Marked for Ivan Hernandez
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Market16 Nov 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 Valledupar can pretend not to have heard.
Squad16 Nov 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 Valledupar this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad16 Nov 2026
Fabian Quintero 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.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad5 Oct 2026
Gabriel Monteiro and a teammate said things this week that will take longer than a week to unsay. It was not about football, and both of them play on Saturday.
Squad5 Oct 2026
A row about effort at Valledupar
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Fabian Quintero was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Squad5 Oct 2026
Valledupar will explain it as a decision about the team, and it may well be one. A dressing room has never once read it that way.
The dugout5 Oct 2026
Santiago Gomez knocks on the manager's door
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Valledupar, and both men came out saying it was fine.
Squad5 Oct 2026
He is not being dropped. There is simply nowhere in the formation Valledupar are playing to put a man who does what he does, which is a harder thing to be told than any team sheet.
Market5 Oct 2026
Valledupar bring in an old head
Alejandro Arrieta is 36 and has run out of things to prove. What he has left is where to stand, when to slow it down and what to say at half-time, and none of that is on a fitness chart.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad28 Sep 2026
Gabriel Monteiro and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
The dugout28 Sep 2026
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Carlos Mejia, and the manager let it.
Squad28 Sep 2026
Words at Valledupar training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Henrique Farias 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.