Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the team. 6 saves, several of them the sort nobody expects to see stopped, and a scoreline that flatters everybody in front of him.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Barranquilla have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Yesid García 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.
The words a physio says slowly. 17 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.
“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 The request is on a desk at Barranquilla, and it is not being withdrawn.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 Barranquilla this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad19 Jul 2027
Joel Romero 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.
Valledupar will keep picking him until June and will get nothing for him after it. Hector Perez has pre-agreed a move to Barranquilla, and the only people who lose in that arrangement are the ones who let the contract run down.
25 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Barranquilla lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Barranquilla can pretend not to have heard.
Andrés Rivera 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.
32 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Barranquilla lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Barranquilla can pretend not to have heard.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Barranquilla this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad5 Jul 2027
Words at Barranquilla training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Cristian Santander 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.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Barranquilla can pretend not to have heard.
The terraces25 Jan 2027
The ground has had enough
“We travel everywhere and we get this.” 8 of the 28 senior players heard it walking off, and the ones who did not hear it were not playing.
Sebastián Guerra 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.
5 boys move up, and somewhere in the building the people who coached them at twelve are quietly having the best morning of their working year. Nothing about this shows up in a result and it is why the academy exists.
The academy exists for exactly this morning. Johan Borja 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.
There is no fee, no unveiling and no agent on the steps. Carlos Garcia 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.
There is no fee, no unveiling and no agent on the steps. Gustavo Vargas 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.