Marked for Victor Ramirez
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Player ratings16 Aug 2027
Successful dribbles: 40. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Match16 Aug 2027
Llaneros sink to position 15
27 points, and a fixture list that is running out. The mathematics are not yet cruel, but they are no longer kind.
Squad16 Aug 2027
Victor Ramirez damages knee ligaments — 18 days out
The words a physio says slowly. 18 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.
Market16 Aug 2027
“I have given everything here and I need a new challenge.” The request is formal, and the relationship will never be quite the same again.
Squad16 Aug 2027
Juan Machis 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.
Squad16 Aug 2027
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.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Squad9 Aug 2027
Victor Ramirez damages knee ligaments — 25 days out
The words a physio says slowly. 25 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.
Market9 Aug 2027
“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 The request is on a desk at Llaneros, and it is not being withdrawn.
Squad9 Aug 2027
“I never wanted to be anywhere else. There is unfinished business here.” Oscar Rincon commits to Llaneros for another 4 years.
Squad9 Aug 2027
Sergio Savarino 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.
Match7 Aug 2027
Three points for Llaneros, 1‑0 the final word against Aragua in a contest settled by the finer margins.
Player ratings9 Aug 2027
Miguel Pernía was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.19. There are performances a supporter describes to somebody who was not there and cannot quite convey; this was one, and the number does not help either.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad2 Aug 2027
A knee injury of the worst kind for Victor Ramirez
33 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Llaneros lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Player ratings2 Aug 2027
Successful dribbles: 33. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
Market2 Aug 2027
“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 Llaneros, and it is not being withdrawn.
Squad2 Aug 2027
Oscar Osorio 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 Llaneros this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad2 Aug 2027
Words at Llaneros training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Sergio Savarino 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.
Squad2 Aug 2027
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Enzo Cejas, and the manager let it.