Marked for Jonathan Hernandez
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Boardroom25 Oct 2027
Nobody upstairs has said anything, which is the loudest thing they could do. Results buy silence in this game; the account at Deportivo Maldonado is running low.
Squad25 Oct 2027
18 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Deportivo Maldonado lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Market25 Oct 2027
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Deportivo Maldonado is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
Squad25 Oct 2027
Diego Segovia and a teammate said things this week that will take longer than a week to unsay. It was not about football, and both of them play on Saturday.
The dugout25 Oct 2027
This is not rotation. Christian Tabó has not been in the manager's plans for some time, and nobody at Deportivo Maldonado is pretending otherwise.
Squad25 Oct 2027
Words at Deportivo Maldonado training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Joel Poiso 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.
The dugout25 Oct 2027
“I would rather say it to his face than read about it.” The meeting was requested by the player, which tells you most of what you need to know.
The dugout25 Oct 2027
Facundo Tealde has become a man the manager trusts
Nobody at Deportivo Maldonado 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.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
The terraces18 Oct 2027
The mood at Deportivo Maldonado has turned into something else
Supporters who sing when it goes badly are supporters. Supporters who gather afterwards are a problem, and everybody inside the building knows which of the two this now is.
Squad18 Oct 2027
Jonathan Hernandez damages knee ligaments — 27 days out
The words a physio says slowly. 27 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.
Squad18 Oct 2027
Joel Poiso and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Squad18 Oct 2027
“The easiest signature of my career.” Lucas Abreu and Deportivo Maldonado agree another 4 years, and the manager can plan around him rather than about him.
Squad18 Oct 2027
Sebastián Tormo 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.
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
The dugout15 Feb 2027
Diego Segovia: that is not what I was promised
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Deportivo Maldonado have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Market15 Feb 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 Deportivo Maldonado can pretend not to have heard.
Squad15 Feb 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 Deportivo Maldonado this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad15 Feb 2027
Roney Villalba gets the move he always wanted
Footballers are asked about their boyhood club so often that nobody listens to the answer. Roney Villalba has just signed for Deportivo Maldonado, and for once the answer mattered.
Boardroom15 Feb 2027
5 academy players handed senior numbers at Deportivo Maldonado
The morning the pathway stops being a brochure and becomes a team sheet. Most of them will not be here in three years; all of them have already done the hard part, which was getting to today.
Match13 Feb 2027
1‑3 to Progreso, and no complaints worth printing. The performance asked for nothing more than it got.
Match13 Feb 2027
4 games now with at least two against. The back line has been rearranged, the goalkeeper has been backed publicly, and the goals keep going in anyway.
The dugout15 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.
Market15 Feb 2027
Clubs spend fortunes looking for players and occasionally find one down the corridor. Brian Rodriguez is that, and the reception he gets on his first appearance will be different in kind from the one any signing receives.