Supporters who sing when it goes badly are supporters. Supporters who gather afterwards are a problem, and everybody inside the building knows which of the two this now is.
The words a physio says slowly. 18 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.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Depor this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Santino Gallo Boria 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 tried. I have really tried, and every day I wake up in the wrong place.” Nobody at Depor can coach that out of a man, and nobody there is pretending to.
Clubs make promises constantly and the page usually only hears about them when they are broken. This one was honoured, and the dressing room noticed that faster than any supporter did.
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Depor, and both men came out saying it was fine.
“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 The request is on a desk at Depor, and it is not being withdrawn.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Atletico Bucaramanga have kept their man, and Depor go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
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.
“We keep meeting, and we keep leaving the room with the same numbers we walked in with.” Another round of talks at Depor, another week without a signature from Samuel Atehortúa.
Depor have made the call to Atletico Bucaramanga. No fee, a share of the wages, and a spare shirt in the position where the squad has been thinnest all season.
1 months left, and both sides know what that means: every week without a signature, the fee Depor could ask drops and the wages Rodrigo Godoy can ask rise.
A medical, a signature, a shirt held up in front of a sponsor’s board. Depor have done the hard part with La Equidad, and the part that remains is the part supporters actually see.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Santino Gallo Boria 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.
He won it back and then made something of it, which is two jobs and the reason the scoreline looks the way it does. 11 combined actions and a mark of 6.79, and not one of them will make a highlights package.
A bad atmosphere can be waited out. A group of people meeting afterwards to decide what to do about it cannot, and everybody in the building knows which stage this is.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the whole of the defence. 6 saves, several of them the kind nobody expects to see made, and ten outfield players who owe him a drink.
Gaspar 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.
This is money that keeps the lights on rather than money that buys a centre-half, and the difference is the whole story. A club funded by its owner rather than by its football has exactly one conversation left ahead of it.
There is a figure at which a wage bill stops being ambitious and becomes the reason nothing else is possible, and this club has reached it. Nothing is left over for a transfer, a stand or a rainy afternoon.
Level with 92 minutes on the clock, after an afternoon Depor had all but put away. Llaneros will call it a point earned; the home dressing room will call it two given away, and both of them are right.
It has stopped being a mood in the stands and started being something organised. Boards can ignore a bad atmosphere for a long time; they cannot ignore this stage of it for very long at all.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Depor this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Santino Gallo Boria 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.
There is a figure at which a wage bill stops being ambitious and becomes the reason nothing else is possible, and this club has reached it. Nothing is left over for a transfer, a stand or a rainy afternoon.
Position 10, 7 points, and every result so far reduced to one line. The second half of the season starts with the same squad and a different set of expectations.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Depor is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Santino Gallo Boria was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
12 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.
“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 Depor, and it is not being withdrawn.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Santino Gallo Boria 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.
At 35, 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 embargo bars a fee being paid for a player, whatever the manager thinks the squad needs. Every rumour printed about this club between now and its lifting is a rumour about a deal that cannot happen.
Squad29 Jan 2035
12 new faces, and Depor are still learning each other
A squad rebuilt inside one window pays for it in a currency nobody budgets for. The football is not worse than the sum of the players; it is worse than the sum of the players who have played together before.
The words a physio says slowly. 24 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.
A medical, a signature, a shirt held up in front of a sponsor’s board. Depor have done the hard part with Union Magdalena, and the part that remains is the part supporters actually see.
Depor had done everything except persuade the man himself. He stays at Deportivo Cali, and the manager goes back to the drawing board with the money still in the bank.
He left as a boy and has come back still knowing where the away end is. Most signings have to be explained to a town; this one needed a photograph and nothing else.
There is a version of every career where the player ends up somewhere he chose rather than somewhere that chose him. Francisco Herrera is living that version at Depor, and it tends to show in the first month.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Union Magdalena have kept their man, and Depor go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
Football clubs borrow; that is not the story. Borrowing more than the facility allows is, because from here it is the owner's money or somebody else's decision, and neither of those belongs to the board.
A bad atmosphere can be waited out. A group of people meeting afterwards to decide what to do about it cannot, and everybody in the building knows which stage this is.
“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 Depor, 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 Depor this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Nobody at Depor 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.
2 months left, and both sides know what that means: every week without a signature, the fee Depor could ask drops and the wages Leonardo Torres can ask rise.