Centre-halves are allowed forward twice a season and are judged on what they do when they get there. Jaime Alvarado scored, was marked 7.75, and got back before anybody noticed he had gone.
Michael Barrios 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.
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.
Somebody else has been better, the manager has said so with a team sheet, and there is no argument to be had. He will get the shirt back the only way it can be got back.
“There are things I liked and things we will be doing on Tuesday until they are right.” 1‑1, and a manager who had already decided what Tuesday looked like.
Every signing waits for it and every press conference asks about it until it comes. It has come, Once Caldas have their man off the mark, and the second one is always easier.
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.
Daniel Londoño 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.
Squad15 Feb 2027
Mateo Zuleta 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.
Successful dribbles: 19. 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.
The team sheet says it in public every week until it changes. The only version of being dropped a footballer cannot argue with, and the one he takes hardest.
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Once Caldas, and both men came out saying it was fine.
The dugout15 Feb 2027
The view from the dugout
“We did not lose. Some weeks that is all you get, and I would rather have the point than not.” Juan Perez chose the glass-half-full version of 1‑1; the supporters left with the other one.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Frank Ruiz will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Once Caldas the goodbyes have quietly begun.
6 goals in one match, Jefry Zapata on the scoresheet, and a scoreline that will look like a misprint. Neutrals could not have asked more of Once Caldas and Real Cartagena.
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Jefry Zapata. 4‑2 against Real Cartagena, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Daniel Londoño was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Jéider Riquett 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.
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.
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.
“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.
Boardroom1 Feb 2027
Nobody left the Once Caldas dressing room in a hurry
The door stayed shut a long time after the final whistle. What was said in there is between them; whether it worked is between them and Saturday.
Squad1 Feb 2027
7 new faces, and Once Caldas 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.
“I am grateful for the games, but I did not become a footballer to be somebody else's spare part.” He wants to be at Once Caldas, and 1 appearances in 5 say he has earned the hearing.
Rarely has this fixture seen a display like it: 3‑0 against Patriotas, and it could have been more.
Player ratings25 Jan 2027
A brace, and Jefry Zapata takes the afternoon — 9.19
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Jefry Zapata provided it, and the 9.19 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
At 35 he is supposed to be managing his minutes. Instead he was marked 8.30 and looked, for ninety minutes, exactly like the player everybody remembers.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Once Caldas this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
The shirt still fits. Jeifer Nontoa is back at Once Caldas, and half the ground remembers him in these colours already. Some signings need selling to the town; this one sold itself.
Footballers are asked about their boyhood club so often that nobody listens to the answer. Jeifer Nontoa has just signed for Once Caldas, and for once the answer mattered.
Senior shirt numbers handed to boys the coaches have known since they were twelve. Most will not make it and all of them have already done the hard part.
100 for the club now, each one filed in somebody’s memory with a date and a scoreline. Numbers like this are what supporters argue about in twenty years.
In brief
SquadMateo Zuleta falls out with a teammate over standards
Everything agreed with another club, everything agreed with the player; a doctor is the only person left to persuade. The photograph is a day or two away.
Juan Pablo Nieto 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.
Footballers are asked about their boyhood club so often that nobody listens to the answer. Ramiro Giannone has just signed for Once Caldas, and for once the answer mattered.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Daniel Londoño was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Every manager keeps a short list in his head of the men he wants on the pitch when the stakes rise, and it is never published. The team sheets for the big afternoons say Jáder Quiñónes is on it.
Nobody sells a season ticket on a signing like this. Every manager who has been through a bad October wants one anyway, and Once Caldas have gone and got theirs early.
Nothing in writing and nothing in public: a word about playing time, given face to face at Once Caldas. The team sheets over the next month will show whether it was worth having.
A new face in his position and a shirt he thought he owned suddenly up for discussion. Once Caldas have promised nothing, which is what clubs promise at this stage.
Once Caldas ran out of time with Queretaro. The paperwork was open when the deadline passed, and a transfer that was almost done is now a transfer that never happened.
Footballers are asked about their boyhood club so often that nobody listens to the answer. Franco Capponi has just signed for Once Caldas, and for once the answer mattered.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Once Caldas is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
Daniel Londoño 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.
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 22 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.
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.
Nobody at Once Caldas 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.
$4.4M settles it between the clubs for Bayron Duarte
Queretaro have accepted the money. What Once Caldas do not yet have is the man, and between here and the photograph is a conversation about wages that both sides are dreading.
$2.0M was the most the club would pay and Santa Fe were asking for more. Deals like this are revived in the last week of a window roughly half the time, and everybody involved knows it.
The most common injury in the game and the most rushed back from. Once Caldas will quote 14 days and will be careful with it, because the second one is always worse than the first.
Once Caldas ran out of time with Fortaleza CEIF. The paperwork was open when the deadline passed, and a transfer that was almost done is now a transfer that never happened.
Squad4 Jan 2027
Mateo Zuleta 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.
Every manager keeps a short list in his head of the men he wants on the pitch when the stakes rise, and it is never published. The team sheets for the big afternoons say Juan Felipe Castaño is on it.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Leon have kept their man, and Once Caldas go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
The offer went to Fortaleza CEIF this week and it is theirs to answer. First bids are rarely meant to succeed; they are meant to find out how loud the door closes.
Michael Barrios 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.
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 phone has started ringing about Frank Ruiz again, and this time the name on the line is Real Santander. Once Caldas are listening politely and promising nothing.
7 new signings in one window. Every one may be an upgrade and the side can still be worse for a while, which is the part of a rebuild the verdicts never mention.
He is not being dropped. There is simply nowhere in the formation Once Caldas are playing to put a man who does what he does, which is a harder thing to be told than any team sheet.
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 kind of year that ends with a name being read out in a hall. Once Caldas had the benefit of it every week and now have the problem of everybody else knowing.
Daniel Londoño 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 the most legitimate ambition in the sport and the hardest for most clubs to satisfy. Andrés Correa wants continental football; whether Once Caldas can provide it is a question about the next two seasons, not about him.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Jáder Quiñónes was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Every manager keeps a short list in his head of the men he wants on the pitch when the stakes rise, and it is never published. The team sheets for the big afternoons say Jáder Quiñónes is on it.
Nothing in writing and nothing in public: a word about playing time, given face to face at Once Caldas. The team sheets over the next month will show whether it was worth having.
Another week, another link, another denial nobody quite believes. Once Caldas know the market decides these things, not the back pages — but the back pages are louder.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 15 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
Daniel Londoño 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.
Once Caldas offered $430.0K; Llaneros said it was not close. The manager will be told the money is still there for the right player, which is what managers are told.
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Juan Esteban Gallego is 22, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Mateo Zuleta was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
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.
He asked about his future and was given an answer with minutes in it. The manager has now made a promise in a building where promises are remembered, and the clock on it has started.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Once Caldas will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
The last thing about a transfer that is still about the player is his signature on his own terms, and it is there. Once Caldas have lost him in all but the paperwork.
Michael 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.
Once Caldas have gone to Llaneros with a bid, and the supporters have gone to the internet with an opinion about it. Whether either changes anything is up to the selling club.
Squad7 Dec 2026
Words at Once Caldas training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Daniel Londoño 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.
Once Caldas asked and Cortulua said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
It is the most legitimate ambition in the sport and the hardest for most clubs to satisfy. Déinner Quiñónes wants continental football; whether Once Caldas can provide it is a question about the next two seasons, not about him.
A bone, which is the one injury with a calendar attached. Once Caldas will name a return date and, unusually for this business, will probably be right about it.
It is the most legitimate ambition in the sport and the hardest for most clubs to satisfy. Mateo Zuleta wants continental football; whether Once Caldas 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 Once Caldas this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Jáder Quiñónes was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
In brief
The dugoutHian Rincón knocks on the manager’s door
A bone, which is the one injury with a calendar attached. Once Caldas will name a return date and, unusually for this business, will probably be right about it.
Daniel Londoño 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.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Mateo Zuleta was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Nobody at Once Caldas 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.
A bone, which is the one injury with a calendar attached. Once Caldas will name a return date and, unusually for this business, will probably be right about 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 Once Caldas this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Daniel Londoño was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Once Caldas, and both men came out saying it was fine.
Nobody at Once Caldas 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.
He asked about his future and was given an answer with minutes in it. The manager has now made a promise in a building where promises are remembered, and the clock on it has started.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Once Caldas will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
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.
Another week, another link, another denial nobody quite believes. Once Caldas know the market decides these things, not the back pages — but the back pages are louder.
Nobody at Once Caldas 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.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 62 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 Once Caldas this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad2 Nov 2026
Words at Once Caldas training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Mateo Zuleta 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.
Clubs make promises constantly and the page usually only hears about them when they are broken. This one was honoured, and the dressing room noticed that faster than any supporter did.
The system has changed and his position has not. A footballer can improve his form; he cannot improve the manager’s formation, and that is the whole of the problem.
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 bone, which is the one injury with a calendar attached. Once Caldas will name a return date and, unusually for this business, will probably be right about it.
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 easiest signature of my career.” Felipe Cifuentes and Once Caldas agree another 3 years, and the manager can plan around him rather than about him.
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.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 79 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
Daniel Londoño 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.
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 21 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.
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.
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 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.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Pablo Rojas trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
Nothing in writing and nothing in public: a word about playing time, given face to face at Once Caldas. The team sheets over the next month will show whether it was worth having.
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Jáder Quiñónes signs something — a contract at Once Caldas or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Once Caldas will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
At 21 he is doing things this season that he could not do last season, and doing them every week. Form comes and goes; this has stayed long enough to be called something else.
Footballers are asked about their boyhood club so often that nobody listens to the answer. Jacobo Escobar has just signed for Once Caldas, and for once the answer mattered.
The board was up, the win was priced in, and then Aguilas Doradas scored. There is no worse minute to concede in and the ground emptied in the silence that follows one.
It needed Jefry Zapata to find the net to bring anything home at all: 1‑1 against Aguilas Doradas, and half the dressing room will call it a point won.
A bone, which is the one injury with a calendar attached. Once Caldas will name a return date and, unusually for this business, will probably be right about it.
Dealt with internally, which is the phrase a club uses when it would rather nobody asked twice. He will be fined, he will apologise, and he will play on Saturday.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Once Caldas this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Daniel Londoño was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
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.
“If you cannot run for the shirt, somebody else will wear it.” No name was used and none was needed; every player in that room knew who it was for.
The dugout5 Oct 2026
Somebody else is better right now than Hian Rincón
The team sheet says it in public every week until it changes. The only version of being dropped a footballer cannot argue with, and the one he takes hardest.
“A point is a point and I will take it, but we should have had all three.” Juan Perez after the 0‑0 draw, and the sentence every manager in the country said at some stage this weekend.
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.
Daniel Londoño 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.
Squad28 Sep 2026
Words at Once Caldas training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Jáder Quiñónes 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 supporters are entitled to be angry. So am I. We will put it right.” 1‑3, a manager saying the necessary things, and a dressing room that heard a different version of them.
Daniel Londoño 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.
Squad21 Sep 2026
Words at Once Caldas training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Michael Barrios 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.
0‑1 to Santa Fe, and no complaints worth printing. The performance asked for nothing more than it got.
The dugout21 Sep 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 0‑1 Juan Perez left the room before anybody could ask which.
Something was said to Juan Esteban Gallego and then it happened. In this industry that passes for remarkable, and the dressing room noticed faster than any supporter could.
Every manager keeps a short list in his head of the men he wants on the pitch when the stakes rise, and it is never published. The team sheets for the big afternoons say Déinner Quiñónes is on it.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Juan David Cuesta trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
Cortulua next, and one man in the Once Caldas dressing room knows their training ground better than his own. The reception will tell him what they thought of him.
Michael 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.
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.
14 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.
“We earned that. I asked them for a reaction and I got one, and now I want the same again on Saturday.” Juan Perez on a 1‑0 afternoon that pleased him more than he was prepared to show.
The team sheet says it in public every week until it changes. The only version of being dropped a footballer cannot argue with, and the one he takes hardest.
In brief
Looking aheadA test against the best for Once Caldas
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.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Once Caldas this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Successful dribbles: 22. 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.
Squad7 Sep 2026
Words at Once Caldas training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Andrés Colorado 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 dugout7 Sep 2026
Somebody else is better right now than Hian Rincón
The team sheet says it in public every week until it changes. The only version of being dropped a footballer cannot argue with, and the one he takes hardest.
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Once Caldas, and both men came out saying it was fine.
The dugout7 Sep 2026
The manager’s verdict
“I am frustrated, honestly. We did enough to win and we did not win.” Juan Perez was not hiding it after 1‑1, and nobody in the Once Caldas dressing room was either.
Daniel Londoño 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 Once Caldas training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Michael Barrios 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 it and the team sheets confirm it every week. One error has bought him a spell as second choice that is already longer than the error deserved.
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.
The dugout31 Aug 2026
The view from the dugout
“We did not lose. Some weeks that is all you get, and I would rather have the point than not.” Juan Perez chose the glass-half-full version of 0‑0; the supporters left with the other one.
Every squad has one of these fixtures for somebody every season. This one is Juan Pablo Nieto’s: the club that knew him first, the supporters who will decide in the first minute whether to applaud, and Once Caldas needing him to play as if none of it matters.
“It was not right for me. I am not going to explain why to anybody except the people I owe an explanation to.” A deal agreed between two clubs, and a player who declined to be part of it.
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.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Once Caldas 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. Andrés Correa wants continental football; whether Once Caldas can provide it is a question about the next two seasons, not about him.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Daniel Londoño was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
3 kept out from twelve yards, and a stadium that will describe each of them for twenty years. A goalkeeper needs one night like this in a career, and this was it.
There is an age at which every good afternoon gets described as a throwback, which is unfair and also accurate. 8.13 at 35, and nobody on the pitch was better.
A 2‑0 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.
Player ratings17 Aug 2026
Jefry Zapata was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.52. 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.
Daniel Londoño 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.
Squad10 Aug 2026
Words at Once Caldas training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Michael Barrios 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.
Barranquilla will keep picking him until June and will get nothing for him after it. Marlon Carabali has pre-agreed a move to Once Caldas, and the only people who lose in that arrangement are the ones who let the contract run down.
Clubs spend fortunes looking for players and occasionally find one down the corridor. Gabriel Quintero is that, and the reception he gets on his first appearance will be different in kind from the one any signing receives.
Clubs spend fortunes looking for players and occasionally find one down the corridor. Sebastian Rodriguez is that, and the reception he gets on his first appearance will be different in kind from the one any signing receives.
Clubs spend fortunes looking for players and occasionally find one down the corridor. Manuel Gonzalez is that, and the reception he gets on his first appearance will be different in kind from the one any signing receives.
There is no fee, no unveiling and no agent on the steps. James Arias 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.
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Michael Barrios provided it, and the 8.66 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody 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.
Michael Barrios 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.
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.
2 goals inside twenty minutes with Michael Barrios in the middle of it, and Jaguares unable to get near the ball long enough to change anything. Some matches are won before the first drink.