Marked for Daniel Rodriguez
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Boardroom4 Nov 2030
Oscar Gomez has until the next board meeting
What was said behind closed doors has now been said in front of a microphone. Everybody at Universitario Popayan can do the arithmetic, including the man it is aimed at.
Squad4 Nov 2030
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 28 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
Boardroom4 Nov 2030
The official line will be that it was routine. It was not routine, the timing says so, and every person in that room knows what the next bad result costs.
Squad4 Nov 2030
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Universitario Popayan this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad4 Nov 2030
16 days, the medical staff say, and medical staff are optimists by profession. The team sheet will look wrong without him.
Squad4 Nov 2030
Agustín Lara 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
Crisis
Boardroom7 Oct 2030
The board have said in public what they had been saying in private. Results between now and the next meeting decide it, and everybody in the building knows the arithmetic.
Squad7 Oct 2030
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 57 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
Boardroom7 Oct 2030
Nothing has been announced and everybody understands what it means. A board that summons the whole football department on a Tuesday morning is a board that has stopped believing the problem will fix itself.
Squad7 Oct 2030
Santiago Muriel 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.
Squad7 Oct 2030
Words at Universitario Popayan training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Agustín Lara 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.
Market7 Oct 2030
“There is a gap, and pretending there is not helps nobody.” Neither side has moved, and the calendar is working for exactly one of them.
Market7 Oct 2030
The clock does Agustín Lara’s negotiating for him
3 months left, and both sides know what that means: every week without a signature, the fee Universitario Popayan could ask drops and the wages Agustín Lara can ask rise.
Market7 Oct 2030
The list is a quiet document with a loud meaning. Juan Pablo Marín may talk to anybody who asks, and everybody at the club understands what that means.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad1 Oct 2029
Santiago Muriel 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.
Squad1 Oct 2029
The injury that keeps coming back, keeps being rushed back from, and quietly costs more careers than the dramatic ones. 16 days is the estimate; the honest figure depends on whether anybody is patient.
Boardroom1 Oct 2029
The accounts make uncomfortable reading. Wages first and ambition second is the order of business at Universitario Popayan now.
Squad1 Oct 2029
Words at Universitario Popayan training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Hector Mejia 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.
Squad1 Oct 2029
Yolvis Humanes loses the manager who believed in him
A change in the dugout is not one story, it is twenty-five of them. This is Yolvis Humanes's: he was somebody's player, and now he has to be somebody else's, starting from nothing.
Market1 Oct 2029
2 months left and the two sides are nowhere near each other. Every week this drags on takes money off what Universitario Popayan could get for him.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Market9 Apr 2029
“This is not anger. I have thought about it for months, and nothing that has happened lately changed my mind.” The request is on a desk at Universitario Popayan, and it is not being withdrawn.
Squad9 Apr 2029
Santiago Muriel 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.
Match7 Apr 2029
Beaten 2‑3, and beaten fairly. The manager kept his words short afterwards, which was probably wise.
Player ratings9 Apr 2029
Successful dribbles: 20. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Squad9 Apr 2029
The manager makes an example of Brayan Aragón
“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.
Squad9 Apr 2029
Duvan Medina knocks on the manager’s door
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Duvan Medina trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
Squad9 Apr 2029
One weekend, judged against everybody else's. Edwin Valencia has come out on top of it, and for most footballers a weekly award is the only silverware a career ever produces.
Market9 Apr 2029
“There is a gap, and pretending there is not helps nobody.” Neither side has moved, and the calendar is working for exactly one of them.