Marked for Benjamin Nunez
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad18 Jan 2027
14 days out for Benjamin Nunez after a fracture
A bone, which is the one injury with a calendar attached. Cobresal will name a return date and, unusually for this business, will probably be right about it.
Squad18 Jan 2027
Words exchanged at Cobresal
Christian Moreno 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.
Squad18 Jan 2027
César Yanis 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 targets18 Jan 2027
A loan move for Bruno Miño is in the works
Cobresal have made the call to Almirante Brown. No fee, a share of the wages, and a spare shirt in the position where the squad has been thinnest all season.
Squad18 Jan 2027
Too much change too quickly at Cobresal
6 signings in three months. Every one of them may be an upgrade and the team can still be worse for a while, which is the part of a rebuild that never appears in the transfer-window verdicts.
Market18 Jan 2027
Union Espanola are about to pick up the phone
A conversation is coming this week. Cobresal will put a number on him, and from there it stops being football and becomes arithmetic.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Market11 Jan 2027
“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 The request is on a desk at Cobresal, and it is not being withdrawn.
Squad11 Jan 2027
A fracture rules Benjamin Nunez out for 21 days
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Cobresal will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
Squad11 Jan 2027
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Ignacio Moreno is 20, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
Market11 Jan 2027
“I want to be playing for trophies while my legs still let me.” Nothing in that sentence is a transfer request, and nobody at Cobresal heard it as anything else.
Squad11 Jan 2027
Christian Moreno 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.
Transfer targets11 Jan 2027
The approach was made and the answer came back in a sentence. There is no number on the table because there was no number that would have been enough.
Market11 Jan 2027
There is no fee, no unveiling and no agent on the steps. Benjamin Davila has been at this club since he was a boy and is now, formally, one of the first-team squad — which for a local readership beats any signing of any size.
Market11 Jan 2027
The academy exists for exactly this morning. Pablo Sanchez has come through every age group the club runs and has now been handed a senior number, and the people who coached him at twelve will be the proudest in the building.
Squad11 Jan 2027
César Yanis 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
Uneasy
Boardroom4 Jan 2027
It is over: Cobresal are relegated
The arithmetic ran out, and everybody could see it coming from a distance. The hard summer starts now, and next season's fixtures will be full of unfamiliar names.
The terraces4 Jan 2027
Supporters organise against the Cobresal board
A bad atmosphere can be waited out. A group of people meeting afterwards to decide what to do about it cannot, and everybody in the building knows which stage this is.
Squad4 Jan 2027
A fracture rules Benjamin Nunez out for 29 days
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Cobresal will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
Market4 Jan 2027
“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.
Market4 Jan 2027
“I have ambitions, and I would like the club to share them.” Nobody has asked to leave and nobody has been shown the door — but a player chooses that sentence carefully, and a boardroom hears it exactly as it was meant.
Transfer targets4 Jan 2027
The clubs had agreed and the player had not. A snub, and a public one: Rosario Central keep him, and the supporters here are left wondering what he had heard about the place.
Squad4 Jan 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 Cobresal this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Transfer targets4 Jan 2027
The approach was made and the answer came back in a sentence. There is no number on the table because there was no number that would have been enough.
Squad4 Jan 2027
The medical room confirms 41 days on the sidelines for Renato Morales, and a plan built around him now has to be rebuilt.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad28 Dec 2026
A fracture rules Benjamin Nunez out for 38 days
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Cobresal will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
Market28 Dec 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.
Squad28 Dec 2026
A falling-out at Cobresal
Christian Moreno and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Transfer targets28 Dec 2026
$320.0K was the most the club would pay and Antofagasta were asking for more. Deals like this are revived in the last week of a window roughly half the time, and everybody involved knows it.
Transfer targets28 Dec 2026
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Almirante Brown have kept their man, and Cobresal go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
Squad28 Dec 2026
A row about effort at Cobresal
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Julián Brea was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Squad28 Dec 2026
At 36, 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.
Transfer targets28 Dec 2026
Rosario Central have been asked whether they would lend him. Loans are agreed quickly or not at all, and this one will be one or the other by the weekend.
The dugout28 Dec 2026
The manager makes an example of Lucas Di Maio
“If you cannot run for the shirt, somebody else will wear it.” No name was used and none was needed; every player in that room knew who it was for.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad21 Dec 2026
A fracture rules Benjamin Nunez out for 46 days
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Cobresal will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
Market21 Dec 2026
The bid was some way short and Cobresal did not need long over it. Nobody in the game reads a first refusal as the end of anything.
Transfer targets21 Dec 2026
Cobresal had done everything except persuade the man himself. He stays at Talleres, and the manager goes back to the drawing board with the money still in the bank.
Squad21 Dec 2026
Words exchanged at Cobresal
Christian Moreno 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.
Squad21 Dec 2026
Francis Pérez arrives at the club he grew up with
Every footballer has an answer to the question about his boyhood club, and most of them never get to act on it. Francis Pérez has, at Cobresal, and the first month will show what that does to a man.
Transfer targets21 Dec 2026
The approach was made and the answer came back in a sentence. There is no number on the table because there was no number that would have been enough.
Squad21 Dec 2026
Words at Cobresal training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Julián Brea 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.
Transfer targets21 Dec 2026
Unión de Santa Fe have been asked whether they would lend him. Loans are agreed quickly or not at all, and this one will be one or the other by the weekend.
The dugout21 Dec 2026
Jorge Pinos gets picked when it counts
Every manager keeps a short list in his head of the men he wants on the pitch when the stakes rise, and it is never published. The team sheets for the big afternoons say Jorge Pinos is on it.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad14 Dec 2026
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 54 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
Market14 Dec 2026
“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 Cobresal, and it is not being withdrawn.
Market14 Dec 2026
The bid was some way short and Cobresal did not need long over it. Nobody in the game reads a first refusal as the end of anything.
Squad14 Dec 2026
A falling-out at Cobresal
Jorge Pinos and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Transfer targets14 Dec 2026
The approach was made and the answer came back in a sentence. There is no number on the table because there was no number that would have been enough.
Market14 Dec 2026
Add another name to the list: Curicó Unido have asked the question everybody in the game has been asking about Gabriel Oliva. The answer from Cobresal has not changed — yet.
The dugout14 Dec 2026
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Franco Bechtholdt, and the manager let it.
Squad14 Dec 2026
“The easiest signature of my career.” Cristián Magaña and Cobresal agree another 1 years, and the manager can plan around him rather than about him.
Squad14 Dec 2026
Words at Cobresal training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Felipe Chamorro 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.
From our football correspondent
Steady
The terraces7 Dec 2026
Supporters organise against the Cobresal board
A bad atmosphere can be waited out. A group of people meeting afterwards to decide what to do about it cannot, and everybody in the building knows which stage this is.
Squad7 Dec 2026
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 62 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
Market7 Dec 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 Cobresal can pretend not to have heard.
Market7 Dec 2026
The offer was not close and it was refused without much discussion. Whether the second one is refused as quickly is another matter.
Squad7 Dec 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 Cobresal this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Transfer targets7 Dec 2026
Cobresal asked and Vélez said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
Market7 Dec 2026
The interest is real enough to have reached print. Cobresal have said nothing, which in a transfer window is its own kind of answer.
Squad7 Dec 2026
A row about effort at Cobresal
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Julián Brea was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Squad7 Dec 2026
“I never wanted to be anywhere else. There is unfinished business here.” Nicolás Carvajal commits to Cobresal for another 3 years.