The Metropolitanos Sentinel
Squad31 Jan 2028
A knee injury of the worst kind for Antonio González
86 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Metropolitanos lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Player ratings31 Jan 2028
Jesús Vargas runs at them all day
Successful dribbles: 25. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
Squad31 Jan 2028
Vitor Eudes in a row with a teammate
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Metropolitanos this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad31 Jan 2028
Yolfran Caricote 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.
Market31 Jan 2028
Agustín Bianciotti wants European nights
The general version of this complaint is that a player wants more. The specific version names the thing: he wants to walk out under floodlights against clubs from other countries, and he has stopped pretending otherwise.
Squad31 Jan 2028
Metropolitanos lose Daniel Rincon
43 days, the medical staff say, and medical staff are optimists by profession. The team sheet will look wrong without him.
The dugout31 Jan 2028
Metropolitanos pick somebody else ahead of Yhonatann Yustiz
There is no complaint available here and everybody involved knows it, which does not make the walk to the bench any shorter. Form is the only currency in football that cannot be borrowed against.
The dugout31 Jan 2028
No hiding place for Guillermo Marín
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Guillermo Marín, and the manager let it.
The dugout31 Jan 2028
The manager’s verdict
“I am frustrated, honestly. We did enough to win and we did not win.” Juan Martinez was not hiding it after 0‑0, and nobody in the Metropolitanos dressing room was either.
In brief
- The dugout When it matters, Sneider Navarro plays
- Match Point won or two lost for Metropolitanos?
- Looking ahead Richard Figueroa faces his old club