Marked for David Castillo
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Squad12 Nov 2035
A fracture rules Bautista Candido out for 74 days
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Real Cartagena will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
Squad12 Nov 2035
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Real Cartagena this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad12 Nov 2035
Juan Felipe Morales 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.
Market12 Nov 2035
“We are a long way apart, and pretending otherwise helps nobody.” Neither side is close, and the calendar is not on the club's side.
The dugout12 Nov 2035
“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 dugout12 Nov 2035
When it matters, Cesar Edson plays
It is never announced and it is entirely visible: the biggest afternoons of the season keep containing him. A press box works this out long before anybody at the club confirms a word of it.
Squad12 Nov 2035
Jonathan Berón has done the arithmetic and does not like the answer. Nothing corrodes a squad faster, and no club has ever solved it by explaining the wage structure to a footballer.
The dugout12 Nov 2035
He asked about his future and was given an answer with minutes in it. The manager has now made a promise in a building where promises are remembered, and the clock on it has started.
Market12 Nov 2035
The clock does Franco Godoy’s negotiating for him
2 months left, and both sides know what that means: every week without a signature, the fee Real Cartagena could ask drops and the wages Franco Godoy can ask rise.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Squad24 Sep 2035
Luis Landazury 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.
Squad24 Sep 2035
Everybody at Real Cartagena saw it before anybody said it, which is how this always goes. At 37 the decline is real and measurable — 3 points — and the only question left is how the club handles somebody it owes a great deal to.
Squad24 Sep 2035
Franco Godoy 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.
Squad24 Sep 2035
“Some mornings you wake up and you are still a long way from everything you know.” It is not the football and it never was; Real Cartagena are dealing with a man who wants a different country.
The dugout24 Sep 2035
The manager makes an example of David Castillo
“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.
Market24 Sep 2035
“There is a gap, and pretending there is not helps nobody.” Neither side has moved, and the calendar is working for exactly one of them.
The dugout24 Sep 2035
Nothing in writing and nothing in public: a word about playing time, given face to face at Real Cartagena. The team sheets over the next month will show whether it was worth having.
Market24 Sep 2035
Every press conference now starts and ends the same way: with Antony Medrano’s future. The manager has run out of new ways to say nothing.
Market24 Sep 2035
3 months left and the two sides are nowhere near each other. Every week this drags on takes money off what Real Cartagena could get for him.
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Squad30 Apr 2035
Kevin Arnautovic damages knee ligaments — 27 days out
The words a physio says slowly. 27 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 dugout30 Apr 2035
David Castillo: that is not what I was promised
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Real Cartagena have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Squad30 Apr 2035
Luis Landazury and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Player ratings30 Apr 2035
Chances created: 15. The column nobody reads carried the whole story of the match, and his name was at the top of it.
Squad30 Apr 2035
At 37, 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.
The dugout30 Apr 2035
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Hector Murillo, and the manager let it.
Player ratings30 Apr 2035
The game went through Gustavo Reyes — 7.06
Marked 7.06 on 10 actions at both ends of the pitch. Midfielders like this get described as unspectacular by people who have never tried to play against one.
Squad30 Apr 2035
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Franco Godoy was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Player ratings5 Mar 2035
Two goals and a mark of 8.70 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
The dugout5 Mar 2035
“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.
Squad5 Mar 2035
“The easiest signature of my career.” Antony Medrano and Real Cartagena agree another 3 years, and the manager can plan around him rather than about him.
Squad5 Mar 2035
Luis Landazury and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Match3 Mar 2035
6 goals. Both benches spent the second half looking at each other rather than at the pitch. Purists will complain about Real Cartagena and Valledupar in equal measure; everybody else had a wonderful time.
Match3 Mar 2035
A 4‑2 win over Valledupar, earned rather than given, and the sort of afternoon that sends everyone home talking about next week instead of this one.
Squad5 Mar 2035
Words at Real Cartagena training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Juan Felipe Morales 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.
Match3 Mar 2035
3 away wins in a row. Travelling support is the truest kind, and this season it is being repaid in the only currency that counts.
The dugout5 Mar 2035
“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
Squad15 Jan 2035
“I never wanted to be anywhere else. There is unfinished business here.” Luis Landazury commits to Real Cartagena for another 4 years.
Squad15 Jan 2035
Luis Landazury 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.
Market15 Jan 2035
Signings arrive with a picture of the club in their head, and this one’s picture was bigger than the building. He will play well and he will be gone, in that order, and everybody knows it.
Squad15 Jan 2035
Andrés Berizovsky 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.
Squad15 Jan 2035
Too much change too quickly at Real Cartagena
9 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.
Market15 Jan 2035
“We are a long way apart, and pretending otherwise helps nobody.” Neither side is close, and the calendar is not on the club's side.
Market15 Jan 2035
At 34, he has seen every situation this season can produce, twice. The legs will be managed; the head is the purchase.
Market15 Jan 2035
Experience through the door at Real Cartagena
Lautaro Cardozo arrives at 33 with nothing left to prove and plenty left to pass on. Legs are a young man's currency; knowing where to stand never ages.
The dugout15 Jan 2035
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to David Castillo, and the manager let it.