34 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Pachuca lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Pachuca will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Pachuca have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
“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 The request is on a desk at Pachuca, and it is not being withdrawn.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Ángel Estrada was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Carlos Moreno signs something — a contract at Pachuca or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
Every manager keeps a short list in his head of the men he wants on the pitch when the stakes rise, and it is never published. The team sheets for the big afternoons say Paolo Yrizar is on it.
A conversation in the manager’s office, and a commitment that came out of it. Promises like that are cheap to make and expensive to break, and Héctor Herrera has written the date down.
A bone, which is the one injury with a calendar attached. Pachuca will name a return date and, unusually for this business, will probably be right about it.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Pachuca can pretend not to have heard.
Carlos Moreno and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Squad15 Apr 2030
Words at Pachuca training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Teun Wilke Braams 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.
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Carlos Moreno signs something — a contract at Pachuca or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Pachuca, and both men came out saying it was fine.
His past walked in ahead of him. Players who have been where he has been get a hearing in a dressing room before they have earned one, and he has it for as long as his form does.
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.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 68 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Greg Ranjitsingh will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Pachuca the goodbyes have quietly begun.
Carlos Moreno 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.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Teun Wilke Braams was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Pachuca, and both men came out saying it was fine.
Nothing in writing and nothing in public: a word about playing time, given face to face at Pachuca. The team sheets over the next month will show whether it was worth having.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the team. 14 saves, several of them the sort nobody expects to see stopped, and a scoreline that flatters everybody in front of him.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Pachuca will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Pachuca have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
“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 Pachuca, 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 Pachuca this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad4 Mar 2030
Words at Pachuca training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Eliás Montiel 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.
8.14. There are performances a supporter describes to somebody who was not there and cannot quite convey; this was one, and the number does not help either.
A bone, which is the one injury with a calendar attached. Pachuca will name a return date and, unusually for this business, will probably be right about it.
Two goals and a mark of 8.37 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
Pachuca and Toluca have settled on $610.0K. The rest belongs to the player and his agent, and a supporter who has watched one of these before knows not to buy the shirt yet.
At 34 he is supposed to be managing his minutes. Instead he was marked 8.14 and looked, for ninety minutes, exactly like the player everybody remembers.
“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.
Boardroom4 Feb 2030
Deadline passes with 3 signed and 7 gone
That is the business done at Pachuca until the window opens again. Whether it was enough will be answered on Saturdays rather than in a column, and the first Saturday is close.
“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 Pachuca, and it is not being withdrawn.
Carlos Moreno 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.
Squad4 Feb 2030
Words at Pachuca training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Eliás Montiel 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.
The words a physio says slowly. 37 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.
Carlos Moreno 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.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Winilson Lopes will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Pachuca the goodbyes have quietly begun.
“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 Atlas, and it is not being withdrawn.
Camilo Vargas 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.
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.
Nothing in writing and nothing in public: a word about playing time, given face to face at Atlas. The team sheets over the next month will show whether it was worth having.
The words a physio says slowly. 23 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.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Atlas have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Atlas is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
The injury that keeps coming back, keeps being rushed back from, and quietly costs more careers than the dramatic ones. 17 days is the estimate; the honest figure depends on whether anybody is patient.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Víctor Ríos was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
“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.
The dugout19 Mar 2029
The manager has not finished forgetting Nelson Cedillo's mistake
Publicly it is behind everybody. It is not behind the man who picks the team, and the only place that shows is a team sheet. He will get another chance; he will get it in a match that matters less.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Atlas have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
“I want to be playing for trophies while my legs still let me.” Nothing in that sentence is a transfer request, and nobody at Atlas heard it as anything else.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Atlas this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Santiago Trigos 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.