A bone, which is the one injury with a calendar attached. Trujillanos will name a return date and, unusually for this business, will probably be right about it.
The chances are being made and something is happening between the making and the finishing. 3 matches now, and the anxiety in the ground arrives a little earlier every week.
Óscar Alcócer 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.
Squad14 Mar 2033
Leonel Vivas 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.
“A point is a point and I will take it, but we should have had all three.” Interim Coach after the 0‑0 draw, and the sentence every manager in the country said at some stage this weekend.
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Trujillanos, and both men came out saying it was fine.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the team. 10 saves, several of them the sort nobody expects to see stopped, and a scoreline that flatters everybody in front of him.
A bone, which is the one injury with a calendar attached. Trujillanos will name a return date and, unusually for this business, will probably be right about it.
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Kevin González and Trujillanos agree another 2 years.
“The supporters are entitled to be angry. So am I. We will put it right.” 0‑5, a manager saying the necessary things, and a dressing room that heard a different version of them.
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Trujillanos, and both men came out saying it was fine.
A bone, which is the one injury with a calendar attached. Trujillanos will name a return date and, unusually for this business, will probably be right about it.
7.73, 1 on the scoresheet, and the specific comedy of a back-four player celebrating like somebody who does this every week. He does not, and that is exactly why the ground reacted the way it did.
Robert Mendoza 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.
“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.
The dugout28 Feb 2033
The manager’s verdict
“That is on me. I pick the team and I picked wrong.” Managers say that when they mean it and when they need to be seen to, and after 0‑2 Interim Coach left the room before anybody could ask which.
1‑4 against Academia Puerto Cabello, and no complaints that would survive the replay. The manager spoke about character afterwards; the terraces used shorter words.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 60 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
7.86, 1 on the scoresheet, and the specific comedy of a back-four player celebrating like somebody who does this every week. He does not, and that is exactly why the ground reacted the way it did.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Trujillanos have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Kevin González 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 Feb 2033
Words at Trujillanos training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Leonel Vivas 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.
66 points, and the rest of the division looking up. Every side that finishes first spends the season pretending it is not thinking about it, and this one has started pretending.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Trujillanos is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
He will play here until the summer and then walk out of the door for free, having already signed elsewhere. Supporters will manage the first part of that sentence; it is the second they will struggle with.
Carlos Lanza 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.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Johao Vargas trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
Nobody at Trujillanos 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.