Marked for Carlos Rodriguez
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad21 Sep 2026
A knee injury of the worst kind for Mateo Hurtado
24 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Valledupar lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Squad21 Sep 2026
Nicolas Restrepo 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.
Squad21 Sep 2026
Alfredo Rios keeps his manager's vote
The message was aimed at the stands as much as the dressing room: Alfredo Rios plays, and the argument is closed until the manager decides otherwise.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad14 Sep 2026
A knee injury of the worst kind for Mateo Hurtado
31 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Valledupar lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Squad14 Sep 2026
Words at Valledupar training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Leonardo Gómez 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.
Squad14 Sep 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.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Player ratings17 Aug 2026
Successful dribbles: 49. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Squad17 Aug 2026
Rafael Rodriguez damages knee ligaments — 25 days out
The words a physio says slowly. 25 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.
Match12 Aug 2026
Atletico Nacional ended it 0‑4. The season narrows to the league now, and everyone in the ground knew it before the final whistle.
Squad17 Aug 2026
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the team. 7 saves, several of them the sort nobody expects to see stopped, and a scoreline that flatters everybody in front of him.
The terraces17 Aug 2026
0-4, and long before the end the away end had switched from encouragement to something considerably more pointed. Nobody rings a phone-in about losing narrowly.
Market17 Aug 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 Valledupar, and it is not being withdrawn.