Marked for Sergio Núñez
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad12 Oct 2026
A knee injury of the worst kind for Simón Ramírez
88 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Huachipato lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Squad12 Oct 2026
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Nicolás Cárcamo is 21, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
Squad12 Oct 2026
A row about effort at Huachipato
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Harold Antiñirre was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Squad12 Oct 2026
Lucas Velásquez 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 dugout12 Oct 2026
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Carlos Herrera, and the manager let it.
The dugout12 Oct 2026
Sergio Núñez has become a man the manager trusts
Nobody at Huachipato 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.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Squad5 Oct 2026
A knee injury of the worst kind for Simón Ramírez
96 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Huachipato lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Match30 Sep 2026
The small margins put Huachipato out
Out, 1‑2 to Antofagasta, and the long argument about which of the small moments decided it. The league is all there is now, and everybody knows it.
The dugout5 Oct 2026
Sebastián Mella: that is not what I was promised
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Huachipato have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Squad5 Oct 2026
Harold Antiñirre 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 dugout5 Oct 2026
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Rodrigo Odriozola, and the manager let it.
Squad5 Oct 2026
Sergio Núñez 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.
Squad5 Oct 2026
Huachipato are still strangers to each other
8 new signings in one window. Every one may be an upgrade and the side can still be worse for a while, which is the part of a rebuild the verdicts never mention.
The dugout5 Oct 2026
“I could talk about decisions and I could talk about luck. I will not. We lost.” The manager, 1‑2, and a press conference that lasted four minutes.
The dugout5 Oct 2026
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.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad28 Sep 2026
Franco Astudillo is a better footballer than he was
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 22 he is doing things at this level he could not do at the start of the season, and the coaching staff will tell you exactly which of them.
Squad28 Sep 2026
Sergio Núñez and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Squad28 Sep 2026
The medical room confirms 24 days on the sidelines for Juan Figueroa, and a plan built around him now has to be rebuilt.
The dugout28 Sep 2026
“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 dugout28 Sep 2026
Claudio Torres has become a man the manager trusts
Nobody at Huachipato 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 dugout28 Sep 2026
Harold Antiñirre asks for a word with the manager
“I would rather say it to his face than read about it.” The meeting was requested by the player, which tells you most of what you need to know.
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Squad14 Sep 2026
There were 6 saves in it, and at least three that had no business being saves at all. The ten outfield players owe him a drink and they know it.
Match12 Sep 2026
It finished 2‑0, and it was Cris Martínez’s afternoon: on the scoresheet when it mattered, and the reason the points belong to Huachipato.
Squad14 Sep 2026
Sergio Núñez 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.
The dugout14 Sep 2026
“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.
Squad14 Sep 2026
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Huachipato this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Player ratings14 Sep 2026
Successful dribbles: 15. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
The dugout14 Sep 2026
The manager’s verdict
“I am not going to get carried away and I will not let them either. It was a good day. There will be harder ones.” Gonzalo Valdes kept it short after the 2‑0 win, which is what managers do when they are happy.
Player ratings14 Sep 2026
Defensive actions: 14, and a clean sheet at the end of it. A centre-half's best afternoons look like nothing happening, which is precisely the point.
Squad14 Sep 2026
He wheeled away like a man who had been carrying it for months, because he had. Huachipato have their signing off the mark and one press-conference question retired.
From our football correspondent
Steady
The dugout7 Sep 2026
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Cris Martínez, and the manager let it.
Squad7 Sep 2026
Sergio Núñez 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.
Squad7 Sep 2026
8 new faces, and Huachipato 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.
Squad7 Sep 2026
It will be explained as a change for the team and it may even be one. Nobody who has worn one believes that, and neither does the man who has just had it taken away.
The dugout7 Sep 2026
Luciano Arriagada has become a man the manager trusts
Nobody at Huachipato 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 dugout7 Sep 2026
Cristián Toro knocks on the manager’s door
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Cristián Toro trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Match19 Aug 2026
A 2‑1 win over Deportes Temuco, a place in the next round, and the quiet arithmetic every supporter does on the walk home: how many more until a final?
Match22 Aug 2026
0‑3 to Colo-Colo, and it was every bit as bad as the number suggests. There are defeats you argue about and defeats you apologise for; this was the second kind.
Squad24 Aug 2026
7 saves, and a scoreline the ten men in front of him had no right to. Goalkeepers only get noticed on the bad days; this was one of the other ones.
Squad24 Aug 2026
Cristián Toro 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 dugout24 Aug 2026
The manager makes an example of Rafael Caroca
“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.
Match19 Aug 2026
Huachipato settle it inside twenty minutes
2 goals before the ground had finished arriving. Deportes Temuco spent the rest of the afternoon playing a match that had already been decided, and everybody in the stadium knew it.
Squad24 Aug 2026
Words at Huachipato training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Sergio Núñez 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.
Boardroom24 Aug 2026
The music was off and the showers ran late. What was said in that dressing room stays there, but Saturday will publish the minutes.
Player ratings24 Aug 2026
Successful dribbles: 16. 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.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Match12 Aug 2026
A 4‑2 win over Union La Calera, a place in the next round, and the quiet arithmetic every supporter does on the walk home: how many more until a final?
Player ratings17 Aug 2026
A brace, and Claudio Torres takes the afternoon — 8.14
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Claudio Torres provided it, and the 8.14 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
Player ratings17 Aug 2026
Nicolás Cárcamo, 21, plays like he has been here for years — 7.89
A mark of 7.89 means one thing beside a twenty-nine-year-old's name and something else entirely beside a 21-year-old's. Nobody at the ground needed telling which this was.
Match12 Aug 2026
6 goals. Both benches spent the second half looking at each other rather than at the pitch. Purists will complain about Huachipato and Union La Calera in equal measure; everybody else had a wonderful time.
Squad17 Aug 2026
Harold Antiñirre 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 terraces17 Aug 2026
There is a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 23-year-old it feels ownership of. Claudio Torres has it now, and everything he does for the rest of his time here will be measured against the goodwill he was handed for free.
Player ratings17 Aug 2026
Ninety minutes of José Castro at his very best
Marked 8.24. Players have careers without a single afternoon like this in them, and he has just had one in front of everybody at Huachipato.
Squad17 Aug 2026
A row about effort at Huachipato
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Sergio Núñez was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
The dugout17 Aug 2026
“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.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad10 Aug 2026
6 saves, and a scoreline the ten men in front of him had no right to. Goalkeepers only get noticed on the bad days; this was one of the other ones.
Market10 Aug 2026
As if he never left: Simón Ramírez returns
Some transfers need a press campaign. This one needed a shirt with the old number on it. Simón Ramírez is a Huachipato player again, and the town has its story of the summer.
Squad10 Aug 2026
Sergio Núñez and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Market10 Aug 2026
There is no fee, no unveiling and no agent on the steps. Pablo Aranguiz 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
There is no fee, no unveiling and no agent on the steps. Gary Diaz 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
The academy exists for exactly this morning. Alexis Riquelme has come through every age group the club runs and has now been handed a senior number, and the people who coached him at twelve will be the proudest in the building.
Player ratings10 Aug 2026
There is a version of this player everybody suspected was in there, and on this evidence it is. 8.13, and no argument anywhere in the ground.
Squad10 Aug 2026
Huachipato are still strangers to each other
8 new signings in one window. Every one may be an upgrade and the side can still be worse for a while, which is the part of a rebuild the verdicts never mention.
The dugout10 Aug 2026
Somebody else is better right now than Simón Ramírez
The team sheet says it in public every week until it changes. The only version of being dropped a footballer cannot argue with, and the one he takes hardest.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Squad3 Aug 2026
11 seasons and 350 appearances, all of them here. Careers like this are not designed; they happen to a certain kind of man at a certain kind of club, and this town has one.
Squad3 Aug 2026
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Claudio Sepúlveda and Huachipato agree another 2 years.
Squad3 Aug 2026
Cris Martínez 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 dugout3 Aug 2026
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Rodrigo Odriozola, and the manager let it.
Match1 Aug 2026
0‑1 to Iquique, and no complaints worth printing. The performance asked for nothing more than it got.
Squad3 Aug 2026
Words at Huachipato training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Sergio Núñez 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.
Market3 Aug 2026
“There is a gap, and pretending there is not helps nobody.” Neither side has moved, and the calendar is working for exactly one of them.
Market3 Aug 2026
Still no offer on the table, and Ezequiel Cañete’s deal keeps shrinking. In boardroom language, silence this long stops being an oversight and starts being an answer.
The dugout3 Aug 2026
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 Gonzalo Valdes left the room before anybody could ask which.