“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 The request is on a desk at Tijuana, and it is not being withdrawn.
Fee agreed, wages agreed, and Chiapas waiting with a shirt. Nobody at Tijuana is pretending otherwise, and the supporters have stopped asking whether and started asking when.
The phone has started ringing about Diogo Bagüí again, and this time the name on the line is Guadalajara. Tijuana are listening politely and promising nothing.
It is not a grievance and it is not a demand: he wants to play continental football, and he has stopped hiding it. Whether Tijuana can give him that is a question about the club, not about him.
Vitinho 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.
Successful dribbles: 21. 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.
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.
In brief
SquadAlberto Ocejo falls out with a teammate over standards
Fee agreed, wages agreed, and Monterrey waiting with a shirt. Nobody at Tijuana is pretending otherwise, and the supporters have stopped asking whether and started asking when.
The board have said in public what they had been saying in private. Results between now and the next meeting decide it, and everybody in the building knows the arithmetic.
Two goals and a mark of 8.56 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Tijuana can pretend not to have heard.
The deal with Pumas UNAM 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.
There is an age at which every good afternoon gets described as a throwback, which is unfair and also accurate. 7.87 at 36, and nobody on the pitch was better.
The fee is $370.0K, the contract is signed, and the argument about whether he is worth it can begin. Dorados drove a hard bargain; time will say who won it.
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.
Diogo Bagüí 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.
3 games without scoring. Strikers stop looking up, midfielders take the extra touch, and every shot that clears the bar is followed by a groan that has been building since the last goal.
Successful dribbles: 17. 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.
8 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.
It is not a grievance and it is not a demand: he wants to play continental football, and he has stopped hiding it. Whether Tijuana can give him that is a question about the club, not about him.
Aldahir Pérez 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 name of Francesco Montali has come up in conversations Tijuana were not part of. Nothing formal, nothing signed — but nothing about it accidental either.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Diogo Bagüí was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
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.
The accountants will call it good business and they will be right, which is not the point anybody outside the boardroom is making. Rafael Fernández was one of the reasons people came, and $1.1M does not replace that by itself.
The clubs have shaken hands with Chiapas; the player has not yet. Personal terms are next, and personal terms are where more deals die than anybody prints.
Vitinho 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.
At 36, 3 points below where he was, and a body that has started charging interest. It happens to all of them and it is still the hardest paragraph on this page.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Alberto Ocejo was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
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 chase for Jesús Rivas ended with $1.0M changing hands and Pumas UNAM out of reasons to say no. The supporters will judge the fee the only way that matters: on Saturdays.
37 days with the chair empty, a list of names that grows and shrinks by the day, and not one signature on anything. Every week that passes takes the best candidates off it.
The number the board signed off was not enough. It has been asked again and raised its own offer to $414.0K — a club that wants Daniel Amador enough to be asked twice.
Boards get told what they have done wrong for years and hear nothing on the days they get it right. This is one of those days: Jesús Rivas from Pumas UNAM for $1.0M, and a ticket office having a very good morning.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Morelia have kept their man, and Tijuana go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
In brief
SquadDiogo Bagüí falls out with a teammate over standards
Player ratingsIgnacio Rivero ran the middle of the pitch — 7.11
What was said behind closed doors has now been said in front of a microphone. Everybody at Tijuana can do the arithmetic, including the man it is aimed at.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Alberto Ocejo was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
“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 Tijuana, and it is not being withdrawn.
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.
At 36, 3 points below where he was, and a body that has started charging interest. It happens to all of them and it is still the hardest paragraph on this page.
Rafael Fernández 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.
Squad22 May 2028
Words at Tijuana training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Diogo Bagüí 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 Tijuana, and both men came out saying it was fine.
Loan watch22 May 2028
José Castro’s loan is measured in nothing happening
8 clean sheets from 20 appearances at Arenteiro. That is the whole of a goalkeeper’s job done properly, and it is being done a long way from the club that owns him.
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.
Rafael Fernández 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.
Squad24 Apr 2028
Diogo Bagüí 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.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Alberto Ocejo trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
16 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Tijuana 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 Tijuana can give him that is a question about the club, not about him.
Vitinho 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.
Squad20 Mar 2028
Words at Tijuana training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Alberto Ocejo 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.
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Diego Abreu. 1‑0 against Tigres, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
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.
7 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.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Tijuana this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Pumas UNAM left with the points after a 0‑2 defeat that will take some explaining on the terraces.
Squad29 Nov 2027
Words at Tijuana training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Diogo Bagüí 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 dugout29 Nov 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 0‑2 Rodolfo Pineda left the room before anybody could ask which.
It is not much of a headline and it is the reason players believe the next promise. Tijuana told Alberto Ocejo something would happen and then it happened, which in this industry passes for remarkable.
He is the name in every column and on every phone-in, which is a heavy thing to carry at any age. Some footballers thrive on it; others are quietly finished by it.
Ángel Zapata 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.
Beaten 0‑2, and beaten fairly. The manager kept his words short afterwards, which was probably wise.
Squad18 Oct 2027
Diogo Bagüí 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.
10 combined actions and 6.94. 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.
The dugout18 Oct 2027
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 0‑2 defeat, delivered by Rodolfo Pineda to a room that had heard them before.
There was one mistake and it ended in the net. Defenders are judged on the worst thing they did rather than on the eighty-nine minutes either side of it, which is unfair and is also the job.
1 for Ángel Zapata, marked 7.44, and a centre-half's name in the part of the report he normally only reaches by mistake. He will not be allowed to forget it in the dressing room for a month.
It happens to all of them and it is still the hardest paragraph a local paper has to write. 35 years old, 3 points down on where he was, and a body that has started charging interest on a career.
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Alberto Ocejo, and the manager let it.
Squad20 Sep 2027
Frank Boya 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.
8 signings in three months. Every one of them may be an upgrade and the team can still be worse for a while, which is the part of a rebuild that never appears in the transfer-window verdicts.
The club looked outside for a month, found nothing it preferred, and handed the job to the man who had been doing it anyway. He knows the building; now he has to prove he knows the rest.
It is a specific kind of quiet, a ground watching a winning position dissolve. Pachuca kept coming because nothing stopped them, and Tijuana will be asked about the last half hour all week.
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.
At 35 he is supposed to be managing his minutes. Instead he was marked 8.15 and looked, for ninety minutes, exactly like the player everybody remembers.
Tijuana had done everything except persuade the man himself. He stays at America de Cali, and the manager goes back to the drawing board with the money still in the bank.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Tijuana this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
In brief
SquadDiogo Bagüí falls out with a teammate over standards