Marked for Kevin Gomez
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad16 Nov 2026
A knee injury of the worst kind for Francisco Medina
70 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Universitario Popayan lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Market16 Nov 2026
The general version of this complaint is that a player wants more. The specific version names the thing: he wants to walk out under floodlights against clubs from other countries, and he has stopped pretending otherwise.
Squad16 Nov 2026
Freddy 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 dugout16 Nov 2026
The manager makes an example of Diego Duque
“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.
Squad16 Nov 2026
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Jose Herrera was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
The dugout16 Nov 2026
The manager has not finished forgetting Kevin Gomez's mistake
Publicly it is behind everybody. It is not behind the man who picks the team, and the only place that shows is a team sheet. He will get another chance; he will get it in a match that matters less.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad19 Oct 2026
Francisco Medina damages knee ligaments — 99 days out
The words a physio says slowly. 99 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.
Market19 Oct 2026
“I have given everything here and I need a new challenge.” The request is formal, and the relationship will never be quite the same again.
Squad19 Oct 2026
At 16 he is doing things this season that he could not do last season, and doing them every week. Form comes and goes; this has stayed long enough to be called something else.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Market21 Sep 2026
Freddy Vargas hands in a written request
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Universitario Popayan can pretend not to have heard.
Squad21 Sep 2026
Jose Herrera 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.
Squad21 Sep 2026
Mateo Giraldo 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.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad24 Aug 2026
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Jose Herrera was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Squad24 Aug 2026
Mateo Giraldo and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
The dugout24 Aug 2026
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Sebastian Vargas, and the manager let it.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Match12 Aug 2026
1‑1 against America de Cali, and the road stops here. Cup exits are quick deaths — no second leg, no next week, just the league from now until May.
Squad17 Aug 2026
6 saves, and a scoreline the ten men in front of him had no right to. Goalkeepers only get noticed on the bad days; this was one of the other ones.
Squad17 Aug 2026
Jose Herrera and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Player ratings17 Aug 2026
Luis Uribe ran the middle of the pitch — 6.90
He won it back and then made something of it, which is two jobs and the reason the scoreline looks the way it does. 12 combined actions and a mark of 6.90, and not one of them will make a highlights package.
The terraces17 Aug 2026
There is a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 22-year-old it feels ownership of. Diego Duque 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.
Squad17 Aug 2026
Santiago Cuadrado 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.
Player ratings17 Aug 2026
Diego Duque was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.01. 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.
The dugout17 Aug 2026
The manager makes an example of Jose Herrera
“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.
Match12 Aug 2026
The board was up, the win was priced in, and then America de Cali scored. There is no worse minute to concede in and the ground emptied in the silence that follows one.