Fee agreed, wages agreed, and Union Magdalena waiting with a shirt. Nobody at Santa Fe is pretending otherwise, and the supporters have stopped asking whether and started asking when.
There were 88 minutes on the clock and Deportivo Pasto had all but banked the point. Football rarely reads the room, and Santa Fe did not stop to explain themselves.
$6.1M on the table at Universitario Popayan. The manager wanted him, the board agreed a number, and the only voices still to be heard are the ones at the other club.
“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 The request is on a desk at Santa Fe, and it is not being withdrawn.
Atletico Nacional did not want to sell and the number is why they did. $1.4M for Luis Marquínez, and the expectation that arrives with him is the kind no amount of settling-in period softens.
$310.0K on the table at Leones. The manager wanted him, the board agreed a number, and the only voices still to be heard are the ones at the other club.
Nobody will confirm this and nothing else explains the last month of selections. A costly error buys a player a period of being second choice that is always longer than the error was.
“We were not good enough today and I am not going to dress it up.” Rafael Herrera after 0‑3, in the tone of a man who knows the next question and does not intend to answer it.
He used to wear the other shirt. On Saturday he plays against Llaneros in this one, and whatever he says this week about it being just another game will be untrue.
“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 The request is on a desk at Santa Fe, and it is not being withdrawn.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the whole of the defence. 6 saves, several of them the kind nobody expects to see made, and ten outfield players who owe him a drink.
At 33 he is supposed to be managing his minutes. Instead he was marked 8.30 and looked, for ninety minutes, exactly like the player everybody remembers.
Edwin Mosquera 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.
“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 dugout8 May 2028
The view from the dugout
“We controlled it. There were spells I did not like and we will look at them, but the group showed me something.” Rafael Herrera, on a 2‑0 win that he was already picking apart on the walk to the press room.
In brief
The dugoutIván Scarpeta is still being punished for one mistake
The words a physio says slowly. 14 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.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Santa Fe can pretend not to have heard.
There is an age at which every good afternoon gets described as a throwback, which is unfair and also accurate. 7.91 at 33, and nobody on the pitch was better.
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.
The new man at Santa Fe has worked with Jáder Obrian before and it went well. He arrives with a view of the player already formed, which is worth more than any pre-season.
Helibelton Palacios 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 demotion a club never announces and a dressing room always notices. Daniel Torres is further from the side than he was, and the reason will not be given until he asks.
22 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Santa Fe lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
“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 Santa Fe, and it is not being withdrawn.
There is no worse way to lose a footballer. Jimmy Martínez has pre-agreed a move away, which means every appearance between now and June is made by a man the club can no longer sell, and somebody upstairs will be asked why the contract was allowed to get here.
Patrick Preciado and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Squad24 Apr 2028
Words at Santa Fe training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Alejandro Morález 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.
8.22. 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.
The new man at Santa Fe has worked with Jáder Obrian before and it went well. He arrives with a view of the player already formed, which is worth more than any pre-season.
The words a physio says slowly. 29 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.” Santa Fe 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 Santa Fe is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
500 games in the shirt. Nobody sets out to build a record like that; it happens to a certain kind of player at a certain kind of club, and this town knows what it has.
The new man at Santa Fe has worked with Jáder Obrian before and it went well. He arrives with a view of the player already formed, which is worth more than any pre-season.
The words a physio says slowly. 54 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.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Santa Fe can pretend not to have heard.
The new man at Santa Fe has worked with Jáder Obrian before and it went well. He arrives with a view of the player already formed, which is worth more than any pre-season.
“The easiest signature of my career.” William Ovalle and Santa Fe agree another 4 years, and the manager can plan around him rather than about him.
Squad27 Mar 2028
17 new faces, and Santa Fe 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.
87 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Santa Fe lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Santa Fe can pretend not to have heard.
Player ratings28 Feb 2028
A brace, and Ángel Mora takes the afternoon — 8.53
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Ángel Mora provided it, and the 8.53 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
He is 19 and the ground already sings his name, which is a thing that happens to local boys and almost never to signings. Everything from here is measured against an affection he did nothing to earn except be from here.
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Alexis Zapata. 1‑0 against Deportivo Cali, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
The new man at Santa Fe has worked with Jáder Obrian before and it went well. He arrives with a view of the player already formed, which is worth more than any pre-season.
103 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Santa Fe lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
5 without a win now, and the ground has developed the special quiet of a crowd that expects the worst. One scrappy 1-0 would cure most of it; that is the maddening part.
The first defeat in 9 matches. The manager will say it had to come; the dressing room will say it did not have to come against Atletico Nacional; the supporters will say both, in that order, all week.
There is no worse way to lose a footballer. Martin Cuesta has pre-agreed a move away, which means every appearance between now and June is made by a man the club can no longer sell, and somebody upstairs will be asked why the contract was allowed to get here.
It is the most legitimate ambition in the sport and the hardest for most clubs to satisfy. Patrick Preciado wants continental football; whether Santa Fe can provide it is a question about the next two seasons, not about him.
The new man at Santa Fe has worked with Jáder Obrian before and it went well. He arrives with a view of the player already formed, which is worth more than any pre-season.
120 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Santa Fe lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
The clubs have settled the fee and he has settled his wages. What remains is a medical and a photograph, and around Santa Fe people have started saying his name in the past tense.
“I know what people will say. I know what I want, and it is here.” Dalian Yingbo had the fee agreed and the shirt ready; they did not have the player, and now they will not.
The new man at Santa Fe has worked with Jáder Obrian before and it went well. He arrives with a view of the player already formed, which is worth more than any pre-season.
There are footballers who have a good season and footballers a season is remembered for, and the second kind get their names read out in a hall in the summer. Santa Fe will be quietly delighted and privately nervous.
The chase for Aldo Montes ended with $310.0K changing hands and Tigres out of reasons to say no. The supporters will judge the fee the only way that matters: on Saturdays.
Helibelton Palacios 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.
“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 Santa Fe, and it is not being withdrawn.
The clubs have shaken hands with Real Santander; the player has not yet. Personal terms are next, and personal terms are where more deals die than anybody prints.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Santa Fe this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Santa Fe asked and Newell's Old Boys said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
Santa Fe have made the call to Racing Club. No fee, a share of the wages, and a spare shirt in the position where the squad has been thinnest all season.
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.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Santa Fe they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
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.
Nobody at Santa Fe will say this on the record and the team sheets have been saying it for weeks. There is a small group in every squad who get picked when the fixture is difficult, and he has joined 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 Miguel Ortega has written the date down.
Numbers do not stay secret in a dressing room and never have. He is not asking for more than he is worth; he is asking why somebody beside him is worth more, and at Santa Fe that is a harder question to answer.
In brief
The dugoutThe manager plants his flag on Yojan Garcés
The words a physio says slowly. 32 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.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Yílmar Velásquez was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
The young player of the month award goes to a 21-year-old at Santa Fe who has looked like the finished article for four weekends running. The next four are the ones that decide whether he is.
Squad8 Nov 2027
A place in the month's best eleven for Edwin Herrera
Four or five weekends of consistency, judged against everybody in the division doing his job. Edwin Herrera has come out of that comparison in the side, and Santa Fe have had the benefit of every one of those afternoons.
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.
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Edwin Herrera signs something — a contract at Santa Fe or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
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 Miguel Ortega has written the date down.
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Santa Fe, and both men came out saying it was fine.
In brief
Loan watchThe goals keep arriving from Jhojan Torres’s exile
The words a physio says slowly. 46 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.
The hardest thing about being 21 in a senior side is that nobody makes allowances. Yojan Garcés did not need any: 7.75, and he looked the most comfortable man on the pitch.
3 wins in a row changes how opponents warm up: quieter, more glances across. Runs end, everybody knows that — but nobody in this dressing room is planning for it.
Squad25 Oct 2027
At 21, Yojan Garcés is already the best thing here
An average of 7.07 in a first team he is several years too young for. Santa Fe have something, and by now the whole division has noticed.
Luis Palacios 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.
Marked 8.31 — the sort of number a correspondent writes down twice to be sure. Everything he tried came off, and what he did not try was not worth trying.
“We earned that. I asked them for a reaction and I got one, and now I want the same again on Saturday.” Rafael Herrera on a 2‑1 afternoon that pleased him more than he was prepared to show.
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 Yojan Garcés is on it.
62 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Santa Fe lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
It is the most legitimate ambition in the sport and the hardest for most clubs to satisfy. Alexis Zapata wants continental football; whether Santa Fe can provide it is a question about the next two seasons, not about him.
Squad11 Oct 2027
Words at Santa Fe training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Yílmar Velásquez 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 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.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Éwil Murillo trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Edwin Herrera signs something — a contract at Santa Fe or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
69 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Santa Fe lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Out, 1‑1 to Deportivo Pasto, and the long argument about which of the small moments decided it. The league is all there is now, and everybody knows it.
1 kept out in the shoot-out, and a stadium that will still be describing them in twenty years. A goalkeeper only needs one of these to be remembered forever.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Santa Fe is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
“I was told straight, and I would rather have it straight.” The manager at Santa Fe has been clear about where Daniel Torres stands, which is more than many ever get.
At 21 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.
77 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Santa Fe lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
A season average of 7.00 at an age when most of his year group are still in the youth team. Santa Fe know what they have, and so, by now, does everybody else.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Yílmar Velásquez was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
“There are things I liked and things we will be doing on Tuesday until they are right.” 0‑0, and a manager who had already decided what Tuesday looked like.
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 Éwil Murillo is on it.
14 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.
91 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Santa Fe lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
“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 Santa Fe, and it is not being withdrawn.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the whole of the defence. 7 saves, several of them the kind nobody expects to see made, and ten outfield players who owe him a drink.
7.86, 1 on the scoresheet, and the specific comedy of a back-four player celebrating like somebody who does this every week. He does not, and that is exactly why the ground reacted the way it did.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Santa Fe this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
105 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Santa Fe lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Player ratings30 Aug 2027
A brace, and Yojan Garcés takes the afternoon — 8.77
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Yojan Garcés provided it, and the 8.77 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
He is 21, he is averaging 7.02, and older professionals have started passing to him in the difficult minutes. That last part is the real scouting report.
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.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Santa Fe this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
He is 21 and the ground already sings his name, which is a thing that happens to local boys and almost never to signings. Everything from here is measured against an affection he did nothing to earn except be from here.
The words a physio says slowly. 137 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.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Santa Fe will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Independiente Medellin have kept their man, and Santa Fe go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
6 goals. Both benches spent the second half looking at each other rather than at the pitch. Purists will complain about Santa Fe and Jaguares in equal measure; everybody else had a wonderful time.
The manager kept them in and said what needed saying. A response is expected on Saturday, and if it does not come the questions move upstairs.
The dugout2 Aug 2027
The manager has not finished forgetting Daniel Torres'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.
1‑4 against Deportivo Cali, and no complaints that would survive the replay. The manager spoke about character afterwards; the terraces used shorter words.
“I listened, I thought about it, and I am staying. That is the whole story.” The clubs had agreed a fee. Éwil Murillo had not agreed to go, which turned out to be the part that mattered.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 41 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
Fee agreed, wages agreed, and Real Santander waiting with a shirt. Nobody at Santa Fe is pretending otherwise, and the supporters have stopped asking whether and started asking when.
The general version of this complaint is that a player wants more. The specific version names the thing: he wants to walk out under floodlights against clubs from other countries, and he has stopped pretending otherwise.
Santa Fe offered $940.0K; La Equidad said it was not close. The manager will be told the money is still there for the right player, which is what managers are told.
Squad19 Jul 2027
Words at Santa Fe training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Yílmar Velásquez 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.
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 21 he is doing things at this level he could not do at the start of the season, and the coaching staff will tell you exactly which of them.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Santa Fe this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Club America have kept their man, and Santa Fe go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
Nobody will confirm this and nothing else explains the last month of selections. A costly error buys a player a period of being second choice that is always longer than the error was.
Every touch is being weighed now, in print and everywhere else. Some players grow into that and some are quietly ruined by it, and nobody knows which in advance.
In brief
The dugoutIván Scarpeta has become a man the manager trusts
47 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Santa Fe lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
It is not a grievance and it is not a demand: he wants to play continental football, and he has stopped hiding it. Whether Santa Fe can give him that is a question about the club, not about him.
“I never wanted to be anywhere else. There is unfinished business here.” Helibelton Palacios commits to Santa Fe for another 2 years.
Squad5 Apr 2027
Words at Santa Fe training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Yílmar Velásquez 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 was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Santa Fe this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
He won it back and then made something of it, which is two jobs and the reason the scoreline looks the way it does. 10 combined actions and a mark of 7.09, and not one of them will make a highlights package.
The dugout5 Apr 2027
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 1‑3 Rafael Herrera left the room before anybody could ask which.
78 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Santa Fe lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
5 wins in a row changes how opponents warm up: quieter, more glances across. Runs end, everybody knows that — but nobody in this dressing room is planning for it.
Player ratings8 Mar 2027
Yojan Garcés, 20, plays like he has been here for years — 7.65
A mark of 7.65 means one thing beside a twenty-nine-year-old's name and something else entirely beside a 20-year-old's. Nobody at the ground needed telling which this was.
3 straight away victories. Sides that win away are usually sides that can defend and can counter, and the table has begun to reflect what those journeys have earned.
50 for the club now, each one filed in somebody’s memory with a date and a scoreline. Numbers like this are what supporters argue about in twenty years.
The young player of the month award goes to a 20-year-old at Santa Fe who has looked like the finished article for four weekends running. The next four are the ones that decide whether he is.
107 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Santa Fe lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
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.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Yílmar Velásquez was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Squad8 Feb 2027
Yojan Garcés is the division's best young player this month
At 20 he has spent a month being better than everybody his age in the league, which is a different and harder thing than one good afternoon. Santa Fe will try very hard not to make too much of it.
Sebastián Ramírez 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 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.
“A point is a point and I will take it, but we should have had all three.” Rafael Herrera after the 0‑0 draw, and the sentence every manager in the country said at some stage this weekend.
He used to wear the other shirt. On Saturday he plays against America de Cali in this one, and whatever he says this week about it being just another game will be untrue.
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 Edwin Mosquera is on it.
Nothing in writing and nothing in public: a word about playing time, given face to face at Santa Fe. The team sheets over the next month will show whether it was worth having.
3 goals in 8 games at Aguilas Doradas — numbers that travel home faster than he does. Somebody at Santa Fe updates a spreadsheet every Monday, and it makes better reading each week.
The language has come, the shrug has gone, and he argues in training like a man who expects to be here next year. None of it shows up on a fee and all of it shows up on the pitch.
The message was aimed at the stands as much as the dressing room: Yílmar Velásquez plays, and the argument is closed until the manager decides otherwise.
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Omar Fernández provided it, and the 9.47 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
Player ratings28 Sep 2026
A brace, and Nahuel Bustos takes the afternoon — 8.91
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Nahuel Bustos provided it, and the 8.91 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
A bone, which is the one injury with a calendar attached. Santa Fe will name a return date and, unusually for this business, will probably be right about it.
7.58, 1 on the scoresheet, and the specific comedy of a back-four player celebrating like somebody who does this every week. He does not, and that is exactly why the ground reacted the way it did.
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 19 he is doing things at this level he could not do at the start of the season, and the coaching staff will tell you exactly which of them.
It is not a grievance and it is not a demand: he wants to play continental football, and he has stopped hiding it. Whether Santa Fe can give him that is a question about the club, not about him.
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.
Luis Palacios 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.
500 games in this shirt, through managers and relegations and everything else. Service like it is disappearing from the game and the crowd knows what it is watching.
Luis Palacios 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.
It is not much of a headline and it is the reason players believe the next promise. Santa Fe told Christian Mafla something would happen and then it happened, which in this industry passes for remarkable.
7 shots, and a count that reads like a good afternoon until you check the other column. Strikers survive weeks like this on the understanding that the chances keep arriving; the day they stop is the day it becomes a problem.
Nobody at Santa Fe will say this on the record and the team sheets have been saying it for weeks. There is a small group in every squad who get picked when the fixture is difficult, and he has joined it.
Cortulua next, and one man in the Santa Fe dressing room knows their training ground better than his own. The reception will tell him what they thought of him.
10 combined actions and 7.45. The job he did is the one that shows up as other people looking good, and the only reliable way to notice it is to watch what happens on the afternoons he is missing.
Nobody will confirm this and nothing else explains the last month of selections. A costly error buys a player a period of being second choice that is always longer than the error was.
A defender's mistake gets tidied up by somebody else; a goalkeeper's ends up in the net. He knew before the ball crossed the line, and so did everybody in the ground.
“The supporters are entitled to be angry. So am I. We will put it right.” 1‑3, a manager saying the necessary things, and a dressing room that heard a different version of them.
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 Iván Scarpeta is on it.
A 3‑2 win over Atletico Bucaramanga, earned rather than given, and the sort of afternoon that sends everyone home talking about next week instead of this one.
Squad24 Aug 2026
Words at Santa Fe training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Yílmar Velásquez 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.
Successful dribbles: 20. There was always a defender in front of him and there was never a defender in front of him for long.
Player ratings24 Aug 2026
Nahuel Bustos was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.05. 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.
“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 dugout24 Aug 2026
The view from the dugout
“We controlled it. There were spells I did not like and we will look at them, but the group showed me something.” Rafael Herrera, on a 3‑2 win that he was already picking apart on the walk to the press room.
Nobody at Santa Fe is suggesting he is out of form. The manager simply wanted somebody with a different set of qualities for ninety specific minutes, and there is nothing a player can train to fix that.
Cup ties wait for somebody to seize them, and Franco Fagúndez obliged against Real Santander. 2‑0 on the night, and the name in the next round’s hat is Santa Fe.
Successful dribbles: 26. 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.
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.
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Daniel Torres. 2‑1 against Alianza Petrolera, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
At 23 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.
There is a version of this player everybody suspected was in there, and on this evidence it is. 8.42, and no argument anywhere in the ground.
Player ratings17 Aug 2026
Jhojan Torres was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.05. 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.
Franco Fagúndez had done his part in building a 2-goal cushion. What happened after that was collective, and Jaguares were allowed back into a match that had been finished with.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Yílmar Velásquez was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Helibelton Palacios 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.
It is not a grievance and it is not a demand: he wants to play continental football, and he has stopped hiding it. Whether Santa Fe can give him that is a question about the club, not about him.
Successful dribbles: 16. 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.