Jose Cordova damages knee ligaments — 123 days out
The words a physio says slowly. 123 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.
It finished 0-3. 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.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Estudiantes de Caracas this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Estudiantes de Caracas this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
“The manager did not use many words, and he did not need to.” Carlos Rincon has his answer from Estudiantes de Caracas; what he does with it is the next window’s story.
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.
In brief
Player ratingsThe pass was always on for Rafael Moreno
The terracesThe press cannot get enough of Jorge Graterol
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Estudiantes de Caracas this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
A squad rebuilt inside one window pays for it in a currency nobody budgets for. The football is not worse than the sum of the players; it is worse than the sum of the players who have played together before.
Nobody at Estudiantes de Caracas will say this on the record and the team sheets have been saying it for weeks. There is a small group in every squad who get picked when the fixture is difficult, and he has joined it.
Daniel Cordova 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.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Roberto Herrera 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.
Qualification is done, and next season the floodlights come on for something bigger. A stage for the players, oxygen for the accounts and a passport for everybody else.
Some transfers need a press campaign. This one needed a shirt with the old number on it. Andres Gonzalez is a Estudiantes de Caracas player again, and the town has its story of the summer.
Sergio Rincon 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.
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.
A squad rebuilt inside one window pays for it in a currency nobody budgets for. The football is not worse than the sum of the players; it is worse than the sum of the players who have played together before.
Nobody at Estudiantes de Caracas will say this on the record and the team sheets have been saying it for weeks. There is a small group in every squad who get picked when the fixture is difficult, and he has joined it.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 94 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
1‑3 against Santa Fe. Continental football is unforgiving about the things a domestic league lets a side get away with, and this was a night spent finding out which of those the club still has.
Daniel Cordova 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.