Marked for Uroš Đurđević
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Player ratings8 Mar 2027
Successful dribbles: 30. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Player ratings8 Mar 2027
2 goals, and the second was the one that settled it. Marked 8.32, and he could have had a third with better luck at the near post.
Match6 Mar 2027
Monterrey cannot stop winning
3 wins on the spin now, and the question has changed from whether the run ends to who ends it. Confidence like this cannot be bought; it has to be earned exactly this way.
Squad8 Mar 2027
Lucas Ocampos 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.
Squad8 Mar 2027
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Ricardo Marín and Monterrey agree another 4 years.
Match6 Mar 2027
A 2‑0 win over Cruz Azul, earned rather than given, and the sort of afternoon that sends everyone home talking about next week instead of this one.
Squad8 Mar 2027
Lucas Ocampos is in the form of his life
A season average of 7.21 with 12 goals behind it. Opponents have started planning around him, which is the sincerest compliment football pays.
Player ratings8 Mar 2027
Marked 7.13 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.
Squad8 Mar 2027
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Uroš Đurđević, and the manager let it.
In brief
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Market
Ilves are about to pick up the phone
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Player ratings
The pass was always on for Ricardo Marín
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Match27 Feb 2027
Club America will want this one forgotten quickly: 4‑1, every duel lost, and a long ride home. Monterrey were ruthless in the way good sides are ruthless.
Match1 Mar 2027
59 points on the board and a place in the leading group. Nobody at the ground is saying the word out loud yet.
Player ratings1 Mar 2027
Two goals and a mark of 8.23 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
Player ratings1 Mar 2027
Óliver 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.
Squad1 Mar 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 Monterrey this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Market1 Mar 2027
The phone has started ringing about Miguel Ángel Torres again, and this time the name on the line is Ilves. Monterrey are listening politely and promising nothing.
Squad1 Mar 2027
Fidel Ambríz 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.
Player ratings1 Mar 2027
Orbelín Pineda was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.25. 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.
Player ratings1 Mar 2027
Ninety minutes of Luca Orellano at his very best
Marked 8.20. Players have careers without a single afternoon like this in them, and he has just had one in front of everybody at Monterrey.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Player ratings23 Nov 2026
Successful dribbles: 50. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
Match21 Nov 2026
Hard to beat is not the same as winning, but 18 matches without defeat is a foundation Monterrey did not have in the autumn.
Squad23 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 Monterrey this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad23 Nov 2026
It is not much of a headline and it is the reason players believe the next promise. Monterrey told Víctor Arteaga something would happen and then it happened, which in this industry passes for remarkable.
Squad23 Nov 2026
Paolo Medina dropped after a run of poor form
The one version of being left out a player cannot argue with, and the one he takes worst. Somebody else has been better and the team sheet says so, in public, every week until it changes.
Match21 Nov 2026
Ninety minutes, two goalkeepers with clean gloves, and not one finish worth keeping. Puebla will be the happier side with the point.
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Match8 Aug 2026
Morelia will want this one forgotten quickly: 4‑1, every duel lost, and a long ride home. Monterrey were ruthless in the way good sides are ruthless.
Market10 Aug 2026
Monterrey say no — this time
The offer from Leon for Uroš Đurđević was heard out and sent back the same day. First bids are rarely meant to succeed; they are meant to find out how loudly the door closes.
Market10 Aug 2026
“I want to be playing for trophies while my legs still let me.” Nothing in that sentence is a transfer request, and nobody at Monterrey heard it as anything else.
Squad10 Aug 2026
“I never wanted to be anywhere else. There is unfinished business here.” Víctor Guzmán commits to Monterrey for another 4 years.
Squad10 Aug 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 Monterrey this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad10 Aug 2026
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Santiago Mele, and the manager let it.
Player ratings10 Aug 2026
There is a version of this player everybody suspected was in there, and on this evidence it is. 8.18, and no argument anywhere in the ground.
Player ratings10 Aug 2026
Ninety minutes of Óliver at his very best
Marked 8.12. Players have careers without a single afternoon like this in them, and he has just had one in front of everybody at Monterrey.
Player ratings10 Aug 2026
A performance of 8.03 does not come along often, and when it does the rest of the team becomes scenery. He was magnificent.