Yorleys Mena 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.
Squad28 Jun 2027
Words at Llaneros training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Daniel Mantilla 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.
The name of Mateo Guerrero has come up in conversations Llaneros were not part of. Nothing formal, nothing signed — but nothing about it accidental either.
“I am grateful for the games, but I did not become a footballer to be somebody else's spare part.” He wants to be at Llaneros, and 1 appearances in 21 say he has earned the hearing.
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.
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.
Every club in football pays most of what it earns to its players. Paying nearly all of it is a different arrangement, and it has ended the same way every time somebody has tried it.
“We were not good enough today and I am not going to dress it up.” Gabriel Cardona after 0‑2, in the tone of a man who knows the next question and does not intend to answer it.
4‑0, and the margin flattered nobody — it could have carried another goal or two without complaint. Afternoons like this are why people keep coming.
Player ratings31 May 2027
A brace, and Luis Marimón takes the afternoon — 8.86
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Luis Marimón provided it, and the 8.86 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
Francisco Meza 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.
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.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Alejandro Morález was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Marked 8.20 — 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.
Marked 8.16 — 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.
In brief
The dugoutThe team sheet said everything about Yorleys Mena
Francisco Meza and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Squad24 May 2027
Words at Llaneros training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Daniel Mantilla 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.
There is a figure at which a wage bill stops being ambitious and becomes the reason nothing else is possible, and this club has reached it. Nothing is left over for a transfer, a stand or a rainy afternoon.
“We were not good enough today and I am not going to dress it up.” Gabriel Cardona after 0‑3, in the tone of a man who knows the next question and does not intend to answer it.
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.
91 minutes played. Carlos Barreiro found the finish in time that only existed because of earlier delays, and Bogota went from a point to nothing inside one movement.
Yorleys Mena 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.
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Carlos Barreiro. 2‑1 against Bogota, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
The fixture the rest of the division is looking forward to more than either of the sides in it. Both know a win changes the season and a defeat does not end it, which is what makes it hard to play.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Alejandro Morález was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Marked 8.25 — 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.
Rarely has this fixture seen a display like it: 3‑0 against Real Santander, and it could have been more.
Player ratings19 Apr 2027
A brace, and Luis Marimón takes the afternoon — 8.88
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Luis Marimón provided it, and the 8.88 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
6 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.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Alejandro Morález was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
The words a physio says slowly. 35 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.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the team. 6 saves, several of them the sort nobody expects to see stopped, and a scoreline that flatters everybody in front of him.
Francisco Meza 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 Alejandro Morález 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.” 1‑1, and a manager who had already decided what Tuesday looked like.
“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.
Every squad has one of these fixtures for somebody every season. This one is Jhojan Escobar’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.
In brief
The dugoutThe plan did not have a place for Kelvin Osorio
Successful dribbles: 39. 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.
At 35 he is supposed to be managing his minutes. Instead he was marked 8.29 and looked, for ninety minutes, exactly like the player everybody remembers.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Daniel Mantilla was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
100 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.
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.
The shape wanted a different profile against this opponent, which is a real football answer and no comfort at all to the man it is about. He did nothing wrong and he did not play.
Francisco Meza and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Boardroom25 Jan 2027
2 academy players handed senior numbers at Llaneros
The morning the pathway stops being a brochure and becomes a team sheet. Most of them will not be here in three years; all of them have already done the hard part, which was getting to today.
There is no fee, no unveiling and no agent on the steps. Leonardo Giraldo 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.
Clubs spend fortunes looking for players and occasionally find one down the corridor. Jorge Falcao is that, and the reception he gets on his first appearance will be different in kind from the one any signing receives.
The interest is real enough to have reached print. Llaneros have said nothing, which in a transfer window is its own kind of answer.
Squad25 Jan 2027
Words at Llaneros 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.
“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.
“A point is a point and I will take it, but we should have had all three.” Gabriel Cardona after the 0‑0 draw, and the sentence every manager in the country said at some stage this weekend.
In brief
The dugoutGeovan Montes dropped after a run of poor form
BoardroomLlaneros say no to the training-ground money
15 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.
The clubs have settled the fee and he has settled his wages. What remains is a medical and a photograph, and around Llaneros people have started saying his name in the past tense.
It is not a grievance and it is not a demand: he wants to play continental football, and he has stopped hiding it. Whether Llaneros can give him that is a question about the club, not about him.
22 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.
Fee agreed, wages agreed, and Once Caldas waiting with a shirt. Nobody at Llaneros is pretending otherwise, and the supporters have stopped asking whether and started asking when.
Yorleys Mena 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 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. Llaneros know the market decides these things, not the back pages — but the back pages are louder.
The terraces14 Dec 2026
Supporters make their feelings known about Mateo García
The speculation has reached the stands, and the stands have answered. Llaneros would like this settled before it becomes the only thing anybody asks about.
Public backing, and the sort that costs a manager something if it turns out to be wrong. Léider Riascos has been told in front of everybody that the shirt is his.
29 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Llaneros lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
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.
Squad7 Dec 2026
Mateo García 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.
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.
36 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Llaneros lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Every club in football pays most of what it earns to its players. Paying nearly all of it is a different arrangement, and it has ended the same way every time somebody has tried it.
Squad30 Nov 2026
Words at Llaneros training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Joel Contreras 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.
Something was said to Roameth Romaña and then it happened. In this industry that passes for remarkable, and the dressing room noticed faster than any supporter could.
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 Daniel Mantilla has written the date down.
The words a physio says slowly. 43 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.
Francisco Meza 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.
50 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.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Llaneros they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
Francisco Meza 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.
Squad16 Nov 2026
Mateo García 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.
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.
In brief
The dugoutLéider Riascos asks for a word with the manager
57 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.
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 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 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 Mateo García trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
He asked about his future and was given an answer with minutes in it. The manager has now made a promise in a building where promises are remembered, and the clock on it has started.
Yorleys Mena 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 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.
Squad26 Oct 2026
10 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.
He will play here until the summer and then walk out of the door for free, having already signed elsewhere. Supporters will manage the first part of that sentence; it is the second they will struggle with.
Francisco Meza 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.