Marked for Fabian Perez
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad11 Jan 2027
A fracture rules Nicolas Ramirez out for 32 days
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Cortulua will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
Market11 Jan 2027
“It was not right for me. I am not going to explain why to anybody except the people I owe an explanation to.” A deal agreed between two clubs, and a player who declined to be part of it.
Market11 Jan 2027
Fabian Perez 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 Cortulua can pretend not to have heard.
Squad11 Jan 2027
Words exchanged at Cortulua
Alfredo Montero 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.
Squad11 Jan 2027
Everybody saw it before anybody said it. At 35 the numbers say 3 points down on what he was, and the question for Cortulua is how to handle a man they owe a great deal.
Squad11 Jan 2027
Gustavo Torres 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 dugout11 Jan 2027
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.
Market11 Jan 2027
Every press conference now starts and ends the same way: with Alfredo Montero’s future. The manager has run out of new ways to say nothing.
The dugout11 Jan 2027
The manager makes an example of Caio Correia
“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.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad16 Nov 2026
A fracture rules Nicolas Ramirez out for 96 days
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Cortulua will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
The dugout16 Nov 2026
Gabriel Zapata: that is not what I was promised
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Cortulua have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Squad16 Nov 2026
Words exchanged at Cortulua
Alfredo Montero 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.
Squad16 Nov 2026
Words at Cortulua training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Kevin Romero 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.
Squad16 Nov 2026
12 new faces, and Cortulua are still learning each other
A squad rebuilt inside one window pays for it in a currency nobody budgets for. The football is not worse than the sum of the players; it is worse than the sum of the players who have played together before.
The dugout16 Nov 2026
It is not much of a headline and it is the reason players believe the next promise. Cortulua told Fabian Perez something would happen and then it happened, which in this industry passes for remarkable.
Market16 Nov 2026
Gabriel Zapata is free to find somewhere else
“I was told straight, and I would rather have it straight.” The manager at Cortulua has been clear about where Gabriel Zapata stands, which is more than many ever get.
The dugout16 Nov 2026
Jan Vega has become a man the manager trusts
Nobody at Cortulua 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.
Market16 Nov 2026
Cortulua bring in an old head
Jonathan Lozano is 33 and has run out of things to prove. What he has left is where to stand, when to slow it down and what to say at half-time, and none of that is on a fitness chart.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad9 Nov 2026
103 days out for Nicolas Ramirez after a fracture
A bone, which is the one injury with a calendar attached. Cortulua will name a return date and, unusually for this business, will probably be right about it.
Squad9 Nov 2026
A falling-out at Cortulua
Alfredo Montero and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Squad9 Nov 2026
A row about effort at Cortulua
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Kevin Romero was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Squad9 Nov 2026
The medical room confirms 15 days on the sidelines for Wilmar Hurtado, and a plan built around him now has to be rebuilt.
The dugout9 Nov 2026
Duvan Cordoba has become a man the manager trusts
Nobody at Cortulua 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.
Market9 Nov 2026
At 34, he has seen every situation this season can produce, twice. The legs will be managed; the head is the purchase.
Market9 Nov 2026
Cortulua bring in an old head
Diego Arismendi is 38 and has run out of things to prove. What he has left is where to stand, when to slow it down and what to say at half-time, and none of that is on a fitness chart.
The dugout9 Nov 2026
Nobody will confirm this and nothing else explains the last month of selections. A costly error buys a player a period of being second choice that is always longer than the error was.
Market9 Nov 2026
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Alfredo Montero signs something — a contract at Cortulua or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad26 Oct 2026
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 121 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
Match24 Oct 2026
3 goals to the good, and then a slow surrender of everything that had been earned. Jan Vega will not be the one blamed for it, but nobody at Cortulua escapes the conversation that follows a collapse like this.
Market26 Oct 2026
“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 Cortulua, and it is not being withdrawn.
Player ratings26 Oct 2026
Jan Vega scores twice — 8.39
Two goals and a mark of 8.39 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
Match24 Oct 2026
The wait goes on for Cortulua
4 without a win now, and the ground has developed the special quiet of a crowd that expects the worst. One scrappy 1-0 would cure most of it; that is the maddening part.
Squad26 Oct 2026
Kevin Romero 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 ratings26 Oct 2026
A performance of 8.32 does not come along often, and when it does the rest of the team becomes scenery. He was magnificent.
The dugout26 Oct 2026
The manager makes an example of David Valencia
“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.
Match24 Oct 2026
It needed Jan Vega to find the net to bring anything home at all: 3‑3 against Junior, and half the dressing room will call it a point won.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Market10 Aug 2026
Business is business: Ivan Cardona goes
Sporting CP paid $19.5M and Cortulua took it, which is the whole story in one sentence. The longer version involves a wage budget and will be told all season.
Squad10 Aug 2026
“I never wanted to be anywhere else. There is unfinished business here.” Duvan Zapata commits to Cortulua for another 4 years.
Squad10 Aug 2026
Words at Cortulua training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Duvan Cordoba 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.
Squad10 Aug 2026
Alfredo Montero 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.
The dugout10 Aug 2026
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Nicolas Ramirez, and the manager let it.
Match8 Aug 2026
Envigado left with the points after a 0‑1 defeat that will take some explaining on the terraces.
Market10 Aug 2026
It is the most legitimate ambition in the sport and the hardest for most clubs to satisfy. David Montero wants continental football; whether Cortulua can provide it is a question about the next two seasons, not about him.
The dugout10 Aug 2026
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 Diego Bacca to a room that had heard them before.
Squad10 Aug 2026
The formation has left David Valencia behind
Every shape has positions in it and this one does not have his. Cortulua will either change the shape, change his job, or change his club, and he is waiting to hear which.