Marked for Leonel Valencia
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad24 Aug 2026
111 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Juan Aurich lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
Squad24 Aug 2026
Deyair Reyes breaks a bone — 136 days out
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 136 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
Squad24 Aug 2026
Leonel Valencia 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.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Squad17 Aug 2026
A knee injury of the worst kind for Leonel Valencia
120 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Juan Aurich lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Match12 Aug 2026
The small margins put Juan Aurich out
Out, 1‑2 to Cienciano, and the long argument about which of the small moments decided it. The league is all there is now, and everybody knows it.
Squad17 Aug 2026
Leonel Valencia and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
The dugout17 Aug 2026
The manager makes an example of Angelo Campos
“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.
The dugout17 Aug 2026
The view from the dugout
“We will look at it, we will learn from it, and we go again.” The three sentences every manager keeps for a 1‑2 defeat, delivered by Jose Callens to a room that had heard them before.
Squad17 Aug 2026
The system has changed and his position has not. A footballer can improve his form; he cannot improve the manager’s formation, and that is the whole of the problem.
The dugout17 Aug 2026
The form table has caught Deyair Reyes
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.
Player ratings17 Aug 2026
Successful dribbles: 14. 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.
Squad17 Aug 2026
The one goal every signing is asked about until it comes. It has come, and a press-conference question has been retired.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad10 Aug 2026
Leonel Valencia damages knee ligaments — 129 days out
The words a physio says slowly. 129 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.
Squad10 Aug 2026
Leonel Valencia 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.
Market10 Aug 2026
Clubs spend fortunes looking for players and occasionally find one down the corridor. Victor Valera is that, and the reception he gets on his first appearance will be different in kind from the one any signing receives.
Market10 Aug 2026
There is no fee, no unveiling and no agent on the steps. Renato Ruidiaz 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.
Market10 Aug 2026
Clubs spend fortunes looking for players and occasionally find one down the corridor. Horacio Tapia is that, and the reception he gets on his first appearance will be different in kind from the one any signing receives.
Market10 Aug 2026
There is no fee, no unveiling and no agent on the steps. Gabriel Lopez 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.