Marked for Leonardo Santos
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Market7 Sep 2026
Yerry Duque hands in a written request
“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.
Squad7 Sep 2026
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.
Squad7 Sep 2026
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Leonardo Santos, and the manager let it.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad31 Aug 2026
Leonardo 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.
Squad31 Aug 2026
Words at Valledupar training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Daniel Torres 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.
Squad31 Aug 2026
It is never announced and it is entirely visible: the biggest afternoons of the season keep containing him. A press box works this out long before anybody at the club confirms a word of it.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Squad17 Aug 2026
A knee injury of the worst kind for James Martinez
26 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.
Match12 Aug 2026
The small margins put Valledupar out
Out, 1‑2 to Atletico Nacional, and the long argument about which of the small moments decided it. The league is all there is now, and everybody knows it.
Market17 Aug 2026
“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.