It is the most legitimate ambition in the sport and the hardest for most clubs to satisfy. David Hernandez wants continental football; whether Universitario Popayan can provide it is a question about the next two seasons, not about him.
David Hernandez 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.
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.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Miguel Lopez 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.
Nobody at Universitario Popayan 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.
America de Cali go through and Universitario Popayan go home, 1‑5 the scoreline that did it. The dressing room will call the league the priority now, because that is what dressing rooms say.
1-5, and long before the end the away end had switched from encouragement to something considerably more pointed. Nobody rings a phone-in about losing narrowly.
David Hernandez 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.
6 goals. Both benches spent the second half looking at each other rather than at the pitch. Purists will complain about Universitario Popayan and America de Cali in equal measure; everybody else had a wonderful time.
Whether it was the goalkeeper or the ten in front of him is the argument that will fill every conversation in town this week. 5 saves does not settle it either way.
“The easiest signature of my career.” Sebastian Restrepo and Universitario Popayan agree another 3 years, and the manager can plan around him rather than about him.
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.
Add another name to the list: Villarreal have asked the question everybody in the game has been asking about Andres Torres. The answer from Universitario Popayan has not changed — yet.
The general version of this complaint is that a player wants more. The specific version names the thing: he wants to walk out under floodlights against clubs from other countries, and he has stopped pretending otherwise.
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.