Two goals and a mark of 8.46 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
Luis Rivas 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 makes a documentary about a hamstring and everybody in the game fears one. Llaneros will be careful with the return date, because the second one is always worse than the first.
The demotion a club never announces and a dressing room always notices. Alex Guaricuyu is further from the side than he was, and the reason will not be given until he asks.
“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 The request is on a desk at Llaneros, and it is not being withdrawn.
José Luis Chunga 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.
The team at the top of the table next, and the honest measure of where this side actually is. Anybody can beat the club below them; the question is what happens against Union Magdalena.
Union Magdalena next, and one man in the Llaneros dressing room knows their training ground better than his own. The reception will tell him what they thought of him.
Nothing in writing and nothing in public: a word about playing time, given face to face at Llaneros. The team sheets over the next month will show whether it was worth having.
“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 The request is on a desk at Llaneros, and it is not being withdrawn.
The deal with Atletico Nacional is done in every sense but the one that puts him on the pitch. Nothing goes wrong at this stage, except on the occasions when it does.
Llaneros asked and Atletico Nacional said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Llaneros, and both men came out saying it was fine.
Llaneros spent the window trying to move Luis Rivas on and nobody came. He trains with a squad that has already told him he is not part of it, and both sides now wait for the next one.
Llaneros and Millonarios have settled on $3.4M. The rest belongs to the player and his agent, and a supporter who has watched one of these before knows not to buy the shirt yet.
“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 Llaneros, and it is not being withdrawn.
There is a version of every career where the player ends up somewhere he chose rather than somewhere that chose him. Thiago Ponce is living that version at Llaneros, and it tends to show in the first month.
It is not much of a headline and it is the reason players believe the next promise. Llaneros told Thiago Ponce something would happen and then it happened, which in this industry passes for remarkable.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Llaneros this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
1 months left, and both sides know what that means: every week without a signature, the fee Llaneros could ask drops and the wages Tiziano Morales can ask rise.
In brief
SquadQuestions about Luis Rivas on the training pitch
José Luis Chunga 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.
“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 dugout21 Oct 2030
The manager has not finished forgetting Pablo Arias'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.
In brief
The dugoutSergio Pabón knocks on the manager’s door
Luis Rivas 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.
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 Carlos Barreiro is on it.
Nothing in writing and nothing in public: a word about playing time, given face to face at Llaneros. The team sheets over the next month will show whether it was worth having.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Llaneros this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
The manager has re-ordered his thinking and Mateo Montero has come out of it lower. He will be told it is temporary, and the players who have heard that before will avoid his eye.
Nothing is announced when this happens and everybody knows. He is a bigger part of the plan at Llaneros than he was a month ago, and the training ground worked that out before the team sheet said so.
“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 Llaneros, and it is not being withdrawn.
Llaneros ran out of time with Atletico Nacional. The paperwork was open when the deadline passed, and a transfer that was almost done is now a transfer that never happened.
Milan Roki 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.
“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 dugout29 Jul 2030
Pablo Arias is still being punished for one mistake
Nobody will confirm it and the team sheets confirm it every week. One error has bought him a spell as second choice that is already longer than the error deserved.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Mack Cleberson Murillo trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
“I have done everything asked of me in training and it has not changed a thing on a Saturday.” The most familiar complaint in football, and one Llaneros will have to answer with minutes or with a transfer.
Llaneros opened the door and nobody walked through it. So Dennys Quintero stays — listed, trained, and available — while both sides mark the days to January on the same calendar.
17 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Llaneros lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
Llaneros and Atletico Nacional have settled on $380.0K. The rest belongs to the player and his agent, and a supporter who has watched one of these before knows not to buy the shirt yet.
The deadline has passed and the squad is the squad. 3 arrived, 5 left, and everything else printed about this club last month was a rumour that stayed one.
A medical, a signature, a shirt held up in front of a sponsor’s board. Llaneros have done the hard part with Depor, and the part that remains is the part supporters actually see.
$580.0K was the most the club would pay and Barranquilla were asking for more. Deals like this are revived in the last week of a window roughly half the time, and everybody involved knows it.
Luis Rivas and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Squad22 Jul 2030
Mateo Montero 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.
Llaneros opened the door and nobody walked through it. So Luis Rivas stays — listed, trained, and available — while both sides mark the days to January on the same calendar.
In brief
The dugoutSergio Pabón knocks on the manager’s door
The words a physio says slowly. 24 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 clubs have shaken hands with Deportivo Cali; the player has not yet. Personal terms are next, and personal terms are where more deals die than anybody prints.
Llaneros have gone to Barranquilla with a bid, and the supporters have gone to the internet with an opinion about it. Whether either changes anything is up to the selling club.
José Luis Chunga and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Squad15 Jul 2030
Words at Llaneros training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Mateo Montero 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.
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 Carlos Barreiro is on it.
He trains hard, says the right things and goes home to an empty flat. Nobody at Llaneros has done anything wrong, which is exactly what makes it so difficult to fix.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Sergio Pabón trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
Successful dribbles: 25. 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.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Barranquilla have kept their man, and Llaneros go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
“The manager did not use many words, and he did not need to.” Tiziano Morales has his answer from Llaneros; what he does with it is the next window’s story.
Warm-up bib, ninety minutes of watching, and a handshake at the end that fooled nobody. Big matches tell you who a manager trusts; this one told Mariano Filiosi.
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.
“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.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Llaneros can pretend not to have heard.
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Carlos Barreiro. 1‑0 against Union Magdalena, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
“The players deserve the credit. My job was easy today.” It was not, and everybody in the room knew it; after 1‑0, Interim Coach could afford to be generous.
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.
Fortaleza CEIF next, and one man in the Llaneros dressing room knows their training ground better than his own. The reception will tell him what they thought of him.
A bone, which is the one injury with a calendar attached. Llaneros will name a return date and, unusually for this business, will probably be right about it.
Involvement in 2 goals, from a player who spent the ninety minutes doing the thing a manager actually wants: being where the ball was going to end up. 7.81 beside his name.
José Luis Chunga 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.
Behind, and beaten by any honest reading, until minute 96. Depor had the points in their pocket and a corner of the ground still believed, which is generally when it happens.
A month is long enough that nobody gets in by accident. Manuel Duque is in the division's best eleven for it, which is a quieter compliment than an award and a more reliable one.
A bone, which is the one injury with a calendar attached. Llaneros will name a return date and, unusually for this business, will probably be right about it.
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Mack Cleberson Murillo. 1‑0 against Real Santander, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
“We earned that. I asked them for a reaction and I got one, and now I want the same again on Saturday.” Interim Coach on a 1‑0 afternoon that pleased him more than he was prepared to show.
Nobody at Llaneros 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.
Tigres next, and one man in the Llaneros dressing room knows their training ground better than his own. The reception will tell him what they thought of him.
11 defensive actions and a clean sheet at the end of them. A defender's afternoon can only be told by what did not happen, which is why nobody makes a highlights package out of one and every manager in the division would take it.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 48 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
Luis Rivas 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.
“We were not good enough today and I am not going to dress it up.” Interim Coach after 0‑1, in the tone of a man who knows the next question and does not intend to answer it.
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.
1 months left and the two sides are nowhere near each other. Every week this drags on takes money off what Llaneros could get for him.
The dugout15 Apr 2030
The manager has not finished forgetting Pablo Arias'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.
Every squad has one of these fixtures for somebody every season. This one is David Livingston’s: the club that knew him first, the supporters who will decide in the first minute whether to applaud, and Llaneros needing him to play as if none of it matters.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Llaneros will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
A bad atmosphere can be waited out. A group of people meeting afterwards to decide what to do about it cannot, and everybody in the building knows which stage this is.
The 85th minute, half the ground already edging towards the exits, and Luis Rivas decided nobody was going anywhere. Bogota had no time left to answer.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Llaneros can pretend not to have heard.
José Luis Chunga 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 makes a documentary about a hamstring and everybody in the game fears one. Llaneros will be careful with the return date, because the second one is always worse than the first.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Llaneros will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
It has stopped being a mood in the stands and started being something organised. Boards can ignore a bad atmosphere for a long time; they cannot ignore this stage of it for very long at all.
Juan José Álvarez 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 board was up, the win was priced in, and then Union Magdalena scored. There is no worse minute to concede in and the ground emptied in the silence that follows one.
A month is long enough that nobody gets in by accident. Léider Riascos is in the division's best eleven for it, which is a quieter compliment than an award and a more reliable one.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Llaneros is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
A deal that was a phone call from completion at lunchtime was dead by midnight. Llaneros will try again when the window opens; Real Cartagena may not be selling by then.
Juan José Álvarez 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.
Numbers do not stay secret in a dressing room. He is not asking for more than he is worth; he is asking why somebody beside him is worth more, and Llaneros have no good answer.
Market14 Jan 2030
The window shut and Dennys Quintero is still in the building
Llaneros spent a month trying to move him and nobody rang back. He trains with a squad that has told him where he stands, and both sides start counting down to the next one.
The shrug has gone, the language is coming, and he now argues in training like somebody who expects to be here next year. Half a signing's value is this and none of it appears on a fee.
The deal with Atletico Nacional is done in every sense but the one that puts him on the pitch. Nothing goes wrong at this stage, except on the occasions when it does.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Llaneros this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and José Luis Chunga trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
He is doing things on a Saturday afternoon that nobody around him can answer, which is flattering for about one season and a problem after that. Llaneros will not keep him by pretending otherwise.
A medical, a signature, a shirt held up in front of a sponsor’s board. Llaneros have done the hard part with Junior, and the part that remains is the part supporters actually see.
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Mack Cleberson Murillo and Llaneros agree another 3 years.
$8.0K was the most the club would pay and Atletico Nacional were asking for more. Deals like this are revived in the last week of a window roughly half the time, and everybody involved knows it.
Llaneros asked and Junior said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
He is not being dropped. There is simply nowhere in the formation Llaneros are playing to put a man who does what he does, which is a harder thing to be told than any team sheet.
Squad24 Dec 2029
7 new faces, and Llaneros 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.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 30 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
$1.3M was the most the club would pay and Deportivo Pasto were asking for more. Deals like this are revived in the last week of a window roughly half the time, and everybody involved knows it.
A medical, a signature, a shirt held up in front of a sponsor’s board. Jaguares have done the hard part with Once Caldas, and the part that remains is the part supporters actually see.
Terms were offered and declined. Whether it was the wages, the role or the town, nobody at River Plate is saying, and nobody at Jaguares is enjoying the guessing.
Wilfrido De La Rosa 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.
Add another name to the list: Deportivo Pasto have asked the question everybody in the game has been asking about Johan Hinestroza. The answer from Jaguares has not changed — yet.
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 paperwork is done long before the player is. Facundo Coello has agreed terms to come here when his current deal runs out, which means Jaguares have spent a summer's transfer budget on a phone call.
$2.5M is a serious amount of money and it does not play centre-forward. Everybody in the dressing room knows who used to be looked at when it went wrong.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Llaneros is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
There is a version of every career where the player ends up somewhere he chose rather than somewhere that chose him. Mack Cleberson Murillo is living that version at Llaneros, and it tends to show in the first month.
He is going to Millonarios, the club has $2.5M it did not have on Friday, and the phone-ins have already decided how they feel about that. Selling well and selling somebody they loved are not the same skill.
The kind of year that ends with a name being read out in a hall. Llaneros had the benefit of it every week and now have the problem of everybody else knowing.
Llaneros and Jaguares have settled on $100.0K. The rest belongs to the player and his agent, and a supporter who has watched one of these before knows not to buy the shirt yet.
There is no worse way to lose a footballer. David Livingston 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.
“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 Jaguares, and it is not being withdrawn.
Wilfrido De La Rosa 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.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Gustavo Cuéllar was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
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 Diego Ruiz Díaz has written the date down.
Numbers do not stay secret in a dressing room. He is not asking for more than he is worth; he is asking why somebody beside him is worth more, and Jaguares have no good answer.
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Jaguares, and both men came out saying it was fine.
The most common injury in the game and the most rushed back from. Jaguares will quote 15 days and will be careful with it, because the second one is always worse than the first.
Wilfrido De La Rosa 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.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Johan Hinestroza was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
“Some mornings you wake up and you are still a long way from everything you know.” It is not the football and it never was; Jaguares are dealing with a man who wants a different country.
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Jaguares, and both men came out saying it was fine.
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 Franklin Mosquera is on it.
Another week, another link, another denial nobody quite believes. Jaguares know the market decides these things, not the back pages — but the back pages are louder.
“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 Jaguares, and it is not being withdrawn.
Wilfrido De La Rosa 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 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.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Wilfrido De La Rosa trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
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 Diego Ruiz Díaz 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 Jaguares that is a harder question to answer.
“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 Jaguares, and it is not being withdrawn.
Wilfrido De La Rosa 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.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Gustavo Cuéllar was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Wilfrido De La Rosa trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
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.
Another week, another link, another denial nobody quite believes. Jaguares know the market decides these things, not the back pages — but the back pages are louder.
The last league game has been played and the table has stopped moving: 37 points. The summer begins on Monday, and so does the argument about what it all meant.
“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 Jaguares, and it is not being withdrawn.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Jaguares this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Angelo Marchese was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Two or more conceded in each of the last 4 matches. It is not one mistake repeating itself, which would be the easier thing to fix; it is a different one every week.
“We keep meeting, and we keep leaving the room with the same numbers we walked in with.” Another round of talks at Jaguares, another week without a signature from Luis Jiménez.
“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 Jaguares, and it is not being withdrawn.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Jaguares this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
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 is not much of a headline and it is the reason players believe the next promise. Jaguares told Angelo Marchese something would happen and then it happened, which in this industry passes for remarkable.
Somebody else has been better, the manager has said so with a team sheet, and there is no argument to be had. He will get the shirt back the only way it can be got back.
Nobody at Jaguares 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.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the whole of the defence. 9 saves, several of them the kind nobody expects to see made, and ten outfield players who owe him a drink.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Jaguares they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Jaguares can pretend not to have heard.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Jaguares have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
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 words a physio says slowly. 31 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.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Franklin Mosquera will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Jaguares the goodbyes have quietly begun.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Deportivo Pereira have kept their man, and Jaguares go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
59 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Jaguares lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
Two goals and a mark of 9.45 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
8 without a win is the sort of run that changes how a town talks about its club, and Aguilas Doradas were the afternoon it stopped. Nothing is fixed by one result and everything feels different by one.
Jaguares asked and Deportivo Pereira said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
Squad11 Jun 2029
Words at Jaguares training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Gustavo Cuéllar 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.
88 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Jaguares lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the team. 8 saves, several of them the sort nobody expects to see stopped, and a scoreline that flatters everybody in front of him.
The chances are being made and something is happening between the making and the finishing. 5 matches now, and the anxiety in the ground arrives a little earlier every week.
Wilfrido De La Rosa 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.
“I was told straight, and I would rather have it straight.” The manager at Jaguares has been clear about where Ruyery Blanco stands, which is more than many ever get.
In brief
SquadWords at Jaguares training over how hard people work
116 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Jaguares 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 Jaguares can pretend not to have heard.
Wilfrido De La Rosa 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.
Squad16 Apr 2029
Words at Jaguares training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Gustavo Cuéllar 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.
200 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.
“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 dugout16 Apr 2029
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 David Duque left the room before anybody could ask which.