Marked for Ivan Castillo
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad7 Dec 2026
A knee injury of the worst kind for Valentín Perales
77 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Unión San Felipe lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Market7 Dec 2026
Ivan Castillo 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 Unión San Felipe can pretend not to have heard.
Squad7 Dec 2026
Norberto Palmieri 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.
Transfer targets7 Dec 2026
Unión San Felipe asked and San Marcos de Arica said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
Transfer targets7 Dec 2026
A loan move for Sebastián Mella is in the works
Unión San Felipe have made the call to Huachipato. No fee, a share of the wages, and a spare shirt in the position where the squad has been thinnest all season.
Boardroom7 Dec 2026
Open for business: Unión San Felipe enter the window
The registration window is open and the phone has started. Between now and the deadline this club will be linked with forty players and sign three, which is the usual ratio.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad30 Nov 2026
Valentín Perales damages knee ligaments — 84 days out
The words a physio says slowly. 84 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.
Market30 Nov 2026
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Unión San Felipe can pretend not to have heard.
Squad30 Nov 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 Unión San Felipe this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad23 Nov 2026
Valentín Perales damages knee ligaments — 91 days out
The words a physio says slowly. 91 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.
Market23 Nov 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.
Squad23 Nov 2026
Norberto Palmieri 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.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad19 Oct 2026
Valentín Perales damages knee ligaments — 129 days out
The words a physio says slowly. 129 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.
The dugout19 Oct 2026
“I was told what my role would be, and I signed on that basis. It has not happened.” A grievance with a date attached is the hardest kind to settle.
Squad19 Oct 2026
At 33, 3 points below where he was, and a body that has started charging interest. It happens to all of them and it is still the hardest paragraph on this page.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad12 Oct 2026
A knee injury of the worst kind for Valentín Perales
138 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Unión San Felipe lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Squad12 Oct 2026
Iván Regules 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.
Squad12 Oct 2026
The system has changed and his position has not. A footballer can improve his form; he cannot improve the manager’s formation, and that is the whole of the problem.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad5 Oct 2026
Valentín Perales damages knee ligaments — 145 days out
The words a physio says slowly. 145 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.
Squad5 Oct 2026
Iván Regules 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.
Squad5 Oct 2026
Cristian Palacios 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.
Boardroom5 Oct 2026
144% of the income goes out in wages at Unión San Felipe
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.
Squad5 Oct 2026
Somebody has moved past him. It is not a dropping and it is worse than one, because a dropping is about a Saturday and this is about where he stands.
Market5 Oct 2026
At 37, he has seen every situation this season can produce, twice. The legs will be managed; the head is the purchase.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad7 Sep 2026
Words at Unión San Felipe training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Norberto Palmieri 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.
Squad7 Sep 2026
Luis García is no longer first choice
The manager has re-ordered his thinking and Luis García has come out of it lower. He will be told it is temporary, and the players who have heard that before will avoid his eye.
Market7 Sep 2026
The list is a quiet document with a loud meaning. Ivan Castillo may talk to anybody who asks, and everybody at the club understands what that means.