At 35 he is supposed to be managing his minutes. Instead he was marked 8.91 and looked, for ninety minutes, exactly like the player everybody remembers.
Player ratings26 Oct 2026
Eliás Montiel, 21, plays like he has been here for years — 7.66
A mark of 7.66 means one thing beside a twenty-nine-year-old's name and something else entirely beside a 21-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.
Luis Barraza 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. Ofek Melika has just signed for Pachuca, and for once the answer mattered.
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.
20 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.
At 35 he is supposed to be managing his minutes. Instead he was marked 8.38 and looked, for ninety minutes, exactly like the player everybody remembers.
A defender on the scoresheet, which happens rarely enough that everybody in the ground remembers who took the corner. 1 for him, and a mark of 6.32 for the rest of it.
Sergio Barreto 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.
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.
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Sergio Barreto. 3‑2 against Queretaro, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
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.
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.
At 37 he is supposed to be managing his minutes. Instead he was marked 8.51 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 Pachuca this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
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.
A brace, and Víctor Guzmán takes the afternoon — 9.11
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Víctor Guzmán provided it, and the 9.11 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. Sergio Barreto wants continental football; whether Pachuca 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 Pachuca this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad5 Oct 2026
Words at Pachuca training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Sergio Barreto 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.
4 attempts, none of them in. He got into the right places all afternoon, which is the hard part, and did the easy part badly — and that is the version of a bad day a manager can live with.
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 Pachuca 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 Christian Rivera, and the manager let it.
Squad28 Sep 2026
5 new faces, and Pachuca 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.
The hardest thing about being 20 in a senior side is that nobody makes allowances. Eliás Montiel did not need any: 7.84, 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. 8.25 at 35, and nobody on the pitch was better.
Sergio Barreto 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 9.64 — 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.
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Sergio Barreto. 1‑0 against Toluca, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
There is an age at which every good afternoon gets described as a throwback, which is unfair and also accurate. 7.82 at 35, and nobody on the pitch was better.
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 Pachuca this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Player ratings14 Sep 2026
Sergio Barreto 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 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.
The offer from Bayer Leverkusen for Eliás Montiel 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.
“This is not anger. I have thought about it for months, and nothing that has happened lately changed my mind.” The request is on a desk at Pachuca, and it is not being withdrawn.
Player ratings7 Sep 2026
A first appearance Aldo Encinas will want to forget — 5.74
Everybody's debut is one of two stories and this was the other one. 5.74, and the only consolation available is that nobody's career has ever been decided by ninety minutes in a shirt he had just been given.
The fee was agreed and the flight was looked at — and then the phone stopped ringing. Cruz Azul moved on, René López reports back to Pachuca, and everybody pretends Monday is just Monday.
Sergio Barreto 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.
Leon paid $270.0K and Pachuca took it, which is the whole story in one sentence. The longer version involves a wage budget and will be told all season.
Add another name to the list: Bayer Leverkusen have asked the question everybody in the game has been asking about Eliás Montiel. The answer from Pachuca has not changed — yet.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Pachuca can pretend not to have heard.
5 without a win now, and the ground has developed the special quiet of a crowd that expects the worst. One scrappy 1-0 would cure most of it; that is the maddening part.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Pachuca this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Club America left with the points after a 0‑1 defeat that will take some explaining on the terraces.
Squad31 Aug 2026
5 new faces, and Pachuca 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 have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Pachuca can pretend not to have heard.
There is an age at which every good afternoon gets described as a throwback, which is unfair and also accurate. 8.01 at 35, and nobody on the pitch was better.
The fee is $1.3M, the contract is signed, and the argument about whether he is worth it can begin. Toluca drove a hard bargain; time will say who won it.
Oussama Idrissi 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.
Squad24 Aug 2026
Words at Pachuca training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Sergio Barreto 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 8.95 — 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.
Headers, blocks, tackles, interceptions — 30 of them, and not one goal behind him. The sort of performance that never makes a highlight reel and wins football matches.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Pachuca this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Nobody at Pachuca is suggesting he is out of form. The manager simply wanted somebody with a different set of qualities for ninety specific minutes, and there is nothing a player can train to fix that.
A new face in his position, and Oussama Idrissi suddenly has to win back what he thought he owned. Pachuca have promised nothing — clubs rarely do at this stage.
The accountants will call it good business and they will be right, which is not the point anybody outside the boardroom is making. Carlos Moreno was one of the reasons people came, and $4.7M does not replace that by itself.
“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 Pachuca hears a sentence like that exactly as it was built.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Pachuca this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
“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.
Player ratings10 Aug 2026
Víctor Guzmán was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.88. 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.
“I want to be playing for trophies while my legs still let me.” Nothing in that sentence is a transfer request, and nobody at Pachuca heard it as anything else.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Pachuca this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Defending was optional and nobody took up the option. 6 goals between Pachuca and Monterrey, and not one of the people who paid to be there will ask for the money back.
Squad3 Aug 2026
Words at Pachuca training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Sergio Barreto 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.
14 shots, and a count that reads like a good afternoon until you check the other column. Strikers survive weeks like this on the understanding that the chances keep arriving; the day they stop is the day it becomes a problem.
In brief
Player ratingsSergio Barreto was on a different afternoon to everybody else