Marked for Wilmar Restrepo
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Squad14 Sep 2026
Wilmar Restrepo damages knee ligaments — 19 days out
The words a physio says slowly. 19 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.
Player ratings14 Sep 2026
Nobody could get near Juan Borja
Successful dribbles: 30. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Player ratings14 Sep 2026
Miguel Cuadrado, 21, plays like he has been here for years — 8.31
A mark of 8.31 means one thing beside a twenty-nine-year-old's name and something else entirely beside a 21-year-old's. Nobody at the ground needed telling which this was.
Market14 Sep 2026
“I want to be playing for trophies while my legs still let me.” Nothing in that sentence is a transfer request, and nobody at La Equidad heard it as anything else.
Squad14 Sep 2026
A muscle injury sidelines Pablo Restrepo for 14 days
Nobody makes a documentary about a hamstring and everybody in the game fears one. La Equidad will be careful with the return date, because the second one is always worse than the first.
Squad14 Sep 2026
Javier Mina and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Squad14 Sep 2026
A season average of 7.03 at an age when most of his year group are still in the youth team. La Equidad know what they have, and so, by now, does everybody else.
Boardroom14 Sep 2026
Deportes Quindio will keep picking him until June and will get nothing for him after it. Armando Preciado has pre-agreed a move to La Equidad, and the only people who lose in that arrangement are the ones who let the contract run down.
The terraces14 Sep 2026
At 21 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.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad7 Sep 2026
Wilmar Restrepo damages knee ligaments — 26 days out
The words a physio says slowly. 26 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.
Squad7 Sep 2026
Footballers are asked about their boyhood club so often that nobody listens to the answer. Alexandro Licona has just signed for La Equidad, and for once the answer mattered.
Squad7 Sep 2026
Javier Mina in a row with a teammate
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at La Equidad this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad7 Sep 2026
A row about effort at La Equidad
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Sergio Muriel was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Boardroom7 Sep 2026
Nothing happens for months and then he simply arrives, at no cost, having signed a pre-contract while still turning out for somebody else. It is the least dramatic way to sign a footballer and frequently the shrewdest.
The dugout7 Sep 2026
Gustavo Uribe has become a man the manager trusts
Nobody at La Equidad 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.
Market7 Sep 2026
The Nicolas Rios story refuses to die
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Nicolas Rios signs something — a contract at La Equidad or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
Market7 Sep 2026
Nobody sells a season ticket on a signing like this. Every manager who has been through a bad October wants one anyway, and La Equidad have gone and got theirs early.
Market7 Sep 2026
Nobody sells a season ticket on a signing like this. Every manager who has been through a bad October wants one anyway, and La Equidad have gone and got theirs early.
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Squad31 Aug 2026
35 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. La Equidad lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
Market31 Aug 2026
The offer was not close and it was refused without much discussion. Whether the second one is refused as quickly is another matter.
Player ratings31 Aug 2026
Juan Borja runs at them all day
Successful dribbles: 28. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
Player ratings31 Aug 2026
Marked 7.74 at 21, in a side that makes no allowances for age. He did not need any, and he looked the least nervous man on the pitch.
Player ratings31 Aug 2026
At 33 every good afternoon gets called a throwback, and this one was: 8.00, and nobody on the pitch better.
Match29 Aug 2026
A 2‑0 win over Aguilas Doradas, earned rather than given, and the sort of afternoon that sends everyone home talking about next week instead of this one.
Squad31 Aug 2026
“The easiest signature of my career.” Jhon Azcárate and La Equidad agree another 4 years, and the manager can plan around him rather than about him.
The dugout31 Aug 2026
“We earned that. I asked them for a reaction and I got one, and now I want the same again on Saturday.” Camilo Gonzalez on a 2‑0 afternoon that pleased him more than he was prepared to show.
The dugout31 Aug 2026
“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.