Marked for Sergio Murillo
From our football correspondent
Steady
Player ratings14 Sep 2026
Successful dribbles: 41. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Match12 Sep 2026
The unbeaten run reaches 7. Some of them were wins and some were escapes, but a side that refuses to lose is a side other dressing rooms talk about.
Squad14 Sep 2026
Jesiel 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.
Squad14 Sep 2026
Asahi Sasaki 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.
Squad14 Sep 2026
“I did not come here to warm up in front of people.” He is out of contract eventually, he is old enough to count the weeks, and Kawasaki Frontale will have to give him a reason to stay or an exit.
Market14 Sep 2026
Both sides expect a conversation in the coming days. Kawasaki Frontale will name a price, and everything after that is arithmetic.
Match12 Sep 2026
1‑1, and both dressing rooms will call it two points lost. A draw that asked plenty of questions and answered none of them.
Squad14 Sep 2026
The first one is the one every signing is asked about until it arrives. It has arrived, and he can stop being asked.
Market14 Sep 2026
Contract settled, hands shaken, no fee changing hands. Shunsuke Ando leaves Kawasaki Frontale the quiet way, and the wage bill breathes a little easier.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Match12 Aug 2026
Cortulua bow out of the cup
Alianza Petrolera go through and Cortulua go home, 1‑1 the scoreline that did it. The dressing room will call the league the priority now, because that is what dressing rooms say.
Match15 Aug 2026
4 matches without a win for Cortulua
The run now stands at 4, and the questions being asked around Cortulua are no longer polite ones.
Squad17 Aug 2026
Jorge Valencia 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.
Squad17 Aug 2026
Hector Sanchez 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.
Match15 Aug 2026
0‑1 to Deportes Tolima, and no complaints worth printing. The performance asked for nothing more than it got.
Squad17 Aug 2026
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Rafael Sanchez, and the manager let it.
Player ratings17 Aug 2026
The kick that got away from Vitor Braga
Twelve yards, a goalkeeper guessing, and it still did not go in. He will take the next one, and every soul in the ground will hold their breath.
Squad17 Aug 2026
Nobody will confirm this and nothing else explains the last month of selections. A costly error buys a player a period of being second choice that is always longer than the error was.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad17 Aug 2026
A knee injury of the worst kind for Yasuto Wakizaka
40 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Kawasaki Frontale lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Player ratings17 Aug 2026
Successful dribbles: 40. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
Squad17 Aug 2026
Tatsuya Ito 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 Kawasaki Frontale this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Market17 Aug 2026
Business is business: Ryota Oshima goes
Urawa Reds paid $600.0K and Kawasaki Frontale took it, which is the whole story in one sentence. The longer version involves a wage budget and will be told all season.
Player ratings17 Aug 2026
Marked 7.61. Ask anyone leaving the ground what settled it and you will get one name, which is the only award that has ever really counted.
Squad17 Aug 2026
There is no complaint available here and everybody involved knows it, which does not make the walk to the bench any shorter. Form is the only currency in football that cannot be borrowed against.
Squad17 Aug 2026
He wheeled away like a man who had been carrying it for months, because he had. Kawasaki Frontale have their signing off the mark and one press-conference question retired.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Player ratings3 Aug 2026
Successful dribbles: 38. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Player ratings3 Aug 2026
No sign of nerves from Jefferson Romero at 20 — 7.76
The hardest thing about being 20 in a senior side is that nobody makes allowances. Jefferson Romero did not need any: 7.76, and he looked the most comfortable man on the pitch.
Market3 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.
Market3 Aug 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 Cortulua heard it as anything else.
Squad3 Aug 2026
Pablo Rangel 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 Cortulua this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Market3 Aug 2026
Cortulua may not be able to give Vitor Braga what he wants
It is the most legitimate ambition in the sport and the hardest for most clubs to satisfy. Vitor Braga wants continental football; whether Cortulua can provide it is a question about the next two seasons, not about him.
Squad3 Aug 2026
Words at Cortulua training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Camilo Giraldo 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.
Squad3 Aug 2026
“I never wanted to be anywhere else. There is unfinished business here.” Carlos Palacios commits to Cortulua for another 2 years.