Marked for Jhon Pérez
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Market2 Nov 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.
Boardroom2 Nov 2026
An order from above at Valledupar: somebody has to go
Balance sheets do not care about form or about who the manager was planning to build around. The board have decided a sale is required, and the only question left is which name ends up carrying it.
Squad2 Nov 2026
The demotion a club never announces and a dressing room always notices. Cristian Rodriguez is further from the side than he was, and the reason will not be given until he asks.
Squad2 Nov 2026
It will be explained as a change for the team and it may even be one. Nobody who has worn one believes that, and neither does the man who has just had it taken away.
The dugout2 Nov 2026
Hector Garcia knocks on the manager’s door
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Hector Garcia trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
Market2 Nov 2026
The list is a quiet document with a loud meaning. Andres Sanchez may talk to anybody who asks, and everybody at the club understands what that means.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Market19 Oct 2026
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Valledupar can pretend not to have heard.
Squad19 Oct 2026
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Jorge Palacios is 23, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
Squad19 Oct 2026
At 38, 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.
Squad19 Oct 2026
Wilmar Ramirez 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.
Squad19 Oct 2026
Words at Valledupar training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Pablo Medina 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.
Market19 Oct 2026
Experience through the door at Valledupar
Cristhian Subero arrives at 35 with nothing left to prove and plenty left to pass on. Legs are a young man's currency; knowing where to stand never ages.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad12 Oct 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 Valledupar this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad12 Oct 2026
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.
Squad12 Oct 2026
5 new faces, and Valledupar 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.
Market12 Oct 2026
Valledupar bring in an old head
Santiago Montoya is 35 and has run out of things to prove. What he has left is where to stand, when to slow it down and what to say at half-time, and none of that is on a fitness chart.
Market12 Oct 2026
Valledupar bring in an old head
Carlos Ibargüen is 36 and has run out of things to prove. What he has left is where to stand, when to slow it down and what to say at half-time, and none of that is on a fitness chart.
Market12 Oct 2026
“We are a long way apart, and pretending otherwise helps nobody.” Neither side is close, and the calendar is not on the club's side.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad5 Oct 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 Valledupar this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad5 Oct 2026
Wilmar Ramirez 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 Pablo Medina
“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.
Market5 Oct 2026
“We are a long way apart, and pretending otherwise helps nobody.” Neither side is close, and the calendar is not on the club's side.
Market5 Oct 2026
Experience through the door at Valledupar
Hugo Zarco arrives at 35 with nothing left to prove and plenty left to pass on. Legs are a young man's currency; knowing where to stand never ages.
Squad5 Oct 2026
Jhon Pérez has company in his position
The competition arrived without a word said to him about it. Jhon Pérez keeps the shirt for now, at Valledupar's convenience rather than his own.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad7 Sep 2026
A row about effort at Valledupar
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Wilmar Ramirez was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Squad7 Sep 2026
Somebody has moved past him. It is not a dropping and it is worse than one, because a dropping is about a Saturday and this is about where he stands.
Market7 Sep 2026
Valledupar bring in an old head
Jhon Pérez is 38 and has run out of things to prove. What he has left is where to stand, when to slow it down and what to say at half-time, and none of that is on a fitness chart.