Marked for Cristopher Toselli
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad5 Oct 2026
A knee injury of the worst kind for Charles Aránguiz
75 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Universidad de Chile lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Market5 Oct 2026
“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 The request is on a desk at Universidad de Chile, and it is not being withdrawn.
Squad5 Oct 2026
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Vicente Ramírez is 19, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
Squad5 Oct 2026
Nicolás Ramírez and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Squad5 Oct 2026
Israel Poblete 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 dugout5 Oct 2026
The manager makes an example of Ignacio Vásquez
“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.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad21 Sep 2026
90 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Universidad de Chile lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
Player ratings21 Sep 2026
At 34 every good afternoon gets called a throwback, and this one was: 8.26, and nobody on the pitch better.
Player ratings21 Sep 2026
A defender on the scoresheet, which happens rarely enough that everybody in the ground remembers who took the corner. 1 for him, and a mark of 7.94 for the rest of it.
Squad21 Sep 2026
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Andrés Bolaño is 18, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
Squad21 Sep 2026
Juan Martín Lucero 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.
Player ratings21 Sep 2026
Successful dribbles: 20. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Match19 Sep 2026
Level with 87 minutes on the clock, after an afternoon Universidad de Chile had all but put away. Union La Calera will call it a point earned; the home dressing room will call it two given away, and both of them are right.
Squad21 Sep 2026
9 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.
Match19 Sep 2026
It finished 2‑2, and it somehow always looked like it would. One of those afternoons where the table moves less than the tempers.
In brief
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The dugout
The manager’s verdict
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The dugout
The manager makes an example of Cristopher Toselli
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The dugout
The plan did not have a place for Marcelo Díaz
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Squad14 Sep 2026
A knee injury of the worst kind for Charles Aránguiz
97 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Universidad de Chile lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Squad14 Sep 2026
There were 8 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.
The dugout14 Sep 2026
Nicolás Ramírez: that is not what I was promised
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Universidad de Chile have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Player ratings14 Sep 2026
At 36 every good afternoon gets called a throwback, and this one was: 7.92, and nobody on the pitch better.
Match12 Sep 2026
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.
Player ratings14 Sep 2026
Successful dribbles: 23. He went past people as if he had been told there was a prize for it, and by the end the full-back had stopped pretending to try.
Player ratings14 Sep 2026
21 times he got in the way of something. Centre-halves get written about when they make mistakes and ignored when they do not, so an afternoon like this needs saying out loud: he is the reason the scoreline reads as it does.
Market14 Sep 2026
There is no fee, no unveiling and no agent on the steps. Pablo Fernandez has been at this club since he was a boy and is now, formally, one of the first-team squad — which for a local readership beats any signing of any size.
Market14 Sep 2026
Clubs spend fortunes looking for players and occasionally find one down the corridor. Carlos Meneses is that, and the reception he gets on his first appearance will be different in kind from the one any signing receives.