25 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Cortulua lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
There are footballers who have a good season and footballers a season is remembered for, and the second kind get their names read out in a hall in the summer. Cortulua will be quietly delighted and privately nervous.
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.
32 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Cortulua lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Jaguares arrived with $200.0K and left with the best player in the building. The board will call it business; the queue at the ticket office will use other words.
He is going to Jaguares, the club has $200.0K it did not have on Friday, and the phone-ins have already decided how they feel about that. Selling well and selling somebody they loved are not the same skill.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Cortulua this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
“I was told straight, and I would rather have it straight.” The manager at Cortulua has been clear about where Richard Romero stands, which is more than many ever get.
Nobody at Cortulua 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.
39 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Cortulua lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
The offer from Deportivo Cali for Victor Sinisterra was heard out and sent back the same day. First bids are rarely meant to succeed; they are meant to find out how loudly the door closes.
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.
The words a physio says slowly. 47 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.
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.
The words a physio says slowly. 54 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.
Jesus Rios 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.
“Judge me on him.” Managers do not say that kind of thing by accident — it moves the pressure from Rafael Rangel’s shoulders onto his own, and both of them know it.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Cortulua this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad16 Nov 2026
Words at Cortulua training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Rodrigo Queiroz 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.
Jesus Rios 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 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.
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Cortulua, and both men came out saying it was fine.
“I will know when it is time. I am not there yet.” Richard Romero is 34, with 5 appearances behind him, and Cortulua will have to plan for whichever answer comes.
Public backing, and the sort that costs a manager something if it turns out to be wrong. Sebastián Ayala has been told in front of everybody that the shirt is his.
The coaching staff have set James Rios something separate to do. Whether it is a weakness being addressed or a strength being sharpened, nobody outside the building will know until it shows up on a Saturday.
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.
Words at Cortulua training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Rodrigo Queiroz 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.
Nobody at Cortulua 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.
There were 7 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.
Player ratings12 Oct 2026
James Rios, 20, plays like he has been here for years — 8.83
A mark of 8.83 means one thing beside a twenty-nine-year-old's name and something else entirely beside a 20-year-old's. Nobody at the ground needed telling which this was.
Rafael Rangel 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.
6 goals. Both benches spent the second half looking at each other rather than at the pitch. Purists will complain about Cortulua and America de Cali in equal measure; everybody else had a wonderful time.
At 20 he is being sung about by people twice his age, which is an affection a signing has to earn over years and a local kid gets for turning up. It is also the hardest thing in football to live up to.
A 3‑3 draw with America de Cali leaves the dressing room somewhere between relief and regret.
Squad12 Oct 2026
The division's best last weekend was a Cortulua man
It is a small honour and it is not nothing: somebody watched every match in the division and decided that Jesus Rios was the best thing in any of them.
At 34 he is supposed to be managing his minutes. Instead he was marked 8.14 and looked, for ninety minutes, exactly like the player everybody remembers.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Cortulua this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
It is the most legitimate ambition in the sport and the hardest for most clubs to satisfy. Rodrigo Queiroz wants continental football; whether Cortulua can provide it is a question about the next two seasons, not about him.
“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.
Squad5 Oct 2026
Words at Cortulua training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Rodrigo Queiroz 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 is the most legitimate ambition in the sport and the hardest for most clubs to satisfy. Jesus Rios wants continental football; whether Cortulua can provide it is a question about the next two seasons, not about him.
Jesus Rios 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.
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Victor Sinisterra provided it, and the 9.92 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Cortulua this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Player ratings21 Sep 2026
Jesus Rios was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.81. There are performances a supporter describes to somebody who was not there and cannot quite convey; this was one, and the number does not help either.
One weekend, judged against everybody else's. Victor Sinisterra has come out on top of it, and for most footballers a weekly award is the only silverware a career ever produces.
Marked 8.55 — the sort of number a correspondent writes down twice to be sure. Everything he tried came off, and what he did not try was not worth trying.
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.
14 defensive actions and a clean sheet at the end of them. A defender's afternoon can only be told by what did not happen, which is why nobody makes a highlights package out of one and every manager in the division would take it.
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.
There is an age at which every good afternoon gets described as a throwback, which is unfair and also accurate. 7.95 at 34, and nobody on the pitch was better.
Squad7 Sep 2026
Words at Cortulua training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Rodrigo Queiroz 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.
2 in front and in complete control, and it finished with Millonarios the happier side. There is no version of this afternoon that Cortulua will enjoy reviewing.
6 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.
“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.
Squad31 Aug 2026
The manager has not finished forgetting Luis Ospina's mistake
Publicly it is behind everybody. It is not behind the man who picks the team, and the only place that shows is a team sheet. He will get another chance; he will get it in a match that matters less.
An error at the back is a moment; an error in goal is a goal. Daniel Sinisterra knows it, the crowd knew it instantly, and there was nobody behind him to make it anything else.
1‑4 to Atletico Nacional, 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.
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.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Cortulua this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
A performance of 8.36 does not come along often, and when it does the rest of the team becomes scenery. He was magnificent.
Squad24 Aug 2026
Words at Cortulua training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Rodrigo Queiroz 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.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the team. 7 saves, several of them the sort nobody expects to see stopped, and a scoreline that flatters everybody in front of him.
Jesus Rios 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.
Luis Ospina scored, and precious little else went right: 1‑2 to Deportes Tolima, and a quiet walk to the dressing room.
Player ratings17 Aug 2026
Yerry Cordoba was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.21. There are performances a supporter describes to somebody who was not there and cannot quite convey; this was one, and the number does not help either.
A mark of 8.83 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.
The name of Miguel Muriel has come up in conversations Cortulua were not part of. Nothing formal, nothing signed — but nothing about it accidental either.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Cortulua this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
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.
Squad10 Aug 2026
Javier Santos 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.
At 21 he is being sung about by people twice his age, which is an affection a signing has to earn over years and a local kid gets for turning up. It is also the hardest thing in football to live up to.
The goal that put Union Magdalena ahead was still being replayed on the concourse when Cortulua equalised, 4 minutes later. Leads are only worth what you do with them.
“I want to be playing for trophies while my legs still let me.” Nothing in that sentence is a transfer request, and nobody at Cortulua heard it as anything else.
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.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Cortulua this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad3 Aug 2026
Words at Cortulua training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Javier Santos 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.
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.