It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Al Dhafra this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
There is a version of every career where the player ends up somewhere he chose rather than somewhere that chose him. Rafael Barrios is living that version at Al Dhafra, and it tends to show in the first month.
120 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Valledupar lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Valledupar have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Valledupar this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
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.
“I am grateful for the games, but I did not become a footballer to be somebody else's spare part.” He wants to be at Valledupar, and 0 appearances in 13 say he has earned the hearing.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Valledupar can pretend not to have heard.
José Pérez 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.
Squad28 Dec 2026
Words at Valledupar training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Sebastián Cuernú 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.
“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 The request is on a desk at Valledupar, and it is not being withdrawn.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Valledupar this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
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.
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Daniel Arcos and Valledupar agree another 3 years.
Boardroom7 Dec 2026
110% of the income goes out in wages at Valledupar
Every club in football pays most of what it earns to its players. Paying nearly all of it is a different arrangement, and it has ended the same way every time somebody has tried it.