It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Metropolitanos this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
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.
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.
Andrés Ferro 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.
Squad26 Oct 2026
Words at Metropolitanos training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Jeizon Ramírez Chacón 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.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Metropolitanos this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
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.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Metropolitanos have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Andrés Ferro 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.
Squad12 Oct 2026
Words at Metropolitanos training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Jeizon Ramírez Chacón 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.
Robert Garcés 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.
In brief
Boardroom394% of the income goes out in wages at Metropolitanos
SquadDiego Reyes has become a man the manager trusts
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Metropolitanos this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Agustín Bianciotti, and the manager let it.
Squad28 Sep 2026
Words at Metropolitanos training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Jeizon Ramírez Chacón 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.
Robert Garcés 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.
In brief
SquadThe manager has not finished forgetting Yhonatann Yustiz's mistake
Andrés Ferro 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.
Squad14 Sep 2026
Ely Valderrey 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 was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Metropolitanos this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Every club in football pays most of what it earns to its players. Paying nearly all of it is a different arrangement, and it has ended the same way every time somebody has tried it.
Andrés Ferro 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.
Squad31 Aug 2026
Words at Metropolitanos training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Jeizon Ramírez Chacón 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.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Metropolitanos this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
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.
0‑1 against Deportivo La Guaira, and the road stops here. Cup exits are quick deaths — no second leg, no next week, just the league from now until May.
The hardest thing about being 21 in a senior side is that nobody makes allowances. Sneider Navarro did not need any: 8.97, and he looked the most comfortable man on the pitch.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Metropolitanos this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Successful dribbles: 21. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
Squad17 Aug 2026
Words at Metropolitanos training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Jeizon Ramírez Chacón 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.
Marked 8.20 — 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.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Metropolitanos this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad10 Aug 2026
Words at Metropolitanos training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Jeizon Ramírez Chacón 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 hardest thing about being 21 in a senior side is that nobody makes allowances. Sneider Navarro did not need any: 9.16, and he looked the most comfortable man on the pitch.
There is an age at which every good afternoon gets described as a throwback, which is unfair and also accurate. 8.04 at 37, and nobody on the pitch was better.
“The easiest signature of my career.” Robert Garcés and Metropolitanos agree another 2 years, and the manager can plan around him rather than about him.
Robert Garcés 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.
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.
Still no offer on the table, and Robert Garcés’s deal keeps shrinking. In boardroom language, silence this long stops being an oversight and starts being an answer.