Marked for Junior Ramirez
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad17 Aug 2026
Roberto Soteldo damages knee ligaments — 32 days out
The words a physio says slowly. 32 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.
Squad17 Aug 2026
A fracture rules Marcelo Nardo out for 126 days
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Llaneros will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
Match12 Aug 2026
The small margins put Llaneros out
Out, 0‑4 to Caracas, 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
Llaneros are taken apart by Caracas — and the town wants answers
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.
Market17 Aug 2026
The phone has started ringing about Juan Murillo again, and this time the name on the line is Kashima Antlers. Llaneros are listening politely and promising nothing.
Match15 Aug 2026
4 matches without a win for Llaneros
The run now stands at 4, and the questions being asked around Llaneros are no longer polite ones.
Player ratings17 Aug 2026
Successful dribbles: 23. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
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 Llaneros this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad17 Aug 2026
The manager makes an example of Cristian Osorio
“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
Crisis
Market10 Aug 2026
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Llaneros can pretend not to have heard.
Player ratings10 Aug 2026
Successful dribbles: 23. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Squad10 Aug 2026
“I never wanted to be anywhere else. There is unfinished business here.” Junior Ramirez commits to Llaneros for another 3 years.
Squad10 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 Llaneros this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Match8 Aug 2026
Beaten 1‑3, and beaten fairly. The manager kept his words short afterwards, which was probably wise.
Squad10 Aug 2026
The manager makes an example of Junior Ramirez
“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.
Squad10 Aug 2026
Words at Llaneros training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Juan Rosales 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.
Market10 Aug 2026
Still no offer on the table, and Richard Martinez’s deal keeps shrinking. In boardroom language, silence this long stops being an oversight and starts being an answer.
Player ratings10 Aug 2026
He was not in the side at half past three and he had settled it before five. Half an hour, and Llaneros had a different afternoon.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Player ratings3 Aug 2026
A debut Sergio Osorio will not forget — 7.14
There is exactly one of these per career and it does not usually go like this. 1 on the scoresheet, 7.14 beside the name, and a crowd that had never seen him before chanting it by the end.
Player ratings3 Aug 2026
Two goals and a mark of 8.18 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
Market3 Aug 2026
It is the most legitimate ambition in the sport and the hardest for most clubs to satisfy. Cristian Osorio wants continental football; whether Llaneros can provide it is a question about the next two seasons, not about him.
Player ratings3 Aug 2026
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.
Squad3 Aug 2026
Junior Ramirez 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.
Match1 Aug 2026
Defending was optional and nobody took up the option. 6 goals between Llaneros and Deportivo Lara, and not one of the people who paid to be there will ask for the money back.
Squad3 Aug 2026
Jose Casseres 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 terraces3 Aug 2026
There is a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 23-year-old it feels ownership of. Juan Murillo has it now, and everything he does for the rest of his time here will be measured against the goodwill he was handed for free.
Squad3 Aug 2026
“I never wanted to be anywhere else. There is unfinished business here.” Cristian Otero commits to Llaneros for another 2 years.