114 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Portuguesa lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Portuguesa they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Óscar González was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
121 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Portuguesa lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Portuguesa have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
0‑2 away to the standard of Grêmio. Nobody will pretend this was a scandal; the gap is real, it is measurable, and closing it is a project rather than a team talk.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Lautaro Lovazzano will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Portuguesa the goodbyes have quietly begun.
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.
Jonathan Cañete 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.
Clubs spend fortunes looking for players and occasionally find one down the corridor. Jose Casseres is that, and the reception he gets on his first appearance will be different in kind from the one any signing receives.
The words a physio says slowly. 129 days is what the club will announce and everybody who has heard this diagnosis before knows the number is the least of it: the knee comes back before the player does.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Portuguesa they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Edwar Bracho was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Portuguesa this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
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 words a physio says slowly. 137 days is what the club will announce and everybody who has heard this diagnosis before knows the number is the least of it: the knee comes back before the player does.
1‑2 away to the standard of Grêmio. Nobody will pretend this was a scandal; the gap is real, it is measurable, and closing it is a project rather than a team talk.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Portuguesa they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
He will play here until the summer and then walk out of the door for free, having already signed elsewhere. Supporters will manage the first part of that sentence; it is the second they will struggle with.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Óscar González was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Lautaro Lovazzano 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 words a physio says slowly. 144 days is what the club will announce and everybody who has heard this diagnosis before knows the number is the least of it: the knee comes back before the player does.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Portuguesa they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
Jonathan Cañete and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Squad19 Oct 2026
Words at Portuguesa training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Óscar González 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.
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 Ezequiel Gnemmi is on it.
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Jonathan Cañete signs something — a contract at Portuguesa or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
151 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Portuguesa lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Lautaro Lovazzano will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Portuguesa the goodbyes have quietly begun.
Jonathan Cañete 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.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Edwar Bracho was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Clubs spend fortunes looking for players and occasionally find one down the corridor. Richard Herrera 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. Salomon Rondon is that, and the reception he gets on his first appearance will be different in kind from the one any signing receives.
In brief
Squad19 new faces, and Portuguesa are still learning each other
The words a physio says slowly. 159 days is what the club will announce and everybody who has heard this diagnosis before knows the number is the least of it: the knee comes back before the player does.
0‑1 against Penarol, and an evening that measured the gap rather than the ninety minutes. Nothing about it was a disgrace and nothing about it was close.
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.
Jonathan Cañete 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 Óscar González was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
3 games without scoring. Strikers stop looking up, midfielders take the extra touch, and every shot that clears the bar is followed by a groan that has been building since the last goal.
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.
The dugout5 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 Junior Arango left the room before anybody could ask which.
166 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Portuguesa lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Portuguesa is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Portuguesa 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.
Nobody at Portuguesa 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.
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Portuguesa, and both men came out saying it was fine.
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 Ándrés González has written the date down.
3 months left, and both sides know what that means: every week without a signature, the fee Portuguesa could ask drops and the wages Lautaro Lovazzano can ask rise.
0‑2 against Deportivo Cali. Continental football is unforgiving about the things a domestic league lets a side get away with, and this was a night spent finding out which of those the club still has.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Portuguesa is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
Jonathan Cañete and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Squad21 Sep 2026
Edwar Bracho 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.
A player who expected to start watched it instead. The manager will call it a decision for the team; Ándrés González will call it something else in private.
“The supporters are entitled to be angry. So am I. We will put it right.” 0‑2, a manager saying the necessary things, and a dressing room that heard a different version of them.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Lautaro Lovazzano will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Portuguesa the goodbyes have quietly begun.
Squad14 Sep 2026
Words at Portuguesa training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Óscar González 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.
There is no fee, no unveiling and no agent on the steps. Salomon Rondon 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.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Johan Moreno trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
Nobody at Portuguesa 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.
“We keep meeting, and we keep leaving the room with the same numbers we walked in with.” Another round of talks at Portuguesa, another week without a signature from José Pérez.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Óscar González was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Portuguesa this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad7 Sep 2026
19 new faces, and Portuguesa 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.
“We keep meeting, and we keep leaving the room with the same numbers we walked in with.” Another round of talks at Portuguesa, another week without a signature from Lautaro Lovazzano.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Portuguesa is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
The rules permit it and it stings anyway. José Pérez has agreed terms with Estudiantes de Caracas for the summer, and until then he pulls on this shirt as a player who has already chosen his next one.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Portuguesa 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 Edwar Bracho 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.
4 months left, and both sides know what that means: every week without a signature, the fee Portuguesa could ask drops and the wages Lautaro Lovazzano can ask rise.
He looks like a man who lives here now rather than one who is working here. It took most of a season, and at Portuguesa the difference is visible from the back of the stand.
Everything was agreed until it was not, and Jonathan Cañete reports back to Portuguesa with a summer to forget. Neither club is saying who walked away from the table.
Jonathan Cañete and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Squad24 Aug 2026
Words at Portuguesa training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Óscar González 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 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.
The dugout24 Aug 2026
The view from the dugout
“We will look at it, we will learn from it, and we go again.” The three sentences every manager keeps for a 0‑1 defeat, delivered by Junior Arango to a room that had heard them before.
At 34 he is supposed to be managing his minutes. Instead he was marked 9.86 and looked, for ninety minutes, exactly like the player everybody remembers.
Player ratings17 Aug 2026
Emanuel Lucena, 20, plays like he has been here for years — 7.83
A mark of 7.83 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.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Álbaro Polo will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Portuguesa the goodbyes have quietly begun.
Jonathan Cañete 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.
3‑0, and the margin flattered nobody — it could have carried another goal or two without complaint. Afternoons like this are why people keep coming.
Player ratings10 Aug 2026
A brace, and Rubén Rojas takes the afternoon — 9.84
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Rubén Rojas provided it, and the 9.84 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Portuguesa they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
The phone has started ringing about Jonathan Cañete again, and this time the name on the line is Ventforet Kofu. Portuguesa are listening politely and promising nothing.
There is no worse way to lose a footballer. Lautaro Lovazzano has pre-agreed a move away, which means every appearance between now and June is made by a man the club can no longer sell, and somebody upstairs will be asked why the contract was allowed to get here.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Portuguesa 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 Edwar Bracho was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Clubs spend fortunes looking for players and occasionally find one down the corridor. Victor Murillo is that, and the reception he gets on his first appearance will be different in kind from the one any signing receives.
At 34 he is supposed to be managing his minutes. Instead he was marked 10.00 and looked, for ninety minutes, exactly like the player everybody remembers.
Jonathan Cañete 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.
11 goals in one match, Rubén Rojas on the scoresheet, and a scoreline that will look like a misprint. Neutrals could not have asked more of Portuguesa and Estudiantes de Caracas.
Player ratings3 Aug 2026
Moisés Acuña was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.08. 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.