The Valledupar Post
Market31 Jul 2028
Jorge Palacios 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 Valledupar can pretend not to have heard.
Market31 Jul 2028
Only the photograph left for Andres Sanchez
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Andres Sanchez will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Valledupar the goodbyes have quietly begun.
Squad31 Jul 2028
A falling-out at Valledupar
Jorge Palacios and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Transfer targets31 Jul 2028
Valledupar rebuffed over Jorman Mendoza
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Envigado have kept their man, and Valledupar go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
Transfer targets31 Jul 2028
Juan Diego Mendoza stays at Real Santander as time runs out
A deal that was a phone call from completion at lunchtime was dead by midnight. Valledupar will try again when the window opens; Real Santander may not be selling by then.
Squad31 Jul 2028
A row about effort at Valledupar
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Junior Palacios was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Squad31 Jul 2028
Time is catching up with Hugo Zarco
Everybody at Valledupar saw it before anybody said it, which is how this always goes. At 37 the decline is real and measurable — 3 points — and the only question left is how the club handles somebody it owes a great deal to.
Squad31 Jul 2028
Valledupar count the cost of losing Cristian Perez
36 days, the scan says, and scans are kinder than reality. The fixtures in that window have just become somebody else’s job.
Boardroom31 Jul 2028
90% of the income goes out in wages at Valledupar
Every club in football pays most of what it earns to its players. Paying nearly all of it is a different arrangement, and it has ended the same way every time somebody has tried it.
In brief
- The dugout Victor Arias knocks on the manager's door
- The dugout No hiding place for Iñaki Baigorria
- Market Marlon Ugarte brings the grey hairs Valledupar lacked