At 33 he is supposed to be managing his minutes. Instead he was marked 8.80 and looked, for ninety minutes, exactly like the player everybody remembers.
The terraces12 Oct 2026
The boos come down from three sides
“We pay for this every fortnight. The least we want is somebody who looks like he cares.” 7 of the 27 senior players walked off into it; the rest were not playing.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Jaguares have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Jaguares this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Defending was optional and nobody took up the option. 7 goals between Jaguares and Junior, and not one of the people who paid to be there will ask for the money back.
Wilfrido De La Rosa 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 figure at which a wage bill stops being ambitious and becomes the reason nothing else is possible, and this club has reached it. Nothing is left over for a transfer, a stand or a rainy afternoon.
0‑1 to Deportivo Cali, and no complaints worth printing. The performance asked for nothing more than it got.
Squad5 Oct 2026
Words at Jaguares training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Kahiser Lenis 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.
Every touch is being weighed now, in print and everywhere else. Some players grow into that and some are quietly ruined by it, and nobody knows which in advance.
10 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.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Jaguares 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. Yairo Moreno wants continental football; whether Jaguares 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.
Squad28 Sep 2026
Words at Jaguares training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Jáder Maza 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.
There is an age at which every good afternoon gets described as a throwback, which is unfair and also accurate. 8.93 at 33, and nobody on the pitch was better.
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.
Wilfrido De La Rosa 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.
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Wilfrido De La Rosa. 2‑1 against Atletico Nacional, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
Nobody at Jaguares 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 board had gone up, the arguing had started, and then the ball was in the net in the 91th minute. Union Magdalena will replay every second of the added time for a week.
There is an age at which every good afternoon gets described as a throwback, which is unfair and also accurate. 8.30 at 33, and nobody on the pitch was better.
Successful dribbles: 17. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
Squad14 Sep 2026
Kahiser Lenis 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.
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.
Nobody at Jaguares 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 is a figure at which a wage bill stops being ambitious and becomes the reason nothing else is possible, and this club has reached it. Nothing is left over for a transfer, a stand or a rainy afternoon.
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Andrés Rentería, and the manager let it.
Player ratings7 Sep 2026
Royscer Colpa was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.48. 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.
Squad7 Sep 2026
Words at Jaguares training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Kahiser Lenis 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.
A month is long enough that nobody gets in by accident. Johar Mejía is in the division's best eleven for it, which is a quieter compliment than an award and a more reliable one.
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.
A shoot-out is remembered by its ending, and this one ends with Diego Martínez: 1 kept out, and a set of supporters who will describe every one of them for the next twenty years.
There is an age at which every good afternoon gets described as a throwback, which is unfair and also accurate. 8.14 at 34, and nobody on the pitch was better.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Jaguares this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Marked 8.82 — 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.
A shoot-out is remembered by its ending, and this one ends with Diego Martínez: 3 kept out, and a set of supporters who will describe every one of them for the next twenty years.
Wilfrido De La Rosa 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.
2 kept out in the shoot-out, and a stadium that will still be describing them in twenty years. A goalkeeper only needs one of these to be remembered forever.
There is an age at which every good afternoon gets described as a throwback, which is unfair and also accurate. 8.16 at 34, and nobody on the pitch was better.
25 times he got in the way of something. Centre-halves get written about when they make mistakes and ignored when they do not, so an afternoon like this needs saying out loud: he is the reason the scoreline reads as it does.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Jaguares this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
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.
In brief
SquadWords at Jaguares training over how hard people work
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Jaguares this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Marked 8.11 — 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.
Still no offer on the table, and Diego Martínez’s deal keeps shrinking. In boardroom language, silence this long stops being an oversight and starts being an answer.
Squad10 Aug 2026
The manager has not finished forgetting Andrés Rentería'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.
There is no complaint available here and everybody involved knows it, which does not make the walk to the bench any shorter. Form is the only currency in football that cannot be borrowed against.
There is no crueller way to lose a football match. Jaguares scored in the 90th minute, the restart barely happened, and the away end was still standing when the whistle went.
Wilfrido De La Rosa 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 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.
Marked 8.50 — 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.
Player ratings3 Aug 2026
Johar Mejía was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.39. 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.