There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Hugo Sinisterra provided it, and the 8.80 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
Leonardo 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 offer from Cesar Vallejo for Hugo 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.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at La Equidad this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Delfor Minervino and La Equidad agree another 3 years.
Add another name to the list: Real Cartagena have asked the question everybody in the game has been asking about Fabian Bacca. The answer from La Equidad has not changed — yet.
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 19 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.
Leonardo 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 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.
Everyone has stopped pretending: Union La Calera will make the call about Hugo Sinisterra this week. La Equidad have a number in mind, and the number is not shy.
The phone has started ringing about Hugo Sinisterra again, and this time the name on the line is Union La Calera. La Equidad are listening politely and promising nothing.
The chase for Adrián Parra ended with $1.4M changing hands and Deportes Tolima out of reasons to say no. The supporters will judge the fee the only way that matters: on Saturdays.
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.
Boards get told what they have done wrong for years and hear nothing on the days they get it right. This is one of those days: Adrián Parra from Deportes Tolima for $1.4M, and a ticket office having a very good morning.
The deal that would have taken Santiago Perez to Braga has collapsed at the last stage, and he reports back to La Equidad with a summer to forget and a season still to play. Nobody is saying which side walked away.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what La Equidad can pretend not to have heard.
The name of Ivan Falcao has come up in conversations La Equidad were not part of. Nothing formal, nothing signed — but nothing about it accidental either.
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Santiago Perez. 3‑2 against Jaguares, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
A defender's mistake gets tidied up by somebody else; a goalkeeper's ends up in the net. He knew before the ball crossed the line, and so did everybody in the ground.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at La Equidad this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
“I want to be playing for trophies while my legs still let me.” Nothing in that sentence is a transfer request, and nobody at La Equidad 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.
10 home matches unbeaten. Visiting sides arrive already talking about the atmosphere, which is usually the sign that they have half-lost before kickoff.
Delfor Minervino 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 an age at which every good afternoon gets described as a throwback, which is unfair and also accurate. 8.86 at 33, and nobody on the pitch was better.
Leonardo 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.
“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 May 2027
Words at La Equidad training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Camilo Mina 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 was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at La Equidad this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
At 22 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.
Marked 8.79. Players have careers without a single afternoon like this in them, and he has just had one in front of everybody at La Equidad.
Squad24 May 2027
Camilo Mina 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 33 he is supposed to be managing his minutes. Instead he was marked 9.11 and looked, for ninety minutes, exactly like the player everybody remembers.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” La Equidad have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Leonardo 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.
Player ratings17 May 2027
Leonardo Rios was on a different afternoon to everybody else
9.46. 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.
Position 1, 40 points, and the result everyone checks first is now theirs. The word is still not being said around the ground, which is how you know everyone is thinking it.
Deportes Tolima go through and La Equidad go home, 0‑1 the scoreline that did it. The dressing room will call the league the priority now, because that is what dressing rooms say.
There is an age at which every good afternoon gets described as a throwback, which is unfair and also accurate. 8.23 at 33, 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 La Equidad this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Santiago Perez wins it after the whistle should have gone
93 minutes played. Santiago Perez found the finish in time that only existed because of earlier delays, and Atletico Bucaramanga went from a point to nothing inside one movement.
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Santiago Perez provided it, and the 8.54 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
4 wins in a row changes how opponents warm up: quieter, more glances across. Runs end, everybody knows that — but nobody in this dressing room is planning for it.
A 3‑2 win over Atletico Bucaramanga, earned rather than given, and the sort of afternoon that sends everyone home talking about next week instead of this one.
There is a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 17-year-old it feels ownership of. Fabian Bacca 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.
Squad3 May 2027
Words at La Equidad training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Camilo Mina 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.
Two goals and a mark of 8.95 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
Player ratings26 Apr 2027
Diego Vargas, 20, plays like he has been here for years — 7.72
A mark of 7.72 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.
3 wins in a row changes how opponents warm up: quieter, more glances across. Runs end, everybody knows that — but nobody in this dressing room is planning for it.
Delfor Minervino 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 version of this player everybody suspected was in there, and on this evidence it is. 8.13, and no argument anywhere in the ground.
Squad26 Apr 2027
Ivan Falcao 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 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.
4 straight away victories. Sides that win away are usually sides that can defend and can counter, and the table has begun to reflect what those journeys have earned.
Marked 9.34 — 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.
Delfor Minervino 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.
Marked 8.39 — 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.
Squad19 Apr 2027
Camilo Mina 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.
It is the most legitimate ambition in the sport and the hardest for most clubs to satisfy. Hugo Sinisterra wants continental football; whether La Equidad can provide it is a question about the next two seasons, not about him.
Leonardo 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.
Player ratings12 Apr 2027
Leonardo Rios was on a different afternoon to everybody else
9.12. 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.
2 in front and in complete control, and it finished with America de Cali the happier side. There is no version of this afternoon that La Equidad will enjoy reviewing.
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 La Equidad this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
4 wins in a row changes how opponents warm up: quieter, more glances across. Runs end, everybody knows that — but nobody in this dressing room is planning for it.
Leonardo 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.
Player ratings29 Mar 2027
Hugo Sinisterra was on a different afternoon to everybody else
9.09. 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 2‑0 win over Deportivo Cali, earned rather than given, and the sort of afternoon that sends everyone home talking about next week instead of this one.
Player ratings29 Mar 2027
Santiago Perez was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.63. 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.
Squad29 Mar 2027
Words at La Equidad training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Camilo Mina 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.
27 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.
3 wins in a row changes how opponents warm up: quieter, more glances across. Runs end, everybody knows that — but nobody in this dressing room is planning for 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 La Equidad this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
At 22 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.
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Hugo Sinisterra. 1‑0 against Independiente Medellin, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
Squad22 Mar 2027
Camilo Mina 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.
Two goals and a mark of 9.40 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
Defending was optional and nobody took up the option. 6 goals between La Equidad and Atletico Nacional, and not one of the people who paid to be there will ask for the money back.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at La Equidad this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
“I did not go to Tractor to sit and watch. I want to come back to La Equidad and fight for my place.” 3 appearances in 9 matches say the rest.
Squad15 Mar 2027
Words at La Equidad training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Keiner Estacio 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.
In brief
SquadDefences have started doubling up on Leonardo Rios
A brace, and Leonardo Rios takes the afternoon — 9.62
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Leonardo Rios provided it, and the 9.62 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
It is the most legitimate ambition in the sport and the hardest for most clubs to satisfy. Jhon Balanta wants continental football; whether La Equidad can provide it is a question about the next two seasons, not about him.
Delfor Minervino 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.
“I watch every La Equidad game from here. That says everything about where my head is.” The loan at Deportivo Pasto runs its course, but his heart never made the trip.
Player ratings8 Mar 2027
Luiz Lima was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.74. 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 0‑0 win over Aguilas Doradas, a place in the next round, and the quiet arithmetic every supporter does on the walk home: how many more until a final?
A shoot-out is remembered by its ending, and this one ends with Rafael Romero: 1 kept out, and a set of supporters who will describe every one of them for the next twenty years.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at La Equidad this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Player ratings1 Mar 2027
Leonardo Rios was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.07. 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.
Squad1 Mar 2027
Words at La Equidad training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Camilo Mina 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.
17 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.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at La Equidad this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Player ratings22 Feb 2027
Ivan Falcao was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.43. 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.
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 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.
Shots: 9. Goals: none. The chances were there and they were good ones, and they went into the stand, the goalkeeper's arms and the side netting in roughly that order.
Another week, another link, another denial nobody quite believes. La Equidad know the market decides these things, not the back pages — but the back pages are louder.
In brief
The terracesThe press have found their man in Ivan Falcao
There is no crueller way to lose a football match. La Equidad scored in the 90th minute, the restart barely happened, and the away end was still standing when the whistle went.
4 wins on the spin now, and the question has changed from whether the run ends to who ends it. Confidence like this cannot be bought; it has to be earned exactly this way.
Leonardo 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 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.
A 1‑0 win over Alianza Petrolera, earned rather than given, and the sort of afternoon that sends everyone home talking about next week instead of this one.
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 La Equidad this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Cortulua made La Equidad work for it, but the scoreboard read 3‑2 at the end and the table does not ask how.
Player ratings8 Feb 2027
Javier Giraldo was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.72. 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.
The hardest thing about being 21 in a senior side is that nobody makes allowances. Hugo Sinisterra did not need any: 9.22, and he looked the most comfortable man on the pitch.
“I want to be playing for trophies while my legs still let me.” Nothing in that sentence is a transfer request, and nobody at La Equidad heard it as anything else.
It is the most legitimate ambition in the sport and the hardest for most clubs to satisfy. Hugo Sinisterra wants continental football; whether La Equidad can provide it is a question about the next two seasons, not about him.
Leonardo 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.
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.
Defensive actions: 20, and a clean sheet at the end of it. A centre-half's best afternoons look like nothing happening, which is precisely the point.
Player ratings1 Feb 2027
Luiz Lima was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.73. 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.
4 away wins in a row. Travelling support is the truest kind, and this season it is being repaid in the only currency that counts.
Boardroom25 Jan 2027
6 academy players handed senior numbers at La Equidad
The morning the pathway stops being a brochure and becomes a team sheet. Most of them will not be here in three years; all of them have already done the hard part, which was getting to today.
Marked 9.54 — 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.
There is no fee, no unveiling and no agent on the steps. Manuel Giraldo 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.
Clubs spend fortunes looking for players and occasionally find one down the corridor. Camilo Gonzalez is that, and the reception he gets on his first appearance will be different in kind from the one any signing receives.
The academy exists for exactly this morning. Carlos Lemos 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.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at La Equidad this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad18 Jan 2027
Words at La Equidad training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Camilo Mina 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.
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 20 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.
Delfor Minervino 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.
In brief
SquadKeiner Estacio falls out with a teammate over standards
An individual honour is a strange thing in a team game, and the best of them are never argued with. He has had the sort of year that ends with his name being read out, and La Equidad have had the benefit of it.
The name of Javier Giraldo has come up in conversations La Equidad were not part of. Nothing formal, nothing signed — but nothing about it accidental either.
Leonardo 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 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.
Squad4 Jan 2027
Words at La Equidad training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Camilo Mina 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.
In brief
Squad5 new faces, and La Equidad are still learning each other
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at La Equidad this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
The phone has started ringing about Fabian Bacca again, and this time the name on the line is Jaguares. La Equidad are listening politely and promising nothing.
Nobody at La Equidad 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.
Qualification is done, and next season the floodlights come on for something bigger. A stage for the players, oxygen for the accounts and a passport for everybody else.
Not a month, not a run of form — a whole season of being the best 20-year-old anybody in this division could put on a pitch. This is the honour that gets mentioned for the rest of his career.
An individual honour is a strange thing in a team game, and the best of them are never argued with. He has had the sort of year that ends with his name being read out, and La Equidad have had the benefit of it.
The fee is $1.3M, the contract is signed, and the argument about whether he is worth it can begin. Fortaleza CEIF drove a hard bargain; time will say who won it.
Footballers are asked about their boyhood club so often that nobody listens to the answer. Delfor Minervino has just signed for La Equidad, and for once the answer mattered.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason La Equidad will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
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 La Equidad this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
“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 Dec 2026
Camilo Mina 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.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 108 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
It is the most legitimate ambition in the sport and the hardest for most clubs to satisfy. Hugo Sinisterra wants continental football; whether La Equidad can provide it is a question about the next two seasons, not about 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 La Equidad this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 117 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
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.
Fabian Bacca 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.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 126 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at La Equidad this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 133 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at La Equidad this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
A window away with the national side, and a shirt at La Equidad that briefly doubles as an advertisement. A call-up flatters the player and the club that built him in the same breath.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason La Equidad will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
Leonardo 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.
“I have ambitions, and I would like the club to share them.” Nobody has asked to leave and nobody has been shown the door — but a player chooses that sentence carefully, and a boardroom hears it exactly as it was meant.
Squad2 Nov 2026
A place in the month's best eleven for Diego Vargas
Four or five weekends of consistency, judged against everybody in the division doing his job. Diego Vargas has come out of that comparison in the side, and La Equidad have had the benefit of every one of those afternoons.
Nobody at La Equidad 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.
Manuel Ospina 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.
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.
The message was aimed at the stands as much as the dressing room: Santiago Perez plays, and the argument is closed until the manager decides otherwise.
Fabian Bacca 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.
He has had enough of the noise. Whether La Equidad can be a quieter place for him, or whether the only cure is a move somewhere the phone-ins are gentler, is a question for the next few months.
The words a physio says slowly. 20 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 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.” 5 of the 23 senior players walked off into it; the rest were not playing.
It is the most legitimate ambition in the sport and the hardest for most clubs to satisfy. Santiago Perez wants continental football; whether La Equidad can provide it is a question about the next two seasons, not about 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 La Equidad this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Marked 5.57. Nothing he attempted worked and by the hour mark he had stopped attempting much, which is the part a manager notices rather than the mistakes.
In brief
Player ratingsFabian Bacca could not find anything
28 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. La Equidad lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
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.
A 3‑2 win over Independiente Medellin, earned rather than given, and the sort of afternoon that sends everyone home talking about next week instead of this one.
Stiven Palomeque 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 warmth a ground reserves for a 21-year-old it feels ownership of. Hugo Sinisterra 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 ratings5 Oct 2026
Ivan Falcao was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.75. 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.
Leonardo Rios wins it after the whistle should have gone
94 minutes played. Leonardo Rios found the finish in time that only existed because of earlier delays, and Atletico Nacional went from a point to nothing inside one movement.
It is the most legitimate ambition in the sport and the hardest for most clubs to satisfy. Leonardo Rios wants continental football; whether La Equidad can provide it is a question about the next two seasons, not about him.
Leonardo 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.
Player ratings28 Sep 2026
Leonardo Rios was on a different afternoon to everybody else
9.11. 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 2‑1 win over Atletico Nacional, earned rather than given, and the sort of afternoon that sends everyone home talking about next week instead of this one.
There is a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 17-year-old it feels ownership of. Fabian Bacca 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.
15 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. La Equidad lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at La Equidad this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Marked 9.19 — 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.
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.
22 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. La Equidad lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Shots: 11. Goals: none. The chances were there and they were good ones, and they went into the stand, the goalkeeper's arms and the side netting in roughly that order.
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.
29 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. La Equidad lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Two goals and a mark of 8.70 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
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.
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Luiz Lima. 2‑1 against Deportivo Pereira, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at La Equidad this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
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.
Squad7 Sep 2026
A place in the month's best eleven for Diego Vargas
Four or five weekends of consistency, judged against everybody in the division doing his job. Diego Vargas has come out of that comparison in the side, and La Equidad have had the benefit of every one of those afternoons.
36 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. La Equidad lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Fernando Barrios 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.
Player ratings31 Aug 2026
Ivan Falcao was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.50. 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.
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.
Add another name to the list: Rostov have asked the question everybody in the game has been asking about Fernando Barrios. The answer from La Equidad has not changed — yet.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at La Equidad this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Marked 8.34 — 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 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.
A shoot-out is remembered by its ending, and this one ends with Rafael Romero: 2 kept out, and a set of supporters who will describe every one of them for the next twenty years.
The deal that would have taken Santiago Perez to Zaragoza has collapsed at the last stage, and he reports back to La Equidad with a summer to forget and a season still to play. Nobody is saying which side walked away.
Player ratings17 Aug 2026
Gabriel Ramirez, 19, plays like he has been here for years — 8.15
A mark of 8.15 means one thing beside a twenty-nine-year-old's name and something else entirely beside a 19-year-old's. Nobody at the ground needed telling which this was.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at La Equidad this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
At 19 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.
There is exactly one of these per career and it does not usually go like this. 1 on the scoresheet, 6.95 beside the name, and a crowd that had never seen him before chanting it by the end.
AC Milan paid $11.6M and La Equidad took it, which is the whole story in one sentence. The longer version involves a wage budget and will be told all season.
“I want to win things, and I would like to do it here.” Nothing has been demanded and nothing has been threatened — but a boardroom at La Equidad hears a sentence like that exactly as it was built.
It is the most legitimate ambition in the sport and the hardest for most clubs to satisfy. Santiago Perez wants continental football; whether La Equidad can provide it is a question about the next two seasons, not about him.
Leonardo 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.
At 16 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.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the team. 8 saves, several of them the sort nobody expects to see stopped, and a scoreline that flatters everybody in front of him.
Player ratings3 Aug 2026
Diego Vargas could not have asked for more on his first appearance — 7.32
Debuts are survived rather than enjoyed. This one was enjoyed: 7.32, 0 goals, and a manager already being asked whether he starts again next week.
The offer from Albirex Niigata for Fernando Barrios 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 name of Julián Luna has come up in conversations La Equidad were not part of. Nothing formal, nothing signed — but nothing about it accidental either.
“I want to be playing for trophies while my legs still let me.” Nothing in that sentence is a transfer request, and nobody at La Equidad 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 La Equidad this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.