Marked for Alejandro Ramirez
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Match26 Jun 2027
11 without a win now, and the ground has developed the special quiet of a crowd that expects the worst. One scrappy 1-0 would cure most of it; that is the maddening part.
Squad28 Jun 2027
Miguel Moreno damages knee ligaments — 16 days out
The words a physio says slowly. 16 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.
Market28 Jun 2027
Caracas come back empty-handed
The bid was some way short and Atletico Venezuela did not need long over it. Nobody in the game reads a first refusal as the end of anything.
Market28 Jun 2027
The deal that would have taken Victor Osorio to Aragua has collapsed at the last stage, and he reports back to Atletico Venezuela with a summer to forget and a season still to play. Nobody is saying which side walked away.
The terraces28 Jun 2027
The accountants will call it good business and they will be right, which is not the point anybody outside the boardroom is making. Alejandro Ramirez was one of the reasons people came, and $250.0K does not replace that by itself.
Player ratings28 Jun 2027
Successful dribbles: 25. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Market28 Jun 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.
Match26 Jun 2027
5 matches, no goals, and a training ground that has tried everything. It will end — droughts always do — but nobody at Atletico Venezuela can tell you which week it ends in.
Squad28 Jun 2027
Jhon Alvarez 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 Atletico Venezuela this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Market28 Jun 2027
$250.0K. No player has ever cost Llaneros more, and expectation arrives with him.
Squad28 Jun 2027
Carlos Castillo damages knee ligaments — 37 days out
The words a physio says slowly. 37 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.
Match26 Jun 2027
Llaneros win it in stoppage time
The board had gone up, the arguing had started, and then the ball was in the net in the 92th minute. Metropolitanos will replay every second of the added time for a week.
Market28 Jun 2027
The offer was not close and it was refused without much discussion. Whether the second one is refused as quickly is another matter.
Market28 Jun 2027
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Llaneros can pretend not to have heard.
The terraces28 Jun 2027
Llaneros spend $250.0K on the signing the town wanted
It is the rarest sequence in football: supporters ask for something, and the club goes and does it. $250.0K for Alejandro Ramirez, and for one week nobody is complaining about anything.
Squad28 Jun 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.
Squad28 Jun 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.
Match26 Jun 2027
It finished 1‑0, and it was Cristian Osorio’s afternoon: on the scoresheet when it mattered, and the reason the points belong to Llaneros.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Match13 Feb 2027
The run now stands at 6, and the questions being asked around Atletico Venezuela are no longer polite ones.
Player ratings15 Feb 2027
Successful dribbles: 23. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
Squad15 Feb 2027
David Castillo 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.
Match13 Feb 2027
Llaneros left with the points after a 0‑2 defeat that will take some explaining on the terraces.
Squad15 Feb 2027
“Nobody here is above being told.” It was not said with a name attached, but the dressing room can count, and so can everybody who was listening.
Squad15 Feb 2027
Diego Otero 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.
Loan watch15 Feb 2027
“I did not go to Mineros de Guayana to sit and watch. I want to come back to Atletico Venezuela and fight for my place.” 0 appearances in 8 matches say the rest.
Squad15 Feb 2027
Nobody at Atletico Venezuela 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.
Market15 Feb 2027
The list is a quiet document with a loud meaning. Yeferson Arango may talk to anybody who asks, and everybody at the club understands what that means.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad18 Jan 2027
A knee injury of the worst kind for Sergio Arango
18 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Atletico Venezuela lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Squad18 Jan 2027
David Castillo 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.
Squad18 Jan 2027
A move José Durán would have made for nothing
There is a version of every career where the player ends up somewhere he chose rather than somewhere that chose him. José Durán is living that version at Atletico Venezuela, and it tends to show in the first month.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad4 Jan 2027
A knee injury of the worst kind for Sergio Arango
32 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Atletico Venezuela lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Market4 Jan 2027
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Atletico Venezuela can pretend not to have heard.
Squad4 Jan 2027
Alexis Rodríguez is a better footballer than he was
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 19 he is doing things at this level he could not do at the start of the season, and the coaching staff will tell you exactly which of them.