From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad14 Sep 2026
A knee injury of the worst kind for Domingo Blanco
103 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Tijuana lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Player ratings14 Sep 2026
Age has not caught Ignacio Rivero yet — 8.86
At 34 he is supposed to be managing his minutes. Instead he was marked 8.86 and looked, for ninety minutes, exactly like the player everybody remembers.
Squad14 Sep 2026
Nobody makes a documentary about a hamstring and everybody in the game fears one. Tijuana will be careful with the return date, because the second one is always worse than the first.
Squad14 Sep 2026
Unai Bilbao 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.
Squad14 Sep 2026
Alejandro Gómez falls out with a teammate over standards
The oldest argument in any dressing room and the only one that is genuinely about football: one man thinks another is not putting enough in. It is also the row a manager privately does not mind having happened.
Player ratings14 Sep 2026
Successful dribbles: 18. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Squad7 Sep 2026
Domingo Blanco damages knee ligaments — 111 days out
The words a physio says slowly. 111 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.
Market7 Sep 2026
Eduardo Ochoa hands in a written request
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Tijuana can pretend not to have heard.
Squad7 Sep 2026
Unai Bilbao in a row with a teammate
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Tijuana this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Market7 Sep 2026
The Pachuca deal is off
Everything was agreed until it was not, and José Castro reports back to Tijuana with a summer to forget. Neither club is saying who walked away from the table.
Squad7 Sep 2026
Words at Tijuana training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Alejandro Gómez 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.
Match5 Sep 2026
Toluca left with the points after a 1‑2 defeat that will take some explaining on the terraces.
Boardroom7 Sep 2026
Wages eat 433% of everything Tijuana earn
There is a figure at which a wage bill stops being ambitious and becomes the reason nothing else is possible, and this club has reached it. Nothing is left over for a transfer, a stand or a rainy afternoon.
Squad7 Sep 2026
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Unai Bilbao, and the manager let it.
Player ratings7 Sep 2026
There is a version of this player everybody suspected was in there, and on this evidence it is. 8.56, and no argument anywhere in the ground.
From our football correspondent
Triumph
Squad31 Aug 2026
A knee injury of the worst kind for Domingo Blanco
121 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Tijuana lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Player ratings31 Aug 2026
Age has not caught Ignacio Rivero yet — 8.44
At 34 he is supposed to be managing his minutes. Instead he was marked 8.44 and looked, for ninety minutes, exactly like the player everybody remembers.
Market31 Aug 2026
“This is not anger. I have thought about it for months, and nothing that has happened lately changed my mind.” The request is on a desk at Tijuana, and it is not being withdrawn.
Squad31 Aug 2026
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Tijuana this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad31 Aug 2026
Words at Tijuana training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Unai Bilbao 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.
Match29 Aug 2026
It finished 2‑1, and it was Adonis Preciado’s afternoon: on the scoresheet when it mattered, and the reason the points belong to Tijuana.
Player ratings31 Aug 2026
Adonis Preciado was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.91. 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.
Market31 Aug 2026
Add another name to the list: Puebla have asked the question everybody in the game has been asking about José Castro. The answer from Tijuana has not changed — yet.
Player ratings31 Aug 2026
One of those days for Mourad
There is a version of this player everybody suspected was in there, and on this evidence it is. 8.01, and no argument anywhere in the ground.
From our football correspondent
Triumph
Squad24 Aug 2026
A knee injury of the worst kind for Domingo Blanco
128 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Tijuana lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Player ratings24 Aug 2026
2 goals, and the second was the one that settled it. Marked 9.30, and he could have had a third with better luck at the near post.
Player ratings24 Aug 2026
Age has not caught Ignacio Rivero yet — 8.95
At 34 he is supposed to be managing his minutes. Instead he was marked 8.95 and looked, for ninety minutes, exactly like the player everybody remembers.
Market24 Aug 2026
“I have given everything here and I need a new challenge.” The request is formal, and the relationship will never be quite the same again.
Market24 Aug 2026
Chiapas come back empty-handed
The bid was some way short and Tijuana did not need long over it. Nobody in the game reads a first refusal as the end of anything.
Squad24 Aug 2026
Unai Bilbao in a row with a teammate
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Tijuana this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Match22 Aug 2026
Morelia made Tijuana work for it, but the scoreboard read 3‑2 at the end and the table does not ask how.
Squad24 Aug 2026
Words at Tijuana training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Alejandro Gómez 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.
Match22 Aug 2026
2 goals inside twenty minutes with Jackson Porozo in the middle of it, and Morelia unable to get near the ball long enough to change anything. Some matches are won before the first drink.
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Squad17 Aug 2026
A knee injury of the worst kind for Domingo Blanco
135 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Tijuana lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Market17 Aug 2026
The offer was not close and it was refused without much discussion. Whether the second one is refused as quickly is another matter.
Player ratings17 Aug 2026
Josef Martínez, 33, rolls back the years — 8.00
There is an age at which every good afternoon gets described as a throwback, which is unfair and also accurate. 8.00 at 33, and nobody on the pitch was better.
Squad17 Aug 2026
Unai Bilbao 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.
Market17 Aug 2026
Leon pay $270.0K, and the deal is done. The number reads well on a balance sheet; whether it reads well on the pitch is next season's question.
Squad17 Aug 2026
Alejandro Gómez 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.
Match15 Aug 2026
Jackson Porozo scored, and precious little else went right: 1‑2 to Pachuca, and a quiet walk to the dressing room.
Player ratings17 Aug 2026
Marked 8.42 — 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 ratings17 Aug 2026
Successful dribbles: 18. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
From our football correspondent
Triumph
Squad10 Aug 2026
Domingo Blanco damages knee ligaments — 146 days out
The words a physio says slowly. 146 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.
Market10 Aug 2026
The offer was not close and it was refused without much discussion. Whether the second one is refused as quickly is another matter.
Squad10 Aug 2026
“The easiest signature of my career.” Ignacio Rivero and Tijuana agree another 2 years, and the manager can plan around him rather than about him.
Squad10 Aug 2026
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Tijuana this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Player ratings10 Aug 2026
Successful dribbles: 22. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Squad10 Aug 2026
Words at Tijuana training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Unai Bilbao 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.
Match8 Aug 2026
It finished 2‑1, and it was Kevin Castañeda’s afternoon: on the scoresheet when it mattered, and the reason the points belong to Tijuana.
Player ratings10 Aug 2026
Kevin Castañeda was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.99. There are performances a supporter describes to somebody who was not there and cannot quite convey; this was one, and the number does not help either.
Market10 Aug 2026
Still no offer on the table, and Josef Martínez’s deal keeps shrinking. In boardroom language, silence this long stops being an oversight and starts being an answer.
From our football correspondent
Triumph
Player ratings3 Aug 2026
A brace, and Domingo Blanco takes the afternoon — 8.49
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Domingo Blanco provided it, and the 8.49 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
Market3 Aug 2026
Tijuana say no — this time
The offer from Nashville SC for Diego Abreu was heard out and sent back the same day. First bids are rarely meant to succeed; they are meant to find out how loudly the door closes.
Player ratings3 Aug 2026
Ignacio Rivero, 34, rolls back the years — 8.26
There is an age at which every good afternoon gets described as a throwback, which is unfair and also accurate. 8.26 at 34, and nobody on the pitch was better.
Market3 Aug 2026
The interest is real enough to have reached print. Tijuana have said nothing, which in a transfer window is its own kind of answer.
Squad3 Aug 2026
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Unai Bilbao and Tijuana agree another 2 years.
Squad3 Aug 2026
Unai Bilbao in a row with a teammate
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Tijuana this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad3 Aug 2026
Words at Tijuana training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Alejandro Gómez 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.
Match1 Aug 2026
A 2‑1 win over Club America, earned rather than given, and the sort of afternoon that sends everyone home talking about next week instead of this one.
Squad3 Aug 2026
The manager makes an example of Alejandro Gómez
“If you cannot run for the shirt, somebody else will wear it.” No name was used and none was needed; every player in that room knew who it was for.