From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Market19 Oct 2026
Only the photograph left for Jorge Cabezudo
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Jorge Cabezudo will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Melgar the goodbyes have quietly begun.
Squad19 Oct 2026
A row about effort at Melgar
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Alejandro Ramos was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Squad19 Oct 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 Melgar this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Boardroom12 Oct 2026
The paperwork is done long before the player is. César Bautista has agreed terms to come here when his current deal runs out, which means Melgar have spent a summer's transfer budget on a phone call.
Squad12 Oct 2026
A falling-out at Melgar
Alec Deneumostier and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Squad12 Oct 2026
4 Melgar players away with their countries
The training ground goes quiet for a fortnight. 4 men have gone off to be somebody else’s players, and the manager is left with the ones nobody has called.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad5 Oct 2026
A knee injury of the worst kind for Sergio Benavente
19 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Melgar lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Market5 Oct 2026
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Melgar can pretend not to have heard.
Squad5 Oct 2026
A falling-out at Melgar
Pablo Erustes and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Market5 Oct 2026
It is the most legitimate ambition in the sport and the hardest for most clubs to satisfy. Nicolás Quagliata wants continental football; whether Melgar can provide it is a question about the next two seasons, not about him.
Squad5 Oct 2026
Words at Melgar training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Alejandro Ramos 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.
Boardroom5 Oct 2026
Wages eat 89% of everything Melgar earn
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.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad28 Sep 2026
A knee injury of the worst kind for Sergio Benavente
28 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Melgar lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Squad28 Sep 2026
Words exchanged at Melgar
Pablo Erustes 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.
Market28 Sep 2026
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.
Squad28 Sep 2026
Words at Melgar training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Alejandro Ramos 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.
Squad28 Sep 2026
Too much change too quickly at Melgar
12 signings in three months. Every one of them may be an upgrade and the team can still be worse for a while, which is the part of a rebuild that never appears in the transfer-window verdicts.
Market28 Sep 2026
Melgar bring in an old head
Germán Rodríguez Rojas is 36 and has run out of things to prove. What he has left is where to stand, when to slow it down and what to say at half-time, and none of that is on a fitness chart.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad21 Sep 2026
Sergio Benavente damages knee ligaments — 37 days out
The words a physio says slowly. 37 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.
Market21 Sep 2026
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Melgar is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
Boardroom21 Sep 2026
The rules permit it and it stings anyway. Jorge Cabezudo has agreed terms with Alianza Lima for the summer, and until then he pulls on this shirt as a player who has already chosen his next one.
Squad21 Sep 2026
Tempers go at Melgar
Pablo Erustes 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 dugout21 Sep 2026
Marcos Portillo has become a man the manager trusts
Nobody at Melgar 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.
Market21 Sep 2026
The list is a quiet document with a loud meaning. Piero Covinos may talk to anybody who asks, and everybody at the club understands what that means.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad14 Sep 2026
A knee injury of the worst kind for Sergio Benavente
45 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Melgar lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Squad14 Sep 2026
A falling-out at Melgar
Alec Deneumostier and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Market14 Sep 2026
The academy exists for exactly this morning. Oscar Benavente 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.
Market14 Sep 2026
One of our own: Nelson Lopez joins the Melgar first team
Clubs spend fortunes looking for players and occasionally find one down the corridor. Nelson Lopez is that, and the reception he gets on his first appearance will be different in kind from the one any signing receives.
Squad14 Sep 2026
A row about effort at Melgar
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Alejandro Ramos was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
The dugout14 Sep 2026
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Melgar, and both men came out saying it was fine.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad7 Sep 2026
A knee injury of the worst kind for Sergio Benavente
52 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Melgar lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Squad7 Sep 2026
A row about effort at Melgar
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Alejandro Ramos was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Squad7 Sep 2026
Words exchanged at Melgar
Marlon Ugarte 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.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad31 Aug 2026
A knee injury of the worst kind for Sergio Benavente
61 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Melgar lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Market31 Aug 2026
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Melgar can pretend not to have heard.
Squad31 Aug 2026
A falling-out at Melgar
Marlon Ugarte and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Squad24 Aug 2026
A knee injury of the worst kind for Sergio Benavente
69 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Melgar lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Match19 Aug 2026
The small margins put Melgar out
Out, 2‑3 to Cesar Vallejo, and the long argument about which of the small moments decided it. The league is all there is now, and everybody knows it.
Player ratings24 Aug 2026
Two goals and a mark of 8.90 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
Player ratings24 Aug 2026
Successful dribbles: 23. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Squad24 Aug 2026
Words exchanged at Melgar
Alec Deneumostier 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.
Squad24 Aug 2026
Alejandro Ramos 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 dugout24 Aug 2026
The manager’s verdict
“That is on me. I pick the team and I picked wrong.” Managers say that when they mean it and when they need to be seen to, and after 2‑3 Raul Abram left the room before anybody could ask which.
The dugout24 Aug 2026
No hiding place for César Doy
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to César Doy, and the manager let it.
The dugout24 Aug 2026
The manager wanted a different profile for this opponent, which is a real football reason and no consolation. He did nothing wrong and he did not play.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad17 Aug 2026
A knee injury of the worst kind for Sergio Benavente
76 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Melgar lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
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 Melgar this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad17 Aug 2026
Alejandro Ramos 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.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad10 Aug 2026
83 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Melgar lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
Market10 Aug 2026
Al-Mojzel come back empty-handed
The bid was some way short and Melgar did not need long over it. Nobody in the game reads a first refusal as the end of anything.
Squad10 Aug 2026
Words exchanged at Melgar
Pablo Erustes 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
There is no fee, no unveiling and no agent on the steps. Paolo Ruidiaz 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
One of our own: Kevin Tapia joins the Melgar first team
Clubs spend fortunes looking for players and occasionally find one down the corridor. Kevin Tapia 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. Victor Polo 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.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Market3 Aug 2026
Melgar say no — this time
The offer from Giugliano for Nicolás Figueroa 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.
Market3 Aug 2026
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Melgar can pretend not to have heard.
Squad3 Aug 2026
“The easiest signature of my career.” Bernardo Cuesta and Melgar agree another 2 years, and the manager can plan around him rather than about him.
Squad3 Aug 2026
A falling-out at Melgar
Pablo Erustes and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Market3 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 Melgar can give him that is a question about the club, not about him.
Squad3 Aug 2026
Alejandro Ramos 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.