Marked for Rafael Ramirez
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Market11 Jan 2027
The last thing about a transfer that is still about the player is his signature on his own terms, and it is there. Héroes de Falcón have lost him in all but the paperwork.
Market11 Jan 2027
Jesús Ortíz 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 Héroes de Falcón can pretend not to have heard.
Squad11 Jan 2027
Gabriel Reyes 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.
Transfer targets11 Jan 2027
Carabobo wanted more than $210.0K and the board would not go there. Walked away, for now, which in a transfer window means until somebody blinks.
Squad11 Jan 2027
Everybody saw it before anybody said it. At 33 the numbers say 3 points down on what he was, and the question for Héroes de Falcón is how to handle a man they owe a great deal.
Squad11 Jan 2027
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Carlos Carrasquero was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad5 Oct 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 Héroes de Falcón this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad5 Oct 2026
Words at Héroes de Falcón training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Gabriel Reyes 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.
Boardroom5 Oct 2026
Wages swallow 266% of the Héroes de Falcón income
Every club 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 it has been tried.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Squad10 Aug 2026
51 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Héroes de Falcón lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
Squad10 Aug 2026
Leonardo Falcón 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.
Squad10 Aug 2026
A move Gonzalo Santillán would have made for nothing
There is a version of every career where the player ends up somewhere he chose rather than somewhere that chose him. Gonzalo Santillán is living that version at Héroes de Falcón, and it tends to show in the first month.
Market10 Aug 2026
Clubs spend fortunes looking for players and occasionally find one down the corridor. Rafael Ramirez is that, and the reception he gets on his first appearance will be different in kind from the one any signing receives.
Market10 Aug 2026
The academy exists for exactly this morning. Darwin Herrera 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.
Market10 Aug 2026
The academy exists for exactly this morning. Junior Casseres 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.
Market10 Aug 2026
The academy exists for exactly this morning. Alejandro Gonzalez 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.
The dugout10 Aug 2026
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Ándrés González, and the manager let it.
Match8 Aug 2026
Real Frontera left with the points after a 0‑1 defeat that will take some explaining on the terraces.