Valledupar have lost him in all but the paperwork.
The hardest thing about being 20 in a senior side is that nobody makes allowances. Gabriel Giraldo did not need any: 7.77, and he looked the most comfortable man on the pitch.
Mauricio Liñán 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.
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.
“A point is a point and I will take it, but we should have had all three.” Mateo Ramirez after the 1‑1 draw, and the sentence every manager in the country said at some stage this weekend.
Senior shirt numbers handed to boys the coaches have known since they were twelve. Most will not make it and all of them have already done the hard part.
The academy exists for exactly this morning. Gustavo Garcia has come through every age group the club runs and has now been handed a senior number, and the people who coached him at twelve will be the proudest in the building.
Clubs spend fortunes looking for players and occasionally find one down the corridor. Freddy Mina is that, and the reception he gets on his first appearance will be different in kind from the one any signing receives.
There is no fee, no unveiling and no agent on the steps. Manuel Cardona has been at this club since he was a boy and is now, formally, one of the first-team squad — which for a local readership beats any signing of any size.
Beaten 0‑1, and beaten fairly. The manager kept his words short afterwards, which was probably wise.
The dugout25 Jan 2027
The view from the dugout
“We will look at it, we will learn from it, and we go again.” The three sentences every manager keeps for a 0‑1 defeat, delivered by Mateo Ramirez to a room that had heard them before.
It is the quietest way a club tells you what its ambitions are. The money was asked for, the money was refused, and the people who work there every day now know exactly where they stand.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Jaguares have kept their man, and Valledupar go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
Mauricio Liñán 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.
Valledupar have made the call to Jaguares. No fee, a share of the wages, and a spare shirt in the position where the squad has been thinnest all season.
Squad18 Jan 2027
Words at Valledupar training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Edwin Castillo 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.