Marked for Alejandro Rincon
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Squad19 Jul 2027
A knee injury of the worst kind for Junior Ferraresi
107 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Atletico Venezuela lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Squad19 Jul 2027
A season average of 7.59 with 28 goals behind it. Opponents have started planning around him, which is the sincerest compliment football pays.
Market19 Jul 2027
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Atletico Venezuela can pretend not to have heard.
Market19 Jul 2027
The offer from La Equidad for Francisco Machis 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.
Squad19 Jul 2027
“The easiest signature of my career.” Alejandro Rincon and Atletico Venezuela agree another 4 years, and the manager can plan around him rather than about him.
Squad19 Jul 2027
Leonardo Terán 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.
Match17 Jul 2027
9 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.
Market19 Jul 2027
Salomon Soteldo has left for Portuguesa in a $140.0K deal. The accountants are pleased; the supporters are less certain.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad12 Jul 2027
Junior Ferraresi damages knee ligaments — 115 days out
The words a physio says slowly. 115 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.
Market12 Jul 2027
The bid was some way short and Atletico Venezuela did not need long over it. Nobody in the game reads a first refusal as the end of anything.
Squad12 Jul 2027
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the team. 6 saves, several of them the sort nobody expects to see stopped, and a scoreline that flatters everybody in front of him.
Market12 Jul 2027
“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.
Boardroom12 Jul 2027
The rules permit it and it stings anyway. Oscar Murillo has agreed terms with Trujillanos for the summer, and until then he pulls on this shirt as a player who has already chosen his next one.
Market12 Jul 2027
Only the photograph left for Oscar Murillo
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Oscar Murillo will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Atletico Venezuela the goodbyes have quietly begun.
Squad12 Jul 2027
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Atletico Venezuela this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad12 Jul 2027
Words at Atletico Venezuela training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Mateo Ospina 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.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Player ratings5 Jul 2027
Successful dribbles: 40. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Squad5 Jul 2027
Junior Ferraresi damages knee ligaments — 122 days out
The words a physio says slowly. 122 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.
Squad5 Jul 2027
A season average of 7.55 with 26 goals behind it. Opponents have started planning around him, which is the sincerest compliment football pays.
Market5 Jul 2027
“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 Atletico Venezuela, and it is not being withdrawn.
Market5 Jul 2027
The offer was not close and it was refused without much discussion. Whether the second one is refused as quickly is another matter.
Squad5 Jul 2027
A season average of 7.00 at an age when most of his year group are still in the youth team. Atletico Venezuela know what they have, and so, by now, does everybody else.
Match3 Jul 2027
Beaten 0‑2, and beaten fairly. The manager kept his words short afterwards, which was probably wise.
Squad5 Jul 2027
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Alejandro Rincon, and the manager let it.
Boardroom5 Jul 2027
The board have put money on the table rather than an encouraging word. What happens to it now is somebody else's problem, and somebody else's job.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad7 Jun 2027
Defences have started doubling up on Francisco Machis
26 goals and a season average of 7.55 will do that. The space he used to find has gone; he keeps scoring anyway, which is the mark of the real thing.
Market7 Jun 2027
“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.
Squad7 Jun 2027
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the team. 8 saves, several of them the sort nobody expects to see stopped, and a scoreline that flatters everybody in front of him.
Market7 Jun 2027
It is the most legitimate ambition in the sport and the hardest for most clubs to satisfy. Francisco Machis wants continental football; whether Atletico Venezuela can provide it is a question about the next two seasons, not about him.
Player ratings7 Jun 2027
Successful dribbles: 22. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Squad7 Jun 2027
Leonardo Terán 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.
Squad7 Jun 2027
He is 21, he is averaging 7.00, and older professionals have started passing to him in the difficult minutes. That last part is the real scouting report.
Boardroom7 Jun 2027
The board have put money on the table rather than an encouraging word. What happens to it now is somebody else's problem, and somebody else's job.
Match5 Jun 2027
It needed Francisco Machis to find the net to bring anything home at all: 2‑2 against Zamora, and half the dressing room will call it a point won.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Player ratings29 Mar 2027
Successful dribbles: 49. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
Squad29 Mar 2027
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 54 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
Squad29 Mar 2027
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the team. 6 saves, several of them the sort nobody expects to see stopped, and a scoreline that flatters everybody in front of him.
Match27 Mar 2027
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.
Squad29 Mar 2027
Words at Atletico Venezuela training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Mateo Ospina 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.
Squad29 Mar 2027
Jesús Lobo gets it from the manager
“Nobody here is above being told.” It was not said with a name attached, but the dressing room can count, and so can everybody who was listening.
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Squad8 Feb 2027
There were 8 saves in it, and at least three that had no business being saves at all. The ten outfield players owe him a drink and they know it.
Player ratings8 Feb 2027
Two goals and a mark of 8.55 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
Squad8 Feb 2027
Luis Otero breaks a bone — 27 days out
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 27 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
Player ratings8 Feb 2027
Successful dribbles: 23. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
Match6 Feb 2027
A 2‑1 win over Caracas, earned rather than given, and the sort of afternoon that sends everyone home talking about next week instead of this one.
The terraces8 Feb 2027
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.
Squad8 Feb 2027
“Nobody here is above being told.” It was not said with a name attached, but the dressing room can count, and so can everybody who was listening.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Market18 Jan 2027
The offer from DAC Dunajska Streda for Alejandro Rincon 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.
Squad18 Jan 2027
Luis Otero breaks a bone — 50 days out
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 50 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
Market18 Jan 2027
“I have ambitions, and I would like the club to share them.” Nobody has asked to leave and nobody has been shown the door — but a player chooses that sentence carefully, and a boardroom hears it exactly as it was meant.
Squad18 Jan 2027
Jesús Lobo 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.
Squad18 Jan 2027
5 new faces, and Atletico Venezuela 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.
Squad18 Jan 2027
Andres Otero 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
Steady
Market7 Sep 2026
The bid was some way short and Atletico Venezuela did not need long over it. Nobody in the game reads a first refusal as the end of anything.
Squad7 Sep 2026
Words at Atletico Venezuela training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Francisco Soteldo 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.
Squad7 Sep 2026
Diego Moreno is the division's best young player this month
At 20 he has spent a month being better than everybody his age in the league, which is a different and harder thing than one good afternoon. Atletico Venezuela will try very hard not to make too much of it.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad17 Aug 2026
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the team. 10 saves, several of them the sort nobody expects to see stopped, and a scoreline that flatters everybody in front of him.
Match12 Aug 2026
Out, 0‑4 to Deportivo Lara, and the long argument about which of the small moments decided it. The league is all there is now, and everybody knows it.
The terraces17 Aug 2026
It finished 0-4. A cup exit is a disappointment; this was a public dismantling, and the difference between the two is the number of people who will still be talking about it in August.
Squad17 Aug 2026
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Atletico Venezuela this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Player ratings17 Aug 2026
Successful dribbles: 21. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
Match15 Aug 2026
Beaten 0‑2, and beaten fairly. The manager kept his words short afterwards, which was probably wise.
Boardroom17 Aug 2026
Nobody left the Atletico Venezuela dressing room in a hurry
The door stayed shut a long time after the final whistle. What was said in there is between them; whether it worked is between them and Saturday.
Squad17 Aug 2026
Words at Atletico Venezuela training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Carlos Soteldo 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.
Player ratings17 Aug 2026
The cruellest goal, and it is Diego Moreno's
A touch he did not want, a bounce he could not have read, and his name in the wrong column. There is no consoling a man after one of these, and Atletico Venezuela will not try tonight.