Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Pachuca will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
Something was said to Adrián Alcaraz and then it happened. In this industry that passes for remarkable, and the dressing room noticed faster than any supporter could.
The dugout16 Nov 2026
Pedro Pedraza is still being punished for one mistake
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.
Pablo Barrera is 39 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.
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Sergio Barreto signs something — a contract at Pachuca or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
A conversation in the manager’s office, and a commitment that came out of it. Promises like that are cheap to make and expensive to break, and Alán Bautista has written the date down.
A new face in his position and a shirt he thought he owned suddenly up for discussion. Pachuca have promised nothing, which is what clubs promise at this stage.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Pachuca will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
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.
Veracruz left with the points after a 0‑1 defeat that will take some explaining on the terraces.
The dugout9 Nov 2026
The manager has not finished forgetting Carlos Moreno's mistake
Publicly it is behind everybody. It is not behind the man who picks the team, and the only place that shows is a team sheet. He will get another chance; he will get it in a match that matters less.
A goalkeeper’s error has no defender behind it to tidy it away. He knew before the ball crossed the line, the crowd knew a second later, and there is nothing anybody can say tonight.
“The supporters are entitled to be angry. So am I. We will put it right.” 0‑1, a manager saying the necessary things, and a dressing room that heard a different version of them.
A bone, which is the one injury with a calendar attached. Pachuca will name a return date and, unusually for this business, will probably be right about it.
2 goals, and the second was the one that settled it. Marked 8.59, and he could have had a third with better luck at the near post.
The terraces2 Nov 2026
Pachuca are taken apart by Toluca — and the town wants answers
It finished 0-3. A cup exit is a disappointment; this was a public dismantling, and the difference between the two is the number of people who will still be talking about it in August.
Minute 91, against Queretaro, and a goal that felt like a win to everybody who had stayed. It was a draw. Nobody leaving the ground will describe it as one.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 141 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
At 37 he is supposed to be managing his minutes. Instead he was marked 9.60 and looked, for ninety minutes, exactly like the player everybody remembers.
Successful dribbles: 23. 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.
6 goals in one match, Salomón Rondón on the scoresheet, and a scoreline that will look like a misprint. Neutrals could not have asked more of Pachuca and Dorados.
There is a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 22-year-old it feels ownership of. Nicolás Vallejo 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.
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.
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.
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Adrián Alcaraz, and the manager let it.
The dugout19 Oct 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 Kevin Alvarez left the room before anybody could ask which.
The shape wanted a different profile against this opponent, which is a real football answer and no comfort at all to the man it is about. He did nothing wrong and he did not play.
“If we are going to be beaten, let it not be because somebody in here could not be bothered.” He stood up and said it in front of everybody, which is a thing a squad remembers about a man for years.
Nothing in writing and nothing in public: a word about playing time, given face to face at Pachuca. The team sheets over the next month will show whether it was worth having.
At 19 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.
It happens to all of them and it is still the hardest paragraph a local paper has to write. 37 years old, 3 points down on where he was, and a body that has started charging interest on a career.
6 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.
Guadalajara next, and one man in the Pachuca dressing room knows their training ground better than his own. The reception will tell him what they thought of him.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and William Carvalho trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Pachuca have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
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.
Four weeks in which nobody in the division did his job better. The award goes on a shelf and the player goes back into the side, which is the order Pachuca prefer.
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.
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Gael Arturo Álvarez is 20, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
“We were not good enough today and I am not going to dress it up.” Kevin Alvarez after 1‑2, in the tone of a man who knows the next question and does not intend to answer it.
One weekend, judged against everybody else's. Oussama Idrissi has come out on top of it, and for most footballers a weekly award is the only silverware a career ever produces.
Squad28 Sep 2026
Words at Pachuca training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Alexis Macías 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.
He used to wear the other shirt. On Saturday he plays against Leon in this one, and whatever he says this week about it being just another game will be untrue.
Ninety specific minutes wanted a different sort of player, and the manager picked one. He is not out of form and he is not in the side, and both are true.
4 goals in one game. The first was taken well, the second was taken greedily, and by the third the crowd were simply waiting for him to get the ball.
Player ratings21 Sep 2026
Eliás Montiel, 20, plays like he has been here for years — 7.60
A mark of 7.60 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.
1 for Christian Rivera, marked 7.97, and a centre-half's name in the part of the report he normally only reaches by mistake. He will not be allowed to forget it in the dressing room for a month.
Defending was optional and nobody took up the option. 7 goals between Pachuca and Chiapas, and not one of the people who paid to be there will ask for the money back.
Brian García 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 20 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 8.58 — 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.
Two goals and a mark of 9.22 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
The fee was agreed and the flight was looked at — and then the phone stopped ringing. Puebla moved on, Jorge Berlanga reports back to Pachuca, and everybody pretends Monday is just Monday.
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.
There is no fee, no unveiling and no agent on the steps. Roberto Ochoa 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 no fee, no unveiling and no agent on the steps. Marco Arteaga 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.
Player ratings14 Sep 2026
Nicolás Vallejo was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.40. 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 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.
Boardroom7 Sep 2026
Pachuca close the window on a squad of their own making
14 in and 3 out, and no more changes for months. The manager has what he has, the supporters have their opinion of it, and the table will have the last word.
Pachuca asked and Veracruz said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
Every shape has positions in it and this one does not have his. Pachuca will either change the shape, change his job, or change his club, and he is waiting to hear which.
Jorge Berlanga 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.
6 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.
Four or five weekends of consistency, judged against everybody in the division doing his job. Alexei Dominguez has come out of that comparison in the side, and Pachuca have had the benefit of every one of those afternoons.
Cercle Brugge have accepted the money. What Pachuca do not yet have is the man, and between here and the photograph is a conversation about wages that both sides are dreading.
The last thing about a transfer that is still about the player is his signature on his own terms, and it is there. Pachuca have lost him in all but the paperwork.
The chase for Israel Reyes ended with $7.4M changing hands and Club America out of reasons to say no. The supporters will judge the fee the only way that matters: on Saturdays.
He is going to Académica, the club has $7.0M it did not have on Friday, and the phone-ins have already decided how they feel about that. Selling well and selling somebody they loved are not the same skill.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Guadalajara have kept their man, and Pachuca go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
The terraces31 Aug 2026
Pachuca spend $7.4M on the signing the town wanted
It is the rarest sequence in football: supporters ask for something, and the club goes and does it. $7.4M for Israel Reyes, and for one week nobody is complaining about anything.
Pachuca have gone to Club America 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.
The offer from Cruz Azul 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.
Player ratings24 Aug 2026
Alexei Dominguez, 21, plays like he has been here for years — 8.37
A mark of 8.37 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.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Club America have kept their man, and Pachuca go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
“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.
The number the board signed off was not enough. It has been asked again and raised its own offer to $7.8M — a club that wants Israel Reyes enough to be asked twice.
He is 21 and the ground already sings his name, which is a thing that happens to local boys and almost never to signings. Everything from here is measured against an affection he did nothing to earn except be from here.
Pachuca have gone to Club America 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.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Club America have kept their man, and Pachuca go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
The number the board signed off was not enough. It has been asked again and raised its own offer to $7.8M — a club that wants Kevin Álvarez enough to be asked twice.
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.
There is a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 20-year-old it feels ownership of. Eliás Montiel 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.
There is a version of this player everybody suspected was in there, and on this evidence it is. 8.24, and no argument anywhere in the ground.
The dugout17 Aug 2026
The view from the dugout
“We controlled it. There were spells I did not like and we will look at them, but the group showed me something.” Kevin Alvarez, on a 2‑0 win that he was already picking apart on the walk to the press room.
In brief
SquadAlexis Macías falls out with a teammate over standards
SquadA Pachuca teenager takes the young player award
The number the board signed off was not enough. It has been asked again and raised its own offer to $110.0K — a club that wants Rafael Guerrero enough to be asked twice.
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.
Pachuca offered $100.0K; Tigres 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.
The academy exists for exactly this morning. Rodolfo Sanchez 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.
There is no fee, no unveiling and no agent on the steps. Juan Marquez 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 were 85 minutes on the clock and Monterrey had all but banked the point. Football rarely reads the room, and Pachuca did not stop to explain themselves.
“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.