Marked for Dick Ríos
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad9 Nov 2026
A knee injury of the worst kind for Junior Aguirre
140 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Ayacucho lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Squad9 Nov 2026
125 days out for Juan Neira after a fracture
A bone, which is the one injury with a calendar attached. Ayacucho will name a return date and, unusually for this business, will probably be right about it.
Squad9 Nov 2026
Words exchanged at Ayacucho
Dick Ríos 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.
Squad9 Nov 2026
Words at Ayacucho training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Guillermo Vernal 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 dugout9 Nov 2026
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Ayacucho, and both men came out saying it was fine.
The dugout9 Nov 2026
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.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad21 Sep 2026
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Liberson Soto is 22, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
Squad21 Sep 2026
A falling-out at Ayacucho
Dick Ríos and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Squad21 Sep 2026
Words at Ayacucho training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Hans Aquino 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.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad7 Sep 2026
A falling-out at Ayacucho
Manuel Olaya and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Squad7 Sep 2026
Guillermo Vernal 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.
Market7 Sep 2026
Ayacucho bring in an old head
Gianfranco Castellanos 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.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad31 Aug 2026
Words exchanged at Ayacucho
Manuel Olaya 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.
Squad31 Aug 2026
8 new faces, and Ayacucho 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.
Squad31 Aug 2026
Hans Aquino 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.