0‑4 against Guadalajara, and no complaints that would survive the replay. The manager spoke about character afterwards; the terraces used shorter words.
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Franco Fagúndez and Santos Laguna agree another 4 years.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Carlos Gruezo 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.
Santos Laguna 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.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the whole of the defence. 8 saves, several of them the kind nobody expects to see made, and ten outfield players who owe him a drink.
Successful dribbles: 24. 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.
Squad30 Jul 2029
Carlos Gruezo 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.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Guadalajara have kept their man, and Santos Laguna go back to a list with one name crossed off 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 Santos Laguna this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Fernando Ovelar and Santos Laguna agree another 4 years.
The dugout30 Jul 2029
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 Corona left the room before anybody could ask which.
The last thing about a transfer that is still about the player is his signature on his own terms, and it is there. Santos Laguna have lost him in all but the paperwork.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Santos Laguna have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Carlos Acevedo 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 boys move up, and somewhere in the building the people who coached them at twelve are quietly having the best morning of their working year. Nothing about this shows up in a result and it is why the academy exists.
There is no fee, no unveiling and no agent on the steps. Francisco Moreno 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.
Clubs spend fortunes looking for players and occasionally find one down the corridor. Santiago Montes 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. Erick Rodriguez 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.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Máximo Reyes will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Santos Laguna the goodbyes have quietly begun.
Alex Alcalá 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.
Squad16 Jul 2029
Carlos Gruezo 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.
The paperwork is done long before the player is. Paolo Medina has agreed terms to come here when his current deal runs out, which means Santos Laguna have spent a summer's transfer budget on a phone call.
Nobody at Santos Laguna 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.
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.
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.
Every shape has positions in it and this one does not have his. Santos Laguna will either change the shape, change his job, or change his club, and he is waiting to hear which.
14 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.
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Santos Laguna, and both men came out saying it was fine.
“We keep meeting, and we keep leaving the room with the same numbers we walked in with.” Another round of talks at Santos Laguna, another week without a signature from Tahiel Jiménez.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Ángel Tecpanécatl 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 Santos Laguna this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Every shape has positions in it and this one does not have his. Santos Laguna will either change the shape, change his job, or change his club, and he is waiting to hear which.
The demotion a club never announces and a dressing room always notices. Tahiel Jiménez is further from the side than he was, and the reason will not be given until he asks.
7 arrivals, an average age nobody would call a squad, and a set of parents being shown around a building their sons will spend more time in than at home. The scouting has already happened; today is only the paperwork.
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Santos Laguna, and both men came out saying it was fine.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Omar Mireles was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
“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 Santos Laguna, and it is not being withdrawn.
The offer was not close and it was refused without much discussion. Whether the second one is refused as quickly is another matter.
Squad25 Jun 2029
Carlos Gruezo 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.
Jesús Serrato 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.
Every shape has positions in it and this one does not have his. Santos Laguna will either change the shape, change his job, or change his club, and he is waiting to hear which.
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 Carlos Acevedo is on it.
Another week, another link, another denial nobody quite believes. Santos Laguna know the market decides these things, not the back pages — but the back pages are louder.
Nothing in writing and nothing in public: a word about playing time, given face to face at Santos Laguna. The team sheets over the next month will show whether it was worth having.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Santos Laguna they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
Some transfers need a press campaign. This one needed a shirt with the old number on it. Kevin Ocejo is a Santos Laguna player again, and the town has its story of the summer.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Santos Laguna 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 Carlos Gruezo was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Santos Laguna have made the call to Godoy Cruz. No fee, a share of the wages, and a spare shirt in the position where the squad has been thinnest all season.
Santos Laguna have made the call to Puebla. No fee, a share of the wages, and a spare shirt in the position where the squad has been thinnest all season.
Nobody at Santos Laguna 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.
19 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Santos Laguna lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
The deal with Veracruz is done in every sense but the one that puts him on the pitch. Nothing goes wrong at this stage, except on the occasions when it does.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Pachuca have kept their man, and Santos Laguna go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
$190.0K on the table at Guadalajara. The manager wanted him, the board agreed a number, and the only voices still to be heard are the ones at the other club.
Footballers are asked about their boyhood club so often that nobody listens to the answer. David Osuna has just signed for Santos Laguna, and for once the answer mattered.
Cruz Azul paid $28.0K and Santos Laguna took it, which is the whole story in one sentence. The longer version involves a wage budget and will be told all season.
26 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Santos Laguna lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
A medical, a signature, a shirt held up in front of a sponsor’s board. Santos Laguna have done the hard part with Tijuana, and the part that remains is the part supporters actually see.
Carlos Acevedo 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.
There is a version of every career where the player ends up somewhere he chose rather than somewhere that chose him. Jean Paul Angulo is living that version at Santos Laguna, and it tends to show in the first month.
Squad4 Jun 2029
Carlos Gruezo 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.
Santos Laguna asked and Toluca 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 was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Santos Laguna this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
33 games, 11 goals, and a squad option that has arrived without a fee attached. The interesting question at Santos Laguna now is not whether he plays but who he displaces.
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 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.
Nobody at Santos Laguna 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.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Máximo Reyes will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Santos Laguna the goodbyes have quietly begun.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Santos Laguna this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Aldo López trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
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 Michell Rodríguez is on it.
Ezequiel Bullaude 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.
34 appearances at Pachuca and the goals have stopped going in. Santos Laguna lent out a goalkeeper and are watching somebody else’s season get better every week.
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 Bullaude is on 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 Santos Laguna, and both men came out saying it was fine.
Squad14 May 2029
Words at Santos Laguna training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Julian Vazquez 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.
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 Iván Tona has written the date down.
Numbers do not stay secret in a dressing room and never have. He is not asking for more than he is worth; he is asking why somebody beside him is worth more, and at Santos Laguna that is a harder question to answer.
“Judge me on him.” Managers do not say that kind of thing by accident — it moves the pressure from Joe Scally’s shoulders onto his own, and both of them know it.
In brief
SquadJoe Scally is the talk of the training ground
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Brian García and Santos Laguna agree another 3 years.
“65 caps was 65 more than the boy who started ever expected.” At 34 he has stepped away from the national side and has not stepped away from Santos Laguna.
Nobody at Santos Laguna 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 will be explained as a change for the team and it may even be one. Nobody who has worn one believes that, and neither does the man who has just had it taken away.
It is the most legitimate ambition in the sport and the hardest for most clubs to satisfy. Ezequiel Bullaude wants continental football; whether Santos Laguna 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 Santos Laguna 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.
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 Aldo López has written the date down.
The shrug has gone, the language is coming, and he now argues in training like somebody who expects to be here next year. Half a signing's value is this and none of it appears on a fee.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Santos Laguna have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Santos Laguna is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
Carlos Acevedo 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.
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Lucas Di Yorio, and the manager let it.
Squad23 Apr 2029
Words at Santos Laguna training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Julian Vazquez 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.
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.
Carlos Acevedo 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.
14 shut-outs in 34 games. A goalkeeper’s loan is judged on the afternoons when nothing happened at all, and Héctor Holguín has been having a lot of them.
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.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Ángel Tecpanécatl was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Numbers do not stay secret in a dressing room and never have. He is not asking for more than he is worth; he is asking why somebody beside him is worth more, and at Santos Laguna that is a harder question to answer.
Nothing in writing and nothing in public: a word about playing time, given face to face at Santos Laguna. The team sheets over the next month will show whether it was worth having.
The message was aimed at the stands as much as the dressing room: Ezequiel Bullaude plays, and the argument is closed until the manager decides otherwise.
In brief
SquadThe selectors could not leave Franco Pardo out
Position 8 on 50 points. Every season is a story and this is the last line of it, and now the club has three months to decide what the next one is about.
There is a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 23-year-old it feels ownership of. Alex Valencia 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.
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Ralph Orquin. 2‑0 against Chiapas, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
Marked 8.12. Players have careers without a single afternoon like this in them, and he has just had one in front of everybody at Santos Laguna.
Player ratings9 Apr 2029
Franco Pardo was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.04. 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.
Sebastián Santos 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.
“I was told straight, and I would rather have it straight.” The manager at Santos Laguna has been clear about where Aldo López stands, which is more than many ever get.
The ambition story running backwards, and the one nobody tells: a footballer who wants a smaller ground, fewer cameras and a crowd that does not turn. It is not weakness and it is rarely reported as anything else.
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Santos Laguna, and both men came out saying it was fine.
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 Alex Valencia is on it.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Santos Laguna they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
Ezequiel Bullaude 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.
Beaten 0‑1, and beaten fairly. The manager kept his words short afterwards, which was probably wise.
The dugout26 Mar 2029
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 Corona left the room before anybody could ask which.
Squad26 Mar 2029
Words at Santos Laguna training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Ángel Tecpanécatl 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 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.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Aldo López trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
Alexis Gutiérrez 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.
32 appearances at Pachuca and the goals have stopped going in. Santos Laguna lent out a goalkeeper and are watching somebody else’s season get better every week.
7 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.
Nobody at Santos Laguna 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.
“There are things I liked and things we will be doing on Tuesday until they are right.” 0‑0, and a manager who had already decided what Tuesday looked like.
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.
Ninety minutes, no goals, and the argument started before the car park emptied: a point gained, or two thrown away against Pachuca? Both sides of it will still be going on Thursday.
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 7.73 for the rest of it.
13 shut-outs in 31 games. A goalkeeper’s loan is judged on the afternoons when nothing happened at all, and Héctor Holguín has been having a lot of them.
“The easiest signature of my career.” Julian Vazquez and Santos Laguna agree another 3 years, and the manager can plan around him rather than about him.
The dugout12 Mar 2029
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 Corona, on a 1‑0 win that he was already picking apart on the walk to the press room.
In brief
The dugoutCarlos Acevedo has become a man the manager trusts
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Santos Laguna have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Santos Laguna this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
12 clean sheets from 30 appearances at Pachuca. That is the whole of a goalkeeper’s job done properly, and it is being done a long way from the club that owns him.
“We were not good enough today and I am not going to dress it up.” Kevin Corona after 0‑2, in the tone of a man who knows the next question and does not intend to answer it.
A month is long enough that nobody gets in by accident. Carlos Acevedo is in the division's best eleven for it, which is a quieter compliment than an award and a more reliable one.
In brief
SquadWords at Santos Laguna training over how hard people work
At 33 he is supposed to be managing his minutes. Instead he was marked 8.01 and looked, for ninety minutes, exactly like the player everybody remembers.
It is not a grievance and it is not a demand: he wants to play continental football, and he has stopped hiding it. Whether Santos Laguna can give him that is a question about the club, not about him.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Santos Laguna they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
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.
Carlos Acevedo 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.
100 games in this shirt, through managers and relegations and everything else. Service like it is disappearing from the game and the crowd knows what it is watching.
29 appearances at Pachuca and the goals have stopped going in. Santos Laguna lent out a goalkeeper and are watching somebody else’s season get better every week.
Carlos Acevedo 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.
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Alexis Gutiérrez. 2‑0 against Monterrey, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
Squad19 Feb 2029
Tomás Sives 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.
Marked 8.12 — 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.
28 appearances at Pachuca and the goals have stopped going in. Santos Laguna lent out a goalkeeper and are watching somebody else’s season get better every week.
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.
“The players deserve the credit. My job was easy today.” It was not, and everybody in the room knew it; after 2‑0, Kevin Corona could afford to be generous.
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.
“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 Santos Laguna, and it is not being withdrawn.
The deal that would have taken Alex Valencia to Puebla has collapsed at the last stage, and he reports back to Santos Laguna with a summer to forget and a season still to play. Nobody is saying which side walked away.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Guadalajara have kept their man, and Santos Laguna go back to a list with one name crossed off 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 Santos Laguna 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 Tomás Sives was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
The clubs have settled the fee and he has settled his wages. What remains is a medical and a photograph, and around Santos Laguna people have started saying his name in the past tense.
The deadline has passed and the squad is the squad. 6 arrived, 1 left, and everything else printed about this club last month was a rumour that stayed 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 Santos Laguna this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Monterrey have kept their man, and Santos Laguna go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
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.
Squad5 Feb 2029
Words at Santos Laguna training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Erick Aguirre 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.
Atlas will want this one forgotten quickly: 4‑1, every duel lost, and a long ride home. Santos Laguna were ruthless in the way good sides are ruthless.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Santos Laguna can pretend not to have heard.
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Ezequiel Bullaude provided it, and the 8.18 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Santos Laguna is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
Alexis Gutiérrez 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 8.12 — 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.
Player ratings29 Jan 2029
Adrián Alcaraz was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.15. 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.
In brief
Player ratingsRalph Orquin beats them one at a time
SquadErick Aguirre falls out with a teammate over standards
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the whole of the defence. 7 saves, several of them the kind nobody expects to see made, and ten outfield players who owe him a drink.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Monterrey have kept their man, and Santos Laguna go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Alexis Gutiérrez was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Brian García 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.
“We were not good enough today and I am not going to dress it up.” Kevin Corona after 0‑2, in the tone of a man who knows the next question and does not intend to answer it.
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.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Santos Laguna can pretend not to have heard.
The chase for Miguel Carreón ended with $1.0M changing hands and Club America out of reasons to say no. The supporters will judge the fee the only way that matters: on Saturdays.
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.
The name of Alex Valencia has come up in conversations Santos Laguna were not part of. Nothing formal, nothing signed — but nothing about it accidental either.
Santos Laguna asked and Guadalajara said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Alexis Gutiérrez was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
“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 Santos Laguna, and it is not being withdrawn.
Centre-halves are allowed forward twice a season and are judged on what they do when they get there. Sebastián Santos scored, was marked 7.88, and got back before anybody noticed he had gone.
Every footballer has an answer to the question about his boyhood club, and most of them never get to act on it. Brian García has, at Santos Laguna, and the first month will show what that does to a man.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Santos Laguna this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Dorados have kept their man, and Santos Laguna go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Máximo Reyes will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Santos Laguna the goodbyes have quietly begun.
Carlos Acevedo 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.
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 is the most legitimate ambition in the sport and the hardest for most clubs to satisfy. Ezequiel Bullaude wants continental football; whether Santos Laguna can provide it is a question about the next two seasons, not 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.
It needed Ezequiel Bullaude to find the net to bring anything home at all: 1‑1 against Guadalajara, and half the dressing room will call it a point won.
The dugout25 Dec 2028
The manager’s verdict
“I am frustrated, honestly. We did enough to win and we did not win.” Kevin Corona was not hiding it after 1‑1, and nobody in the Santos Laguna dressing room was either.
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Santos Laguna, and both men came out saying it was fine.
Nobody makes a documentary about a hamstring and everybody in the game fears one. Santos Laguna will be careful with the return date, because the second one is always worse than the first.
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.
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Miguel Vega and Santos Laguna agree another 4 years.
The dugout18 Dec 2028
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 1‑3 defeat, delivered by Kevin Corona to a room that had heard them before.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Santos Laguna this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
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.
Beaten 0‑1, and beaten fairly. The manager kept his words short afterwards, which was probably wise.
The dugout11 Dec 2028
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 Corona left the room before anybody could ask which.
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 Alex Valencia is on it.
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.
304 appearances across 15 seasons in one shirt. Nobody builds a career like that on purpose any more; it happens to a certain kind of footballer at a certain kind of club.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Máximo Reyes will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Santos Laguna the goodbyes have quietly begun.
Alexis Gutiérrez 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.
Four or five weekends of consistency, judged against everybody in the division doing his job. Carlos Acevedo has come out of that comparison in the side, and Santos Laguna have had the benefit of every one of those afternoons.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Santos Laguna can pretend not to have heard.
Alexis Gutiérrez 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.
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.
In brief
The dugoutHalf-satisfied: Kevin Corona on the draw
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.
Morelia next, and one man in the Santos Laguna dressing room knows their training ground better than his own. The reception will tell him what they thought of him.
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.
The least glamorous thing a foreign signing ever does and the one that decides most of them. A player who can hear the shout behind him is a different footballer from one who cannot.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Santos Laguna this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
“We earned that. I asked them for a reaction and I got one, and now I want the same again on Saturday.” Kevin Corona on a 1‑0 afternoon that pleased him more than he was prepared to show.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Lucas Di Yorio trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
2 kept out in the shoot-out, and a stadium that will still be describing them in twenty years. A goalkeeper only needs one of these to be remembered forever.
Ninety minutes of very little, and then everything at once. The winner arrived in the 85th, and Puebla spent what remained of the match appealing to the referee rather than chasing the ball.
Centre-halves are allowed forward twice a season and are judged on what they do when they get there. Alexis Gutiérrez scored, was marked 7.96, and got back before anybody noticed he had gone.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Santos Laguna 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 Santos Laguna this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Carlos Acevedo 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.
200 games in this shirt, through managers and relegations and everything else. Service like it is disappearing from the game and the crowd knows what it is watching.
Level with 92 minutes on the clock, after an afternoon Santos Laguna had all but put away. Tijuana will call it a point earned; the home dressing room will call it two given away, and both of them are right.
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.
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 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.
Successful dribbles: 15. 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.
Nobody at Santos Laguna 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.
“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.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Santos Laguna this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
The ambition story running the other way, and the one nobody tells: a footballer asking for a smaller stage, fewer cameras and a crowd that does not turn. It is not weakness and it is very rarely reported as anything else.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Alexis Gutiérrez trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
Cruz Azul next, and one man in the Santos Laguna dressing room knows their training ground better than his own. The reception will tell him what they thought of him.
Nobody at Santos Laguna 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 year in and the city has not opened up, the language has not come, and lunch is eaten alone more often than anybody at Santos Laguna would admit. It shows on Saturdays.
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 Fernando Ovelar has written the date down.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Santos Laguna they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
Alexis Gutiérrez 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 chances are being made and something is happening between the making and the finishing. 3 matches now, and the anxiety in the ground arrives a little earlier every week.
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.
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.
12 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.
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.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Santos Laguna have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Carlos Acevedo 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.
Nobody at Santos Laguna 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.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Santos Laguna can pretend not to have heard.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the whole of the defence. 7 saves, several of them the kind nobody expects to see made, and ten outfield players who owe him a drink.
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.
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Franco Fagúndez provided it, and the 8.58 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Franco Fagúndez. 2‑1 against Atlas, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
Sebastián Santos 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.
“I was told straight, and I would rather have it straight.” The manager at Santos Laguna has been clear about where Aldo López stands, which is more than many ever get.
The new man at Santos Laguna has worked with Ángel Estrada before and it went well. He arrives with a view of the player already formed, which is worth more than any pre-season.
“We earned that. I asked them for a reaction and I got one, and now I want the same again on Saturday.” Kevin Corona on a 2‑1 afternoon that pleased him more than he was prepared to show.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Santos Laguna they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
Carlos Acevedo 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.
A deal that was a phone call from completion at lunchtime was dead by midnight. Santos Laguna will try again when the window opens; Toluca may not be selling by then.
Squad11 Sep 2028
13 new faces, and Santos Laguna 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 new man at Santos Laguna has worked with Ángel Estrada before and it went well. He arrives with a view of the player already formed, which is worth more than any pre-season.
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 Carlos Acevedo is on it.
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.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the whole of the defence. 10 saves, several of them the kind nobody expects to see made, and ten outfield players who owe him a drink.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Santos Laguna can pretend not to have heard.
Santos Laguna and Toluca have settled on $550.0K. The rest belongs to the player and his agent, and a supporter who has watched one of these before knows not to buy the shirt yet.
The deadline has passed and the squad is the squad. 19 arrived, 19 left, and everything else printed about this club last month was a rumour that stayed one.
Alexis Gutiérrez 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.
Santos Laguna asked and Monterrey said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
The new man at Santos Laguna has worked with Ángel Estrada before and it went well. He arrives with a view of the player already formed, which is worth more than any pre-season.
The captaincy has been taken off Ezequiel Bullaude. Santos Laguna will call it a decision about the team; a dressing room reads it as a verdict on a man.
He is 32, he is from here, and the shirt he was raised to wear has gone to somebody bought for it. The academy staff have noticed, and so has the town.
“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 Santos Laguna, and it is not being withdrawn.
Tigres paid $1.0M and Santos Laguna took it, which is the whole story in one sentence. The longer version involves a wage budget and will be told all season.
Toluca wanted more than $530.0K and the board would not go there. Walked away, for now, which in a transfer window means until somebody blinks.
Squad28 Aug 2028
Joe Scally 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.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Santos Laguna this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
“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 Santos Laguna, and it is not being withdrawn.
It is not a grievance and it is not a demand: he wants to play continental football, and he has stopped hiding it. Whether Santos Laguna can give him that is a question about the club, not about him.
$530.0K on the table at Toluca. The manager wanted him, the board agreed a number, and the only voices still to be heard are the ones at the other club.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Joe Scally was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Santos Laguna they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
A medical, a signature, a shirt held up in front of a sponsor’s board. Santos Laguna have done the hard part with Veracruz, and the part that remains is the part supporters actually see.
Carlos Acevedo 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 now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Toluca have kept their man, and Santos Laguna go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
Behind, and beaten by any honest reading, until minute 88. Dorados had the points in their pocket and a corner of the ground still believed, which is generally when it happens.
“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 Aug 2028
11 new faces, and Santos Laguna 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.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the whole of the defence. 12 saves, several of them the kind nobody expects to see made, and ten outfield players who owe him a drink.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Santos Laguna have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
The offer from Toluca for Ricardo Echeverría 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.
Carlos Acevedo 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.
Squad7 Aug 2028
Words at Santos Laguna training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Joe Scally 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.
Santos Laguna asked and Tijuana said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
The demotion a club never announces and a dressing room always notices. Tomás Sives is further from the side than he was, and the reason will not be given until he asks.
The clubs have settled the fee and he has settled his wages. What remains is a medical and a photograph, and around Santos Laguna people have started saying his name in the past tense.
Squad31 Jul 2028
Joe Scally 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.
Morelia will keep picking him until June and will get nothing for him after it. Iván Tona has pre-agreed a move to Santos Laguna, and the only people who lose in that arrangement are the ones who let the contract run down.
Sebastián Santos 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.
Santos Laguna asked and Monterrey said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
“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.
“I have done everything asked of me in training and it has not changed a thing on a Saturday.” The most familiar complaint in football, and one Santos Laguna will have to answer with minutes or with a transfer.
Monterrey paid $6.2M and Santos Laguna took it, which is the whole story in one sentence. The longer version involves a wage budget and will be told all season.
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.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Pumas UNAM have kept their man, and Santos Laguna go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
The academy exists for exactly this morning. Hugo Herrera 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.
The clubs have settled the fee and he has settled his wages. What remains is a medical and a photograph, and around Santos Laguna people have started saying his name in the past tense.
The fee is $970.0K, the contract is signed, and the argument about whether he is worth it can begin. Pachuca drove a hard bargain; time will say who won it.
The chase for Fernando Ovelar ended with $800.0K changing hands and Pachuca out of reasons to say no. The supporters will judge the fee the only way that matters: on Saturdays.
The deal with Leon is done in every sense but the one that puts him on the pitch. Nothing goes wrong at this stage, except on the occasions when it does.
$580.0K was the most the club would pay and Club America 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.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Santos Laguna this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad17 Jul 2028
Joe Scally 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.
Santos Laguna have made the call to Pumas UNAM. No fee, a share of the wages, and a spare shirt in the position where the squad has been thinnest all season.
The clubs have shaken hands with Pachuca; the player has not yet. Personal terms are next, and personal terms are where more deals die than anybody prints.
“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 Santos Laguna, and it is not being withdrawn.
The offer went to Pachuca 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.
The chase for Jorge Hernández ended with $730.0K changing hands and Tijuana out of reasons to say no. The supporters will judge the fee the only way that matters: on Saturdays.
Santos Laguna 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.
Squad10 Jul 2028
Words at Santos Laguna training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Joe Scally 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.
Alexis Gutiérrez 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 now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Pumas UNAM have kept their man, and Santos Laguna go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
The last thing about a transfer that is still about the player is his signature on his own terms, and it is there. Santos Laguna have lost him in all but the paperwork.
$730.0K on the table at Tijuana. The manager wanted him, the board agreed a number, and the only voices still to be heard are the ones at the other club.
Terms were offered and declined. Whether it was the wages, the role or the town, nobody at Pumas UNAM is saying, and nobody at Santos Laguna is enjoying the guessing.
The offer went to Cruz Azul 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.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Santos Laguna this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Santos Laguna asked and Guadalajara said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Joe Scally was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Santos Laguna asked and Pachuca said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
He is not being dropped. There is simply nowhere in the formation Santos Laguna are playing to put a man who does what he does, which is a harder thing to be told than any team sheet.
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Carlos Acevedo signs something — a contract at Santos Laguna or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
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 Alex Valencia is on it.
The offer from Chiapas for Haret Ortega 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.
Fee agreed, wages agreed, and Pachuca waiting with a shirt. Nobody at Santos Laguna is pretending otherwise, and the supporters have stopped asking whether and started asking when.
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.
Club America paid $1.6M and Santos Laguna took it, which is the whole story in one sentence. The longer version involves a wage budget and will be told all season.
Carlos Acevedo 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.
Santos Laguna offered $160.0K; Cruz Azul 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.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Toluca have kept their man, and Santos Laguna go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
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.
Squad19 Jun 2028
Words at Santos Laguna training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Ricardo Echeverría 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.
Atlas paid $880.0K and Santos Laguna 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: Club America have asked the question everybody in the game has been asking about Kevin Palacios. The answer from Santos Laguna has not changed — yet.
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 Bullaude is on it.
In brief
The dugoutHaret Ortega knocks on the manager’s door
A bone, which is the one injury with a calendar attached. Santos Laguna will name a return date and, unusually for this business, will probably be right about it.
Fee agreed, wages agreed, and Cruz Azul waiting with a shirt. Nobody at Santos Laguna is pretending otherwise, and the supporters have stopped asking whether and started asking when.
The phone has started ringing about Tahiel Jiménez again, and this time the name on the line is Chiapas. Santos Laguna are listening politely and promising nothing.
Everything agreed with Tigres, everything agreed with the player; a doctor is the only person left to persuade. The photograph is a day or two away.
Squad5 Jun 2028
Joe Scally 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.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Pumas UNAM have kept their man, and Santos Laguna go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
Tahiel Jiménez 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.
A bone, which is the one injury with a calendar attached. Santos Laguna will name a return date and, unusually for this business, will probably be right about it.
200 games in this shirt, through managers and relegations and everything else. Service like it is disappearing from the game and the crowd knows what it is watching.
He found out with everybody else, an hour before kick-off, from a sheet of paper on a wall. Nobody at Santos Laguna pretended it was anything other than a decision about him.
He won it back and then made something of it, which is two jobs and the reason the scoreline looks the way it does. 9 combined actions and a mark of 6.90, and not one of them will make a highlights package.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Mauricio Cuevas was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
“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.
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.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Santos Laguna will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Santos Laguna have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Santos Laguna this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
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 Carlos Acevedo is on it.
Squad22 May 2028
Javier Güemez 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.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Franco Pardo trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 112 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Santos Laguna, and both men came out saying it was fine.
Nobody at Santos Laguna 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 was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Santos Laguna this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
5 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.
Four or five weekends of consistency, judged against everybody in the division doing his job. Thiago Espinosa has come out of that comparison in the side, and Santos Laguna have had the benefit of every one of those afternoons.
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 Bullaude is on it.
“We keep meeting, and we keep leaving the room with the same numbers we walked in with.” Another round of talks at Santos Laguna, another week without a signature from José Javier Abella.
“The manager did not use many words, and he did not need to.” Haret Ortega has his answer from Santos Laguna; what he does with it is the next window’s story.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Javier Güemez was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
It will be explained as a change for the team and it may even be one. Nobody who has worn one believes that, and neither does the man who has just had it taken away.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Haret Ortega trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
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.
Not a new contract, not a new number: a new place in the manager’s thinking, which is the only promotion in football that actually matters. Diego Medina has moved up it.
Carlos Acevedo 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.
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 Carlos Acevedo is on it.
Nothing in writing and nothing in public: a word about playing time, given face to face at Santos Laguna. The team sheets over the next month will show whether it was worth having.
The shrug has gone, the language is coming, and he now argues in training like somebody who expects to be here next year. Half a signing's value is this and none of it appears on a fee.
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 is not much of a headline and it is the reason players believe the next promise. Santos Laguna told Thiago Espinosa something would happen and then it happened, which in this industry passes for remarkable.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Javier Güemez 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.
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Santos Laguna, and both men came out saying it was fine.
“I have done everything asked of me in training and it has not changed a thing on a Saturday.” The most familiar complaint in football, and one Santos Laguna will have to answer with minutes or with a transfer.
He looks like a man who lives here now rather than one who is working here. It took most of a season, and at Santos Laguna the difference is visible from the back of the stand.
Position 12 on 40 points. Every season is a story and this is the last line of it, and now the club has three months to decide what the next one is about.
He is 23 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.
5 without a win is the sort of run that changes how a town talks about its club, and Chiapas were the afternoon it stopped. Nothing is fixed by one result and everything feels different by one.
Player ratings10 Apr 2028
Thiago Espinosa was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.49. 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.
Marked 8.22 — 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.
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.
The dugout10 Apr 2028
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 Corona, on a 2‑0 win that he was already picking apart on the walk to the press room.
Carlos Gruezo 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 demotion a club never announces and a dressing room always notices. Eduardo Aguirre is further from the side than he was, and the reason will not be given until he asks.
Four or five weekends of consistency, judged against everybody in the division doing his job. Thiago Espinosa has come out of that comparison in the side, and Santos Laguna have had the benefit of every one of those afternoons.
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Santos Laguna, and both men came out saying it was fine.
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.
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Anthony Lozano, and the manager let it.
Squad27 Mar 2028
Javier Güemez 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.
César Lugo 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.
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 Carlos Acevedo is on it.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Eduardo Aguirre trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
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 Kevin Picón has written the date down.
A shoot-out is remembered by its ending, and this one ends with Carlos Acevedo: 2 kept out, and a set of supporters who will describe every one of them for the next twenty years.
Carlos Acevedo 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 goal that put Pachuca ahead was still being replayed on the concourse when Santos Laguna equalised, 1 minutes later. Leads are only worth what you do with them.
It is the most legitimate ambition in the sport and the hardest for most clubs to satisfy. Carlos Gruezo wants continental football; whether Santos Laguna can provide it is a question about the next two seasons, not about him.
11 combined actions and 6.89. The job he did is the one that shows up as other people looking good, and the only reliable way to notice it is to watch what happens on the afternoons he is missing.
Player ratings13 Mar 2028
Diego Medina was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.14. 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.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Santos Laguna this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
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.
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.
Two goals and a mark of 8.18 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
7 goals. Both benches spent the second half looking at each other rather than at the pitch. Purists will complain about Santos Laguna and Tijuana in equal measure; everybody else had a wonderful time.
He is 23 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.
“We earned that. I asked them for a reaction and I got one, and now I want the same again on Saturday.” Kevin Corona on a 1‑0 afternoon that pleased him more than he was prepared to show.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Aldo López trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
The words a physio says slowly. 20 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.
A bone, which is the one injury with a calendar attached. Santos Laguna will name a return date and, unusually for this business, will probably be right about it.
“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.
Nobody at Santos Laguna 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.
The words a physio says slowly. 27 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.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 25 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
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 is the most legitimate ambition in the sport and the hardest for most clubs to satisfy. Ezequiel Bullaude wants continental football; whether Santos Laguna can provide it is a question about the next two seasons, not about him.
“We were not good enough today and I am not going to dress it up.” Kevin Corona after 1‑2, in the tone of a man who knows the next question and does not intend to answer it.
The ambition story running the other way, and the one nobody tells: a footballer asking for a smaller stage, fewer cameras and a crowd that does not turn. It is not weakness and it is very rarely reported as anything else.
34 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Santos Laguna lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Santos Laguna will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
14 seasons and 276 appearances, all of them here. Careers like this are not designed; they happen to a certain kind of man at a certain kind of club, and this town has one.
Everything was agreed until it was not, and Pedro Aquino reports back to Santos Laguna with a summer to forget. Neither club is saying who walked away from the table.
Boardroom7 Feb 2028
Deadline passes with 1 signed and 6 gone
That is the business done at Santos Laguna until the window opens again. Whether it was enough will be answered on Saturdays rather than in a column, and the first Saturday is close.
42 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Santos Laguna lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 41 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
16 home matches unbeaten. Visiting sides arrive already talking about the atmosphere, which is usually the sign that they have half-lost before kickoff.
Centre-halves are allowed forward twice a season and are judged on what they do when they get there. Aldo López scored, was marked 7.63, and got back before anybody noticed he had gone.
Carlos Acevedo 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.
There is a version of every career where the player ends up somewhere he chose rather than somewhere that chose him. César Lugo is living that version at Santos Laguna, and it tends to show in the first month.
Marked 7.22 on 11 actions at both ends of the pitch. Midfielders like this get described as unspectacular by people who have never tried to play against one.
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Santos Laguna, and both men came out saying it was fine.
50 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Santos Laguna lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
A bone, which is the one injury with a calendar attached. Santos Laguna will name a return date and, unusually for this business, will probably be right about it.
15 without defeat on their own grass. The pitch has not changed; the crowd has — louder earlier, and quicker to sense when the opposition would rather be somewhere else.
The offer from Monterrey for Pedro Aquino 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.
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. 59 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.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Santos Laguna will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
Add another name to the list: Monterrey have asked the question everybody in the game has been asking about Pedro Aquino. The answer from Santos Laguna has not changed — yet.
Santos Laguna asked and Penarol said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
The ambition story running the other way, and the one nobody tells: a footballer asking for a smaller stage, fewer cameras and a crowd that does not turn. It is not weakness and it is very rarely reported as anything else.
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.
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.
66 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Santos Laguna lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
A bone, which is the one injury with a calendar attached. Santos Laguna will name a return date and, unusually for this business, will probably be right about it.
There were 88 minutes on the clock and Club America had all but banked the point. Football rarely reads the room, and Santos Laguna did not stop to explain themselves.
14 matches unbeaten here. Every visiting manager is asked about it in the week before, which is precisely why it keeps going.
Player ratings10 Jan 2028
Miguel Vega, 18, plays like he has been here for years — 7.67
A mark of 7.67 means one thing beside a twenty-nine-year-old's name and something else entirely beside a 18-year-old's. Nobody at the ground needed telling which this was.
The offer from Dorados for Héctor Holguín 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.
It is not a grievance and it is not a demand: he wants to play continental football, and he has stopped hiding it. Whether Santos Laguna can give him that is a question about the club, not about him.
75 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Santos Laguna lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
A bone, which is the one injury with a calendar attached. Santos Laguna will name a return date and, unusually for this business, will probably be right about it.
“The easiest signature of my career.” Franco Fagúndez and Santos Laguna agree another 3 years, and the manager can plan around him rather than about him.
Santos Laguna asked and Toluca said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
“I watch every Santos Laguna game from here. That says everything about where my head is.” The loan at Atlas runs its course, but his heart never made the trip.
The words a physio says slowly. 83 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.
A bone, which is the one injury with a calendar attached. Santos Laguna will name a return date and, unusually for this business, will probably be right about it.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Héctor Holguín will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Santos Laguna the goodbyes have quietly begun.
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Santos Laguna, and both men came out saying it was fine.
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.
91 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Santos Laguna lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 88 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
Joe Scally 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.
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to José Javier Abella, and the manager let it.
The dugout20 Dec 2027
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 0‑2 Kevin Corona left the room before anybody could ask which.
100 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Santos Laguna lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 95 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Lucas Di Yorio provided it, and the 8.47 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
12 without defeat on their own grass. The pitch has not changed; the crowd has — louder earlier, and quicker to sense when the opposition would rather be somewhere else.
It is not a grievance and it is not a demand: he wants to play continental football, and he has stopped hiding it. Whether Santos Laguna can give him that is a question about the club, not about him.
Joe Scally 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.
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Lucas Di Yorio. 3‑1 against Toluca, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
He is 23 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.
110 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Santos Laguna lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
A bone, which is the one injury with a calendar attached. Santos Laguna will name a return date and, unusually for this business, will probably be right about it.
José Javier Abella 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.
Position 11, 22 points, and every result so far reduced to one line. The second half of the season starts with the same squad and a different set of expectations.
The words a physio says slowly. 118 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.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Santos Laguna will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
3‑0, and Eduardo Aguirre took the headlines on an afternoon when everything Santos Laguna tried came off. Days like this are retold all winter.
Player ratings29 Nov 2027
Alex Valencia, 21, plays like he has been here for years — 7.75
A mark of 7.75 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.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Santos Laguna they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
11 without defeat on their own grass. The pitch has not changed; the crowd has — louder earlier, and quicker to sense when the opposition would rather be somewhere 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 Santos Laguna this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
26 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Santos Laguna lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
10 home matches unbeaten. Visiting sides arrive already talking about the atmosphere, which is usually the sign that they have half-lost before kickoff.
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.
The dugout22 Nov 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.” Kevin Corona chose the glass-half-full version of 1‑1; the supporters left with the other one.
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.
35 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Santos Laguna lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Santos Laguna have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
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 Bullaude is on it.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and José Javier Abella trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
He used to wear the other shirt. On Saturday he plays against Pachuca in this one, and whatever he says this week about it being just another game will be untrue.
“I did not come here to warm up in front of people.” He is out of contract eventually, he is old enough to count the weeks, and Santos Laguna will have to give him a reason to stay or an exit.
43 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Santos Laguna 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.” Santos Laguna have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
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 Santos Laguna this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Nobody at Santos Laguna 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.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Santos Laguna can pretend not to have heard.
1 for Ángel Estrada, marked 7.79, 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.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Héctor Holguín will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Santos Laguna the goodbyes have quietly begun.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Santos Laguna this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
9 home matches unbeaten. Visiting sides arrive already talking about the atmosphere, which is usually the sign that they have half-lost before kickoff.
At 23 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.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the whole of the defence. 7 saves, several of them the kind nobody expects to see made, and ten outfield players who owe him a drink.
Joe Scally 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.
A point taken on 88 minutes is worth exactly one point and considerably more than that to a dressing room. This side does not stop, which is a reputation worth more than the result.
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.” Kevin Corona after the 1‑1 draw, and the sentence every manager in the country said at some stage this weekend.
3 matches, no goals, and a training ground that has tried everything. It will end — droughts always do — but nobody at Santos Laguna can tell you which week it ends in.
8 without defeat on their own grass. The pitch has not changed; the crowd has — louder earlier, and quicker to sense when the opposition would rather be somewhere 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 Santos Laguna this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
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 Bullaude is on it.
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.
“There are things I liked and things we will be doing on Tuesday until they are right.” 0‑0, and a manager who had already decided what Tuesday looked like.
It is the most legitimate ambition in the sport and the hardest for most clubs to satisfy. Ezequiel Bullaude wants continental football; whether Santos Laguna can provide it is a question about the next two seasons, not about him.
José Javier Abella 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.
Something was said to Haret Ortega and then it happened. In this industry that passes for remarkable, and the dressing room noticed faster than any supporter could.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Kevin Balanta trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
Monterrey next, and one man in the Santos Laguna dressing room knows their training ground better than his own. The reception will tell him what they thought of him.
Joe Scally arrived with a record at a bigger club than this one, and the room has treated him accordingly. The young ones watch him train; the senior ones watch to see whether it lasts.
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 Luis Alberto Márquez is on it.
“I respect the manager and I am not going to sit here and pretend I am happy.” It is the most common sentence in football and it has never once been the end of a story.
0‑4 against Pumas UNAM, and no complaints that would survive the replay. The manager spoke about character afterwards; the terraces used shorter words.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Héctor Holguín will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Santos Laguna the goodbyes have quietly begun.
“The easiest signature of my career.” Anthony Lozano and Santos Laguna agree another 2 years, and the manager can plan around him rather than about him.
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.
The dugout4 Oct 2027
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 0‑4 defeat, delivered by Kevin Corona to a room that had heard them before.
He has had enough of the noise. Whether Santos Laguna can be a quieter place for him, or whether the only cure is a move somewhere the phone-ins are gentler, is a question for the next few months.
In brief
The dugoutCarlos Acevedo has become a man the manager trusts
Successful dribbles: 15. 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.
The dugout27 Sep 2027
The manager’s verdict
“I am frustrated, honestly. We did enough to win and we did not win.” Kevin Corona was not hiding it after 0‑0, and nobody in the Santos Laguna dressing room was either.
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.
The crowd waited for a goal that never came. Tigres defended in numbers and left with what they came for, and the two sides could be playing still without troubling a scorer.
Aldo López 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 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.
Successful dribbles: 16. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
The dugout20 Sep 2027
The manager has not finished forgetting Carlos Acevedo'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.
Goalkeepers do not get to make mistakes; they get to make goals. He made one, he knew it instantly, and there was nobody behind him to make it anything else.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Santos Laguna have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Franco Pardo 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.
Add another name to the list: Cruz Azul have asked the question everybody in the game has been asking about Tahiel Jiménez. The answer from Santos Laguna has not changed — yet.