From our football correspondent
Crisis
Match19 Aug 2026
Millonarios ended it 1‑2. The season narrows to the league now, and everyone in the ground knew it before the final whistle.
Market24 Aug 2026
It is not a grievance and it is not a demand: he wants to play continental football, and he has stopped hiding it. Whether Fortaleza CEIF can give him that is a question about the club, not about him.
Player ratings24 Aug 2026
Successful dribbles: 20. 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.
Squad24 Aug 2026
Words at Fortaleza CEIF training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Santiago Cuero 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 dugout24 Aug 2026
“We were not good enough today and I am not going to dress it up.” Santiago Duque after 1‑2, in the tone of a man who knows the next question and does not intend to answer it.
The dugout24 Aug 2026
Ninety specific minutes wanted a different sort of player, and the manager picked one. He is not out of form and he is not in the side, and both are true.
Player ratings24 Aug 2026
The chances came and went for Jhon Solís
4 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.
Market24 Aug 2026
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Williams Barlasina signs something — a contract at Fortaleza CEIF or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
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From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Match12 Aug 2026
A 1‑1 win over Deportes Tolima, and the draw for the next round can be watched with some interest for once.
Squad17 Aug 2026
A shoot-out is remembered by its ending, and this one ends with Williams Barlasina: 1 kept out, and a set of supporters who will describe every one of them for the next twenty years.
Squad17 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 Fortaleza CEIF this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
The terraces17 Aug 2026
He is 22 and the ground already sings his name, which is a thing that happens to local boys and almost never to signings. Everything from here is measured against an affection he did nothing to earn except be from here.
Player ratings17 Aug 2026
Jerónimo Barrera was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.24. 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.
Squad17 Aug 2026
Santiago Cuero 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.
Player ratings17 Aug 2026
Nobody could get near Jhon Solís
Successful dribbles: 17. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Player ratings17 Aug 2026
There was no pressure on him and nowhere he had to be. Fortaleza CEIF lost a goal to a decision that took half a second and will be discussed all week.
The dugout17 Aug 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
Squad10 Aug 2026
Richardson Rivas 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.
Market10 Aug 2026
Clubs spend fortunes looking for players and occasionally find one down the corridor. Miguel Perez 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. Carlos Santos 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. Jesus Garcia 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. Wilmar Gonzalez 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
Sebastián Navarro arrived with a record at a bigger club than this one, and the room has treated him accordingly. The young ones watch him train; the senior ones watch to see whether it lasts.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad3 Aug 2026
Richardson Rivas and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Squad3 Aug 2026
Santiago Cuero 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.
Market3 Aug 2026
36 months left and silence from upstairs — no offer, no talks, nothing for his people to answer. Clubs that let a calendar do their negotiating usually end up negotiating with the calendar.
Squad3 Aug 2026
7 new faces, and Fortaleza CEIF 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
“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.