From our football correspondent
Crisis
Match12 Aug 2026
The cup run ends for Ayacucho
0‑1 against Cesar Vallejo, and the road stops here. Cup exits are quick deaths — no second leg, no next week, just the league from now until May.
Squad17 Aug 2026
A falling-out at Ayacucho
Jean Pierre Archimbaud 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
“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.
Market17 Aug 2026
“We keep meeting, and we keep leaving the room with the same numbers we walked in with.” Another round of talks at Ayacucho, another week without a signature from Félix Uculmana.
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 0‑1 defeat, delivered by Gianluca Callens to a room that had heard them before.
Player ratings17 Aug 2026
Shots: 9, not one of them in. A centre forward is paid for one thing, and on this evidence he has forgotten which thing it is.
Player ratings17 Aug 2026
The chances came and went for Kevin Ferreyra
7 shots, and a count that reads like a good afternoon until you check the other column. Strikers survive weeks like this on the understanding that the chances keep arriving; the day they stop is the day it becomes a problem.
Squad17 Aug 2026
At 14 years old, Alexander Cueva became the latest name off the academy production line to be handed a senior shirt.
The dugout17 Aug 2026
Every manager keeps a short list in his head of the men he wants on the pitch when the stakes rise, and it is never published. The team sheets for the big afternoons say Kevin Ferreyra is on it.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad10 Aug 2026
Jean Pierre Archimbaud 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. Jesus Garces 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
The academy exists for exactly this morning. Horacio Mora 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.
Market10 Aug 2026
The academy exists for exactly this morning. Aldo Aquino 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.
Market10 Aug 2026
The academy exists for exactly this morning. Jefferson Carrillo 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.
Squad10 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.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad3 Aug 2026
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Jean Pierre Archimbaud and Ayacucho agree another 3 years.
Squad3 Aug 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 Ayacucho this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Market3 Aug 2026
36 months to run and not a word offered. A club that lets the calendar negotiate for it usually ends up losing to the calendar.
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.
Squad3 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.
Market3 Aug 2026
“They were honest with me, and I would rather know.” Royer Salcedo has been informed he is not in the manager's thinking at Ayacucho.
In brief
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Squad
Words at Ayacucho training over how hard people work
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Market
Ayacucho bring in an old head