From our football correspondent
Crisis
Market12 Oct 2026
“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 The request is on a desk at Patriotas, and it is not being withdrawn.
Player ratings12 Oct 2026
Brayan Fernández, 34, rolls back the years — 8.76
There is an age at which every good afternoon gets described as a throwback, which is unfair and also accurate. 8.76 at 34, and nobody on the pitch was better.
Match10 Oct 2026
The wait goes on for Patriotas
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.
Player ratings12 Oct 2026
Successful dribbles: 24. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Player ratings12 Oct 2026
Two of the goals had his name somewhere on them, which is the afternoon a manager wants from anybody asked to both create and finish. 7.56, and 2 involvements.
Squad12 Oct 2026
Brayan Fernández 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
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Andrés Macea is 22, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
Match10 Oct 2026
6 goals. Both benches spent the second half looking at each other rather than at the pitch. Purists will complain about Patriotas and Santa Fe in equal measure; everybody else had a wonderful time.
Match10 Oct 2026
2‑4 to Santa Fe, and no complaints worth printing. The performance asked for nothing more than it got.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Player ratings5 Oct 2026
36 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.
Match3 Oct 2026
The wait goes on for Patriotas
4 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.
Squad5 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 Patriotas this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Boardroom5 Oct 2026
217% of the income goes out in wages at Patriotas
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.
Squad5 Oct 2026
Esteven Salguero 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.
Squad5 Oct 2026
“The easiest signature of my career.” Alexander Carabalí and Patriotas agree another 4 years, and the manager can plan around him rather than about him.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad28 Sep 2026
Brayan Fernández 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.
Player ratings28 Sep 2026
Successful dribbles: 20. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Squad28 Sep 2026
Words at Patriotas training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Esteven Salguero 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.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Squad21 Sep 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 Patriotas this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Player ratings21 Sep 2026
Successful dribbles: 21. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Squad21 Sep 2026
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Darwin Palomeque, and the manager let it.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Player ratings14 Sep 2026
A defender's afternoon for Freyn Macleyn
Defensive actions: 26. He was first to everything and second to nothing, and the goalkeeper had an easy day because of it.
Squad14 Sep 2026
Javier Angulo 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.
Player ratings14 Sep 2026
Successful dribbles: 19. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Squad14 Sep 2026
“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.
Squad14 Sep 2026
Words at Patriotas training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Esteven Salguero 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.
Match12 Sep 2026
The crowd waited for a goal that never came. Atletico Bucaramanga defended in numbers and left with what they came for, and the two sides could be playing still without troubling a scorer.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad7 Sep 2026
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the team. 7 saves, several of them the sort nobody expects to see stopped, and a scoreline that flatters everybody in front of him.
Player ratings7 Sep 2026
At 34 he is supposed to be managing his minutes. Instead he was marked 9.12 and looked, for ninety minutes, exactly like the player everybody remembers.
Player ratings7 Sep 2026
Successful dribbles: 26. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
Squad7 Sep 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 Patriotas this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Boardroom7 Sep 2026
Wages eat 172% of everything Patriotas 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.
Player ratings7 Sep 2026
There is a version of this player everybody suspected was in there, and on this evidence it is. 8.53, and no argument anywhere in the ground.
Squad7 Sep 2026
Esteven Salguero 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.
Player ratings7 Sep 2026
Ninety minutes of Johan Campaña at his very best
Marked 8.15. Players have careers without a single afternoon like this in them, and he has just had one in front of everybody at Patriotas.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Match29 Aug 2026
Chastening afternoon for Patriotas
A 0‑3 beating by La Equidad was the sort of result that empties a stadium long before the final whistle.
Match29 Aug 2026
No end in sight to Patriotas's wait for a win
7 matches now without a victory, and the excuses have worn thinner than the patience. Somebody at Patriotas has to find a result from somewhere.
Squad31 Aug 2026
Brayan Fernández 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.
Player ratings31 Aug 2026
Successful dribbles: 17. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Squad31 Aug 2026
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Esteven Salguero, and the manager let it.
Boardroom31 Aug 2026
The manager kept them in and said what needed saying. A response is expected on Saturday, and if it does not come the questions move upstairs.
Squad31 Aug 2026
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.
Squad31 Aug 2026
Iván Camacho dropped after a run of poor form
The one version of being left out a player cannot argue with, and the one he takes worst. Somebody else has been better and the team sheet says so, in public, every week until it changes.
Player ratings31 Aug 2026
The chances came and went for Johan Campaña
4 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.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Player ratings24 Aug 2026
Successful dribbles: 40. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Match19 Aug 2026
The cup run ends for Patriotas
0‑0 against Deportivo Cali, and the road stops here. Cup exits are quick deaths — no second leg, no next week, just the league from now until May.
Match22 Aug 2026
No end in sight to Patriotas's wait for a win
6 matches now without a victory, and the excuses have worn thinner than the patience. Somebody at Patriotas has to find a result from somewhere.
Squad24 Aug 2026
There were 6 saves in it, and at least three that had no business being saves at all. The ten outfield players owe him a drink and they know it.
Squad24 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 Patriotas this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Player ratings24 Aug 2026
Defensive actions: 21. He was first to everything and second to nothing, and the goalkeeper had an easy day because of it.
Squad24 Aug 2026
Esteven Salguero 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.
Player ratings24 Aug 2026
Twelve yards, a goalkeeper guessing, and it still did not go in. He will take the next one, and every soul in the ground will hold their breath.
Match22 Aug 2026
It finished 1‑1, and it somehow always looked like it would. One of those afternoons where the table moves less than the tempers.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad17 Aug 2026
A shoot-out is remembered by its ending, and this one ends with Juan Daniel Espitia: 4 kept out, and a set of supporters who will describe every one of them for the next twenty years.
Market17 Aug 2026
$1.9M is a serious amount of money and it does not play centre-forward. Everybody in the dressing room knows who used to be looked at when it went wrong.
Match12 Aug 2026
A 1‑1 win over Union Magdalena, a place in the next round, and the quiet arithmetic every supporter does on the walk home: how many more until a final?
The terraces17 Aug 2026
Patriotas sell a favourite for $1.9M
The accountants will call it good business and they will be right, which is not the point anybody outside the boardroom is making. Michael Nike was one of the reasons people came, and $1.9M does not replace that by itself.
Player ratings17 Aug 2026
It is a hard way to meet a crowd. Marked 5.75 on the day he was handed the shirt, and the important thing now is what the next one looks like.
Match15 Aug 2026
4 matches without a win for Patriotas
The run now stands at 4, and the questions being asked around Patriotas are no longer polite ones.
Squad17 Aug 2026
Brayan Fernández 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 terraces17 Aug 2026
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.
Squad17 Aug 2026
“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.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad10 Aug 2026
Brayan Fernández 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.
Player ratings10 Aug 2026
Successful dribbles: 22. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Squad10 Aug 2026
“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
Kevin Salazar was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.31. 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.
Market10 Aug 2026
48 months and counting on Michael Nike
Still no offer on the table, and Michael Nike’s deal keeps shrinking. In boardroom language, silence this long stops being an oversight and starts being an answer.
Squad10 Aug 2026
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.
Match8 Aug 2026
It needed Kevin Salazar to find the net to bring anything home at all: 2‑2 against Deportivo Cali, and half the dressing room will call it a point won.
Squad10 Aug 2026
Freyn Macleyn dropped after a run of poor form
The one version of being left out a player cannot argue with, and the one he takes worst. Somebody else has been better and the team sheet says so, in public, every week until it changes.
The terraces10 Aug 2026
The stands have heard the Michael Nike talk too
What was a back-page story is now a matter for the terraces, and the terraces do not do nuance. Patriotas would like it dealt with before it becomes the only question anybody asks.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Market3 Aug 2026
AEL come back empty-handed
The bid was some way short and Patriotas did not need long over it. Nobody in the game reads a first refusal as the end of anything.
Squad3 Aug 2026
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the team. 7 saves, several of them the sort nobody expects to see stopped, and a scoreline that flatters everybody in front of him.
Player ratings3 Aug 2026
No sign of nerves from Kevin Álvarez at 21 — 7.82
The hardest thing about being 21 in a senior side is that nobody makes allowances. Kevin Álvarez did not need any: 7.82, and he looked the most comfortable man on the pitch.
Squad3 Aug 2026
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Brayan Fernández and Patriotas agree another 2 years.
Squad3 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 Patriotas this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Player ratings3 Aug 2026
Successful dribbles: 22. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
Squad3 Aug 2026
“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.
Market3 Aug 2026
24 months to run and not a word offered. A club that lets the calendar negotiate for it usually ends up losing to the calendar.