Marked for Iván Rodríguez
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad11 Jan 2027
2 kept out from twelve yards, and a stadium that will describe each of them for twenty years. A goalkeeper needs one night like this in a career, and this was it.
Match6 Jan 2027
Leon out of the cup
Morelia ended it 0‑0. The season narrows to the league now, and everyone in the ground knew it before the final whistle.
Market11 Jan 2027
Fee agreed, wages agreed, and Dorados waiting with a shirt. Nobody at Leon is pretending otherwise, and the supporters have stopped asking whether and started asking when.
Match9 Jan 2027
Leon make home a hard place to visit
11 without defeat on their own grass. The pitch has not changed; the crowd has — louder earlier, and quicker to sense when the opposition would rather be somewhere else.
Match9 Jan 2027
No end in sight to Leon's wait for a win
4 matches now without a victory, and the excuses have worn thinner than the patience. Somebody at Leon has to find a result from somewhere.
Squad11 Jan 2027
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Leon this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad11 Jan 2027
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Mateo Levy is 20, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
Squad11 Jan 2027
Words at Leon training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Juan Pablo Domínguez 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.
Transfer targets11 Jan 2027
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Pumas UNAM have kept their man, and Leon go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Market28 Dec 2026
“I have given everything here and I need a new challenge.” The request is formal, and the relationship will never be quite the same again.
Squad28 Dec 2026
Words exchanged at Leon
Fernando Beltrán 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.
Squad28 Dec 2026
At 19 he is doing things this season that he could not do last season, and doing them every week. Form comes and goes; this has stayed long enough to be called something else.
Squad28 Dec 2026
Words at Leon training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Juan Pablo Domínguez 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.
Match26 Dec 2026
Leon come up short against Atlas
Atlas left with the points after a 0‑1 defeat that will take some explaining on the terraces.
The dugout28 Dec 2026
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 0‑1 Gerardo Lainez left the room before anybody could ask which.
Squad28 Dec 2026
One yellow too many, and a match watched from the stand. The most avoidable absence in football, and Leon will feel it on Saturday.
The dugout28 Dec 2026
“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 Dec 2026
Somebody else is better right now than José David Ramírez
The team sheet says it in public every week until it changes. The only version of being dropped a footballer cannot argue with, and the one he takes hardest.
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Squad16 Nov 2026
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Leon this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad16 Nov 2026
Julio González 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.
The dugout16 Nov 2026
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Emi Rodriguez, and the manager let it.
Market16 Nov 2026
Every press conference now starts and ends the same way: with Ismael Díaz’s future. The manager has run out of new ways to say nothing.
Looking ahead16 Nov 2026
Guadalajara next, and one man in the Leon dressing room knows their training ground better than his own. The reception will tell him what they thought of him.
The dugout16 Nov 2026
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.
Loan watch16 Nov 2026
12 appearances away from home and 3 goals to show for them. Every one of them makes next summer's conversation a little more expensive.
Looking ahead16 Nov 2026
Next up at home: Guadalajara, who go into it in position 5. The kind of fixture a season is quietly built on or quietly loses its shape in.
The dugout16 Nov 2026
“Judge me on him.” Managers do not say that kind of thing by accident — it moves the pressure from Fernando Beltrán’s shoulders onto his own, and both of them know it.
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Match28 Oct 2026
Leon march on in the cup
Tijuana are out and Leon go through, 3‑0 the final word. The bracket opens up a little, and everyone allows themselves a look at it.
Squad2 Nov 2026
There were 6 saves in it, and at least three that had no business being saves at all. The ten outfield players owe him a drink and they know it.
Player ratings2 Nov 2026
No sign of nerves from Oliver Melgoza at 19 — 7.68
The hardest thing about being 19 in a senior side is that nobody makes allowances. Oliver Melgoza did not need any: 7.68, and he looked the most comfortable man on the pitch.
The terraces2 Nov 2026
The crowd has taken to Gael García
At 22 he is being sung about by people twice his age, which is an affection a signing has to earn over years and a local kid gets for turning up. It is also the hardest thing in football to live up to.
Match31 Oct 2026
Leon come up short against Toluca
Toluca left with the points after a 0‑1 defeat that will take some explaining on the terraces.
Player ratings2 Nov 2026
Édgar Guerra was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.46. 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.
Looking ahead2 Nov 2026
The fixture the rest of the division is looking forward to more than either of the sides in it. Both know a win changes the season and a defeat does not end it, which is what makes it hard to play.
Player ratings2 Nov 2026
Iván Rodríguez was on a different afternoon to everybody else
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.
Match31 Oct 2026
Every run ends on an afternoon somebody had marked down as routine. This one went 4 matches, which is long enough that a town had stopped counting, and short enough that it will remember exactly who stopped it.