“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.
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.
It is not a grievance and it is not a demand: he wants to play continental football, and he has stopped hiding it. Whether Tijuana can give him that is a question about the club, not about him.
Tijuana offered $150.0K; Puebla said it was not close. The manager will be told the money is still there for the right player, which is what managers are told.
The 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. Sevilla have kept their man, and Tijuana go back to a list with one name crossed off 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.
Every shape has positions in it and this one does not have his. Tijuana will either change the shape, change his job, or change his club, and he is waiting to hear which.
The clubs had agreed and the player had not. A snub, and a public one: Toluca keep him, and the supporters here are left wondering what he had heard about the place.
The deal that would have taken Jonathan Vaal to Morelia has collapsed at the last stage, and he reports back to Tijuana with a summer to forget and a season still to play. Nobody is saying which side walked away.
Club America paid $950.0K and Tijuana took it, which is the whole story in one sentence. The longer version involves a wage budget and will be told all season.
Vitinho 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.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Ignacio Rivero trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
Squad19 Jun 2028
David Osuna 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.
He is going to Club America, the club has $2.4M it did not have on Friday, and the phone-ins have already decided how they feel about that. Selling well and selling somebody they loved are not the same skill.
“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.
The number the board signed off was not enough. It has been asked again and raised its own offer to $223.2K — a club that wants Diego Medina enough to be asked twice.
Tijuana asked and Morelia 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 was told straight, and I would rather have it straight.” The manager at Tijuana has been clear about where Frank Boya stands, which is more than many ever get.
Guadalajara have accepted the money. What Tijuana do not yet have is the man, and between here and the photograph is a conversation about wages that both sides are dreading.
Tijuana asked and Chiapas said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
Adonis Preciado 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.
Tijuana have gone to Santos Laguna with a bid, and the supporters have gone to the internet with an opinion about it. Whether either changes anything is up to the selling club.
The phone has started ringing about Pablo Ortíz again, and this time the name on the line is Pumas UNAM. Tijuana are listening politely and promising nothing.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Pablo Ortíz was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
In brief
Squad6 new faces, and Tijuana are still learning each other
The words a physio says slowly. 17 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.
“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.
It is the most legitimate ambition in the sport and the hardest for most clubs to satisfy. Santiago Simón wants continental football; whether Tijuana can provide it is a question about the next two seasons, not about him.
Ricardo Chávez 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.
29 appearances and 8 goals away from here, and a player the manager did not have in August. Loans are sent out hoping for exactly this and most of them do not deliver it.
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.
24 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.
Ángel Zapata was at the centre of it, and by the time it was pulled apart there were three or four others involved. Training grounds are small places and long seasons make them smaller.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and David Osuna was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Tijuana, and both men came out saying it was fine.
Another week, another link, another denial nobody quite believes. Tijuana know the market decides these things, not the back pages — but the back pages are louder.
34 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.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Tijuana is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
Alejandro Gómez 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 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 Ignacio Rivero has written the date down.
He trains hard, says the right things and goes home to an empty flat. Nobody at Tijuana has done anything wrong, which is exactly what makes it so difficult to fix.
The words a physio says slowly. 42 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.
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.
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 words a physio says slowly. 49 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.
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.
“We keep meeting, and we keep leaving the room with the same numbers we walked in with.” Another round of talks at Tijuana, another week without a signature from José Antonio Rodríguez.
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.
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Tijuana, and both men came out saying it was fine.
The demotion a club never announces and a dressing room always notices. José Castro is further from the side than he was, and the reason will not be given until he asks.
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 Tijuana would admit. It shows on Saturdays.
The words a physio says slowly. 57 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.
Mourad 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.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Francisco González trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
8 goals in 29 games at Cruz Azul — numbers that travel home faster than he does. Somebody at Tijuana updates a spreadsheet every Monday, and it makes better reading each week.
“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.
Another week, another link, another denial nobody quite believes. Tijuana know the market decides these things, not the back pages — but the back pages are louder.
In brief
Loan watchJorge Hernández’s loan is measured in nothing happening
64 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Tijuana lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Alejandro Gómez will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Tijuana the goodbyes have quietly begun.
Frank Boya 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.
Squad17 Apr 2028
David Osuna 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 Nicolás Díaz 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 Jonathan Vaal has written the date down.
“Judge me on him.” Managers do not say that kind of thing by accident — it moves the pressure from Adonis Preciado’s shoulders onto his own, and both of them know it.
73 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.
Position 11 on 44 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.
12 home matches unbeaten. Visiting sides arrive already talking about the atmosphere, which is usually the sign that they have half-lost before kickoff.
Ricardo Chávez 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 particular warmth a ground reserves for a 22-year-old it feels ownership of. Amaury Morales 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.
The words a physio says slowly. 80 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.
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.
200 games in the shirt. Nobody sets out to build a record like that; it happens to a certain kind of player at a certain kind of club, and this town knows what it has.
The dugout3 Apr 2028
The manager has not finished forgetting Santiago Simón'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.
The dugout3 Apr 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 Fernando Vega left the room before anybody could ask which.
0 appearances, 0 clean sheets, and a goalkeeper no further forward than the day he left. Whether that belongs to him, to the club that borrowed him or to the people who arranged it is the argument Tijuana will have this month.
90 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.
“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.
The terraces27 Mar 2028
The mood at Tijuana has turned into something else
Supporters who sing when it goes badly are supporters. Supporters who gather afterwards are a problem, and everybody inside the building knows which of the two this now is.
It is not a grievance and it is not a demand: he wants to play continental football, and he has stopped hiding it. Whether Tijuana can give him that is a question about the club, not about him.
Alejandro Gómez and a teammate said things this week that will take longer than a week to unsay. It was not about football, and both of them play on Saturday.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and David Osuna was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
The words a physio says slowly. 98 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.
Tijuana interviewed the field and appointed the corridor: Fernando Vega keeps the job he had been doing in all but title. Sometimes the safest pair of hands is the one already holding the wheel.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Tijuana they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
11 home matches unbeaten. Visiting sides arrive already talking about the atmosphere, which is usually the sign that they have half-lost before kickoff.
Every run ends on an afternoon somebody had marked down as routine. This one went 4 matches, which is long enough that a town had stopped counting, and short enough that it will remember exactly who stopped it.
“I watch every Tijuana game from here. That says everything about where my head is.” The loan at Tigres runs its course, but his heart never made the trip.
“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.
At 35 he is supposed to be managing his minutes. Instead he was marked 8.17 and looked, for ninety minutes, exactly like the player everybody remembers.
4 wins on the spin now, and the question has changed from whether the run ends to who ends it. Confidence like this cannot be bought; it has to be earned exactly this way.
Day 41 of the vacancy. Candidates have been priced, sounded out and quietly ruled out — and the caretaker’s win ratio is becoming an argument all by itself.
Marked 7.09 on 13 actions at both ends of the pitch. Midfielders like this get described as unspectacular by people who have never tried to play against one.
6 signings in three months. Every one of them may be an upgrade and the team can still be worse for a while, which is the part of a rebuild that never appears in the transfer-window verdicts.
“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.
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Mourad provided it, and the 8.47 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Adonis Preciado provided it, and the 8.26 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
3 wins on the spin now, and the question has changed from whether the run ends to who ends it. Confidence like this cannot be bought; it has to be earned exactly this way.
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.
10 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.
7 goals. Both benches spent the second half looking at each other rather than at the pitch. Purists will complain about Tijuana and Santos Laguna in equal measure; everybody else had a wonderful time.
A bad atmosphere can be waited out. A group of people meeting afterwards to decide what to do about it cannot, and everybody in the building knows which stage this is.
Frank Boya 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 particular warmth a ground reserves for a 22-year-old it feels ownership of. Amaury Morales 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.
Marked 8.02 — 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.
The one version of being left out a player cannot argue with, and the one he takes worst. Somebody else has been better and the team sheet says so, in public, every week until it changes.
The dugout28 Feb 2028
The manager’s verdict
“I am not going to get carried away and I will not let them either. It was a good day. There will be harder ones.” Fernando Vega kept it short after the 1‑0 win, which is what managers do when they are happy.
8 goals in 27 games at Cruz Azul — numbers that travel home faster than he does. Somebody at Tijuana updates a spreadsheet every Monday, and it makes better reading each week.
“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.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Tijuana they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
At 33 he is supposed to be managing his minutes. Instead he was marked 7.81 and looked, for ninety minutes, exactly like the player everybody remembers.
Player ratings21 Feb 2028
Up for the corner, and Ángel Zapata delivers — 7.75
Centre-halves are allowed forward twice a season and are judged on what they do when they get there. Ángel Zapata scored, was marked 7.75, and got back before anybody noticed he had gone.
9 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.
Tijuana 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.
Queretaro made Tijuana work for it, but the scoreboard read 2‑0 at the end and the table does not ask how.
Squad21 Feb 2028
Nicolás Díaz 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.
In brief
The dugoutThe manager makes an example of Ángel Zapata
The offer from Chiapas for Alejandro Gómez 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.
Day 13 of the vacancy. Candidates have been priced, sounded out and quietly ruled out — and the caretaker’s win ratio is becoming an argument all by itself.
Tijuana 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.
8 home matches unbeaten. Visiting sides arrive already talking about the atmosphere, which is usually the sign that they have half-lost before kickoff.
In brief
SquadNicolás Díaz falls out with a teammate over standards
The end came on a Tuesday, as these things usually do: a short meeting, a shorter statement, and Santiago Jimenez clearing his office by noon. Football’s cruellest ritual, performed to schedule.
“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.
The whole football department in one room on a weekday morning. Nothing was announced afterwards, which is what a board announces when it has run out of patience.
“Somebody has to pick the team on Saturday, and this week that is me.” An interim appointment with no promises attached, which is how most of them start.
“I remember the meeting. I remember exactly what was promised in it.” Tijuana may remember it differently, which is precisely the problem.
Boardroom7 Feb 2028
Deadline passes with 3 signed and 4 gone
That is the business done at Tijuana 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.
Fee agreed, wages agreed, and Chiapas waiting with a shirt. Nobody at Tijuana is pretending otherwise, and the supporters have stopped asking whether and started asking when.
The terraces31 Jan 2028
The mood at Tijuana has turned into something else
Supporters who sing when it goes badly are supporters. Supporters who gather afterwards are a problem, and everybody inside the building knows which of the two this now is.
The accountants will call it good business and they will be right, which is not the point anybody outside the boardroom is making. Jose Vazquez was one of the reasons people came, and $37.2M does not replace that by itself.
“I have given this everything, but my family is not here and neither am I, not really.” A footballer can be coached out of bad form. Nobody has ever been coached out of this, and Tijuana know it.
Vitinho 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 Tijuana has been clear about where Alejandro Gómez stands, which is more than many ever get.
In brief
SquadNicolás Díaz falls out with a teammate over standards
The dugoutSomebody else is better right now than Unai Bilbao
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.
A midfielder is measured on whether the team functions when he is on the pitch, which is nearly impossible to see and completely obvious in retrospect. 13 actions, 6.69, and a manager who will not be substituting him again in a hurry.
Beaten 0‑1, and beaten fairly. The manager kept his words short afterwards, which was probably wise.
Squad24 Jan 2028
Nicolás Díaz 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 first defeat in 4 matches. The manager will say it had to come; the dressing room will say it did not have to come against Toluca; the supporters will say both, in that order, all week.
“I listened, I thought about it, and I am staying. That is the whole story.” The clubs had agreed a fee. Alejandro Gómez had not agreed to go, which turned out to be the part that mattered.
“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.
Jose Vazquez 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. Toluca have kept their man, and Tijuana go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
A 2‑0 win over Chiapas, earned rather than given, and the sort of afternoon that sends everyone home talking about next week instead of this one.
Player ratings17 Jan 2028
Vitinho was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.28. 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.
A midfielder is measured on whether the team functions when he is on the pitch, which is nearly impossible to see and completely obvious in retrospect. 9 actions, 6.71, and a manager who will not be substituting him again in a hurry.
The offer was not close and it was refused without much discussion. Whether the second one is refused as quickly is another matter.
Player ratings10 Jan 2028
A brace, and Jose Vazquez takes the afternoon — 8.34
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Jose Vazquez provided it, and the 8.34 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
Add another name to the list: Chiapas have asked the question everybody in the game has been asking about Alejandro Gómez. The answer from Tijuana has not changed — yet.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Tijuana have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
A medical, a signature, a shirt held up in front of a sponsor’s board. Tijuana have done the hard part with Penarol, and the part that remains is the part supporters actually see.
The clubs had agreed and the player had not. A snub, and a public one: another club keep him, and the supporters here are left wondering what he had heard about the place.
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.
Jose Vazquez 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 bad atmosphere can be waited out. A group of people meeting afterwards to decide what to do about it cannot, and everybody in the building knows which stage this is.
The board’s statement ran to three sentences and one of them mentioned results. Santiago Jimenez has managed long enough to translate: win soon, or the next statement is shorter.
“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.
Ricardo Chávez 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 paperwork is done long before the player is. Jonathan Corona has agreed terms to come here when his current deal runs out, which means Tijuana have spent a summer's transfer budget on a phone call.
The phone has started ringing about Jorge Hernández again, and this time the name on the line is Pachuca. Tijuana are listening politely and promising nothing.
It is the most legitimate ambition in the sport and the hardest for most clubs to satisfy. Vitinho wants continental football; whether Tijuana can provide it is a question about the next two seasons, not about him.
He is 19 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.
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 ratings27 Dec 2027
Jose Vazquez was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.12. 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.
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.
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.
“I did not go to Tigres to sit and watch. I want to come back to Tijuana and fight for my place.” 0 appearances in 26 matches say the rest.
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 0‑1 Santiago Jimenez left the room before anybody could ask which.
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.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Ignacio Rivero trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
He used to wear the other shirt. On Saturday he plays against Puebla in this one, and whatever he says this week about it being just another game will be untrue.
Vitinho 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 midfielder is measured on whether the team functions when he is on the pitch, which is nearly impossible to see and completely obvious in retrospect. 10 actions, 7.30, and a manager who will not be substituting him again in a hurry.
The one version of being left out a player cannot argue with, and the one he takes worst. Somebody else has been better and the team sheet says so, in public, every week until it changes.
The mood at Tijuana has turned into something else
Supporters who sing when it goes badly are supporters. Supporters who gather afterwards are a problem, and everybody inside the building knows which of the two this now is.
“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.
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.
5 without a win is the sort of run that changes how a town talks about its club, and Monterrey were the afternoon it stopped. Nothing is fixed by one result and everything feels different by one.
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Jose Vazquez. 1‑0 against Monterrey, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
Position 15, 13 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.
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.
Jose Vazquez 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.
Behind, and beaten by any honest reading, until minute 87. Pumas UNAM had the points in their pocket and a corner of the ground still believed, which is generally when it happens.
“A point is a point and I will take it, but we should have had all three.” Santiago Jimenez after the 1‑1 draw, and the sentence every manager in the country said at some stage this weekend.
It is the most legitimate ambition in the sport and the hardest for most clubs to satisfy. Santiago Simón wants continental football; whether Tijuana can provide it is a question about the next two seasons, not about him.
4 without a win now, and the ground has developed the special quiet of a crowd that expects the worst. One scrappy 1-0 would cure most of it; that is the maddening part.
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.
“We were not good enough today and I am not going to dress it up.” Santiago Jimenez after 1‑2, in the tone of a man who knows the next question and does not intend to answer it.
Position 16 and 9 points, and the table gets read bottom-up in this part of town. The calendar has stopped being a schedule and started being a countdown.
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.
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 Francisco González is on it.
He used to wear the other shirt. On Saturday he plays against Tigres in this one, and whatever he says this week about it being just another game will be untrue.
He trains hard, says the right things and goes home to an empty flat. Nobody at Tijuana has done anything wrong, which is exactly what makes it so difficult to fix.
5 goals in 12 games at Cruz Azul — numbers that travel home faster than he does. Somebody at Tijuana updates a spreadsheet every Monday, and it makes better reading each week.
Two goals and a mark of 8.26 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
The rules permit it and it stings anyway. Alessandro Méndez has agreed terms with Puebla for the summer, and until then he pulls on this shirt as a player who has already chosen his next one.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Tijuana this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Something was said to Aarón Mejía and then it happened. In this industry that passes for remarkable, and the dressing room noticed faster than any supporter could.
A month is long enough that nobody gets in by accident. Gabriel Vázquez is in the division's best eleven for it, which is a quieter compliment than an award and a more reliable 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 Tijuana, and both men came out saying it was fine.
The dugout8 Nov 2027
The manager’s verdict
“I am frustrated, honestly. We did enough to win and we did not win.” Santiago Jimenez was not hiding it after 2‑2, and nobody in the Tijuana dressing room was either.
Leon go through and Tijuana go home, 1‑3 the scoreline that did it. The dressing room will call the league the priority now, because that is what dressing rooms say.
Jose Vazquez 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 midfielder is measured on whether the team functions when he is on the pitch, which is nearly impossible to see and completely obvious in retrospect. 9 actions, 7.31, and a manager who will not be substituting him again in a hurry.
The dugout1 Nov 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 0‑1 Santiago Jimenez left the room before anybody could ask which.
The manager has re-ordered his thinking and Ulises Torres has come out of it lower. He will be told it is temporary, and the players who have heard that before will avoid his eye.
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.
Marked 8.26 — 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.
“I watch every Tijuana game from here. That says everything about where my head is.” The loan at Tigres runs its course, but his heart never made the trip.
“Nobody here is above being told.” It was not said with a name attached, but the dressing room can count, and so can everybody who was listening.
The dugout25 Oct 2027
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.” Santiago Jimenez, on a 2‑0 win that he was already picking apart on the walk to the press room.
Position 18 and 5 points, and the table gets read bottom-up in this part of town. The calendar has stopped being a schedule and started being a countdown.
Nicolás Díaz 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.
Jose Vazquez 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 shape has positions in it and this one does not have his. Tijuana will either change the shape, change his job, or change his club, and he is waiting to hear which.
“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 Tijuana will have to answer with minutes or with a transfer.
Queretaro next, and one man in the Tijuana dressing room knows their training ground better than his own. The reception will tell him what they thought of him.
His past walked in ahead of him. Players who have been where he has been get a hearing in a dressing room before they have earned one, and he has it for as long as his form does.
“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.
Footballers are asked about their boyhood club so often that nobody listens to the answer. Jonathan Pérez has just signed for Tijuana, and for once the answer mattered.
Jose Vazquez 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 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.
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.
“I watch every Tijuana game from here. That says everything about where my head is.” The loan at Tigres runs its course, but his heart never made the trip.
The dugout27 Sep 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 Santiago Jimenez left the room before anybody could ask which.
Mourad 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.
Successful dribbles: 21. 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 here is above being told.” It was not said with a name attached, but the dressing room can count, and so can everybody who was listening.
The dugout20 Sep 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 1‑3 defeat, delivered by Santiago Jimenez to a room that had heard them before.
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Tijuana, and both men came out saying it was fine.
Every touch is being weighed now, in print and everywhere else. Some players grow into that and some are quietly ruined by it, and nobody knows which in advance.
Nobody at Tijuana 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 manager did not use many words, and he did not need to.” Jorge Hernández has his answer from Tijuana; what he does with it is the next window’s story.
The deal that would have taken Alejandro Gómez to Pachuca has collapsed at the last stage, and he reports back to Tijuana with a summer to forget and a season still to play. Nobody is saying which side walked away.
Jose Vazquez 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 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.
“We are a long way apart, and pretending otherwise helps nobody.” Neither side is close, and the calendar is not on the club's side.
The dugout13 Sep 2027
The manager’s verdict
“I am frustrated, honestly. We did enough to win and we did not win.” Santiago Jimenez was not hiding it after 0‑0, and nobody in the Tijuana dressing room was either.
“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 Tijuana will have to answer with minutes or with a transfer.
Ninety minutes, no goals, and the argument started before the car park emptied: a point gained, or two thrown away against Toluca? Both sides of it will still be going on Thursday.
In brief
The dugoutAarón Mejía knocks on the manager's door
“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.
Boardroom6 Sep 2027
Tijuana close the window on a squad of their own making
14 in and 29 out, and no more changes for months. The manager has what he has, the supporters have their opinion of it, and the table will have the last word.
“I want to be playing for trophies while my legs still let me.” Nothing in that sentence is a transfer request, and nobody at Tijuana heard it as anything else.
Jose Vazquez 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.
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.
10 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.
Fee agreed, wages agreed, and Chiapas waiting with a shirt. Nobody at Tijuana is pretending otherwise, and the supporters have stopped asking whether and started asking when.
“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.
Player ratings30 Aug 2027
A brace, and Jose Vazquez takes the afternoon — 8.32
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Jose Vazquez provided it, and the 8.32 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
8 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.
Mourad 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.
Player ratings30 Aug 2027
Domingo Blanco was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.17. 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.
8 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.
$260.0K was the most the club would pay and Atlas 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.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Ulises Torres was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
The words a physio says slowly. 19 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.
“I know what people will say. I know what I want, and it is here.” Puebla had the fee agreed and the shirt ready; they did not have the player, and now they will not.
7.59, 1 on the scoresheet, and the specific comedy of a back-four player celebrating like somebody who does this every week. He does not, and that is exactly why the ground reacted the way it did.
The number the board signed off was not enough. It has been asked again and raised its own offer to $282.0K — a club that wants Jorge Rodríguez enough to be asked twice.
$260.0K on the table at Atlas. The manager wanted him, the board agreed a number, and the only voices still to be heard are the ones at the other club.
Jose Vazquez 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.
Two or more conceded in each of the last 5 matches. It is not one mistake repeating itself, which would be the easier thing to fix; it is a different one every week.
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.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Tijuana have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
6 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.
At 35 he is supposed to be managing his minutes. Instead he was marked 8.18 and looked, for ninety minutes, exactly like the player everybody remembers.
“I want to be playing for trophies while my legs still let me.” Nothing in that sentence is a transfer request, and nobody at Tijuana heard it as anything else.
Jose Vazquez 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.
Two or more conceded in each of the last 4 matches. It is not one mistake repeating itself, which would be the easier thing to fix; it is a different one every week.
Fee agreed, wages agreed, and Chiapas waiting with a shirt. Nobody at Tijuana is pretending otherwise, and the supporters have stopped asking whether and started asking when.
35 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Tijuana lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
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.
“I was told straight, and I would rather have it straight.” The manager at Tijuana has been clear about where Alejandro Gómez stands, which is more than many ever get.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Ulises Torres was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
The words a physio says slowly. 43 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.
“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.
4 without a win now, and the ground has developed the special quiet of a crowd that expects the worst. One scrappy 1-0 would cure most of it; that is the maddening part.
Unai Bilbao and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Boardroom26 Jul 2027
5 academy players handed senior numbers at Tijuana
The morning the pathway stops being a brochure and becomes a team sheet. Most of them will not be here in three years; all of them have already done the hard part, which was getting to today.
Tijuana asked and Cruz Azul said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
There is no fee, no unveiling and no agent on the steps. Angel Corona 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.
“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.
Jose Vazquez 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 Tijuana 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.
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 Tijuana that is a harder question to answer.
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 Antonio Portales has written the date down.
The chase for Oscar García ended with $350.0K changing hands and Leon out of reasons to say no. The supporters will judge the fee the only way that matters: on Saturdays.
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Nicolás Díaz and Tijuana agree another 4 years.
Squad12 Jul 2027
Ulises Torres 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.
Squad12 Jul 2027
10 new faces, and Tijuana 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.
“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.
A medical, a signature, a shirt held up in front of a sponsor’s board. Tijuana have done the hard part with Leon, and the part that remains is the part supporters actually see.
It is not a grievance and it is not a demand: he wants to play continental football, and he has stopped hiding it. Whether Tijuana can give him that is a question about the club, 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 Tijuana 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. Cruz Azul have kept their man, and Tijuana 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 Ulises Torres was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
“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.
Everything was agreed until it was not, and Alejandro Gómez reports back to Tijuana with a summer to forget. Neither club is saying who walked away from the table.
It is the most legitimate ambition in the sport and the hardest for most clubs to satisfy. Jose Vazquez wants continental football; whether Tijuana can provide it is a question about the next two seasons, not about him.
The number the board signed off was not enough. It has been asked again and raised its own offer to $411.2K — a club that wants Mauricio Isais enough to be asked twice.
Veracruz paid $1.2M and Tijuana took it, which is the whole story in one sentence. The longer version involves a wage budget and will be told all season.
Tijuana offered $370.0K; Pachuca 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.
Fee agreed, wages agreed, and Leon waiting with a shirt. Nobody at Tijuana is pretending otherwise, and the supporters have stopped asking whether and started asking when.
The offer from Morelia for Alejandro Gómez 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.
The fee is $2.6M, the contract is signed, and the argument about whether he is worth it can begin. Monterrey drove a hard bargain; time will say who won 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 Tijuana can pretend not to have heard.
Jose Vazquez 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 a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 22 he is doing things at this level he could not do at the start of the season, and the coaching staff will tell you exactly which of them.
Boards get told what they have done wrong for years and hear nothing on the days they get it right. This is one of those days: Ricardo Chávez from Monterrey for $2.6M, and a ticket office having a very good morning.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Antonio Portales was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Tijuana and Monterrey have settled on $2.6M. 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.
He is going to Monterrey, the club has $1.8M it did not have on Friday, and the phone-ins have already decided how they feel about that. Selling well and selling somebody they loved are not the same skill.
“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.
Add another name to the list: Morelia have asked the question everybody in the game has been asking about Alejandro Gómez. The answer from Tijuana has not changed — yet.
The offer from Itabaiana for Elias Manoel 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.
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Amaury Morales is 21, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
Jose Vazquez 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.
$6.4M on the table at Club America. The manager wanted him, the board agreed a number, and the only voices still to be heard are the ones at the other club.
$5.1M was the most the club would pay and Cruz Azul 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.
The deal with Cruz Azul 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.
“I want to be playing for trophies while my legs still let me.” Nothing in that sentence is a transfer request, and nobody at Tijuana heard it as anything 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 Tijuana this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Add another name to the list: Monterrey have asked the question everybody in the game has been asking about Yael Padilla. The answer from Tijuana has not changed — yet.
Qualification is secured, and next season the big floodlit nights are continental ones. For the players it is a stage; for the accounts it is a lifeline; for the supporters it is passports.
An individual honour is a strange thing in a team game, and the best of them are never argued with. He has had the sort of year that ends with his name being read out, and Tijuana have had the benefit of it.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Yael Padilla will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Tijuana the goodbyes have quietly begun.
Jose Vazquez and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Squad31 May 2027
Words at Tijuana training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Antonio Portales 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.
Nothing in writing and nothing in public: a word about playing time, given face to face at Tijuana. The team sheets over the next month will show whether it was worth having.
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.
Squad24 May 2027
Words at Tijuana training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Antonio Portales is at the centre of it, and the squad will now find out whether the standard rises or the pair of them simply stop speaking.
Every manager keeps a short list in his head of the men he wants on the pitch when the stakes rise, and it is never published. The team sheets for the big afternoons say Francisco González is on it.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Diego Abreu trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
“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.
Jose Vazquez 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 Ulises Torres, and the manager let it.
Squad17 May 2027
Words at Tijuana training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Elias Manoel 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.
Another week, another link, another denial nobody quite believes. Tijuana know the market decides these things, not the back pages — but the back pages are louder.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Yael Padilla trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
Sharpest man there all week, by every account. It is the quietest line on this page and it usually runs the week before somebody’s run in the side begins.
It is not a grievance and it is not a demand: he wants to play continental football, and he has stopped hiding it. Whether Tijuana can give him that is a question about the club, 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 Tijuana this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad10 May 2027
Words at Tijuana training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Antonio Portales 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 had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Tijuana, and both men came out saying it was fine.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Yael Padilla will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Tijuana the goodbyes have quietly begun.
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.
He used to be one of the options. He is now one of the men the options are picked around, and the change happened quietly enough that only the dressing room noticed on the day.
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 Antonio Portales has written the date down.
“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.
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.
Jose Vazquez 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.
“Some mornings you wake up and you are still a long way from everything you know.” It is not the football and it never was; Tijuana are dealing with a man who wants a different country.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Elias Manoel was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
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 Francisco González is on it.
Jose Vazquez and a teammate said things this week that will take longer than a week to unsay. It was not about football, and both of them play on Saturday.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Antonio Portales was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
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.
Numbers do not stay secret in a dressing room. He is not asking for more than he is worth; he is asking why somebody beside him is worth more, and Tijuana have no good answer.
“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.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Tijuana have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Mourad 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.
3 matches, no goals, and a training ground that has tried everything. It will end — droughts always do — but nobody at Tijuana can tell you which week it ends in.
The oldest argument in any dressing room and the only one that is genuinely about football: one man thinks another is not putting enough in. It is also the row a manager privately does not mind having happened.
“Nobody here is above being told.” It was not said with a name attached, but the dressing room can count, and so can everybody who was listening.
The dugout12 Apr 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 0‑2 defeat, delivered by Santiago Jimenez to a room that had heard them before.
“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.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Tijuana is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
At 22 he is doing things this season that he could not do last season, and doing them every week. Form comes and goes; this has stayed long enough to be called something else.
Successful dribbles: 17. 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.
He found out with everybody else, an hour before kick-off, from a sheet of paper on a wall. Nobody at Tijuana pretended it was anything other than a decision about him.
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.
21 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.
“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.
Jose Vazquez 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 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 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 has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Mourad signs something — a contract at Tijuana or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
28 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.
Jose Vazquez and a teammate said things this week that will take longer than a week to unsay. It was not about football, and both of them play on Saturday.
The oldest argument in any dressing room and the only one that is genuinely about football: one man thinks another is not putting enough in. It is also the row a manager privately does not mind having happened.
“It is not the end of the world and it is not good enough. Both of those are true.” The manager, after a 0‑0 draw, said the honest thing and then went to say it again inside.
35 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Tijuana lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
There is an age at which every good afternoon gets described as a throwback, which is unfair and also accurate. 7.98 at 34, and nobody on the pitch was better.
The words a physio says slowly. 45 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.
“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.
At 34 he is supposed to be managing his minutes. Instead he was marked 7.95 and looked, for ninety minutes, exactly like the player everybody remembers.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Tijuana 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 Tijuana this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
A 3‑2 win over Santos Laguna, earned rather than given, and the sort of afternoon that sends everyone home talking about next week instead of this one.
“I have tried. I have really tried, and every day I wake up in the wrong place.” Nobody at Tijuana can coach that out of a man, and nobody there is pretending to.
In brief
The dugoutThe manager makes an example of Jackson Porozo
53 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Tijuana lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
“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.
“Some mornings you wake up and you are still a long way from everything you know.” It is not the football and it never was; Tijuana are dealing with a man who wants a different country.
Jose Vazquez was at the centre of it, and by the time it was pulled apart there were three or four others involved. Training grounds are small places and long seasons make them smaller.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Antonio Portales was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Warm-up bib, ninety minutes of watching, and a handshake at the end that fooled nobody. Big matches tell you who a manager trusts; this one told Antonio Portales.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Mourad trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
“It is not the end of the world and it is not good enough. Both of those are true.” The manager, after a 0‑0 draw, said the honest thing and then went to say it again inside.
61 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Tijuana lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
Two goals and a mark of 8.53 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Adonis Preciado provided it, and the 8.21 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
It is the most legitimate ambition in the sport and the hardest for most clubs to satisfy. Jose Vazquez wants continental football; whether Tijuana 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 Tijuana this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Defending was optional and nobody took up the option. 6 goals between Tijuana and Queretaro, and not one of the people who paid to be there will ask for the money back.
The words a physio says slowly. 68 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.
“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.
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.
There is a particular helplessness in conceding 2 times before the twentieth minute. Dorados tried to reorganise, Tijuana did not allow it, and the result was written long before it was confirmed.
Squad15 Feb 2027
Ulises Torres 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.
In brief
Player ratingsJose Vazquez was on a different afternoon to everybody else
The words a physio says slowly. 77 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.
“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.
Everything was agreed until it was not, and Diego Abreu reports back to Tijuana with a summer to forget. Neither club is saying who walked away from the table.
At 34 he is supposed to be managing his minutes. Instead he was marked 8.08 and looked, for ninety minutes, exactly like the player everybody remembers.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Yael Padilla will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Tijuana the goodbyes have quietly begun.
Terms were offered and declined. Whether it was the wages, the role or the town, nobody at Cruz Azul is saying, and nobody at Tijuana is enjoying the guessing.
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.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Guadalajara have kept their man, and Tijuana go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
85 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.
Fee agreed, wages agreed, and Veracruz waiting with a shirt. Nobody at Tijuana is pretending otherwise, and the supporters have stopped asking whether and started asking when.
The deadline has passed and the squad is the squad. 1 arrived, 3 left, and everything else printed about this club last month was a rumour that stayed one.
“I want to win things, and I would like to do it here.” Nothing has been demanded and nothing has been threatened — but a boardroom at Tijuana hears a sentence like that exactly as it was built.
Jose Vazquez 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. Quilmes have kept their man, and Tijuana go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
The words a physio says slowly. 94 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.
“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.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the whole of the defence. 6 saves, several of them the kind nobody expects to see made, and ten outfield players who owe him a drink.
Jose Vazquez 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.
Tijuana asked and Tigres said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
0‑1 to Toluca, and no complaints worth printing. The performance asked for nothing more than it got.
Squad25 Jan 2027
Words at Tijuana training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Ulises Torres 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.
101 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.
The clubs have settled the fee and he has settled his wages. What remains is a medical and a photograph, and around Tijuana people have started saying his name in the past tense.
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Adonis Preciado provided it, and the 8.17 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
“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.
10 home matches unbeaten. Visiting sides arrive already talking about the atmosphere, which is usually the sign that they have half-lost before kickoff.
109 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.
The board had gone up, the arguing had started, and then the ball was in the net in the 92th minute. Morelia will replay every second of the added time for a week.
The offer from Cruz Azul for Adonis Preciado 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.
“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.
He is going to Monterrey, the club has $3.2M it did not have on Friday, and the phone-ins have already decided how they feel about that. Selling well and selling somebody they loved are not the same skill.
Add another name to the list: Morelia have asked the question everybody in the game has been asking about Diego Abreu. The answer from Tijuana has not changed — yet.
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.
The words a physio says slowly. 116 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.
“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.
The hardest thing about being 18 in a senior side is that nobody makes allowances. Gilberto Mora did not need any: 8.06, and he looked the most comfortable man on the pitch.
The kind of year that ends with a name being read out in a hall. Tijuana had the benefit of it every week and now have the problem of everybody else knowing.
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.
At 21 he is doing things this season that he could not do last season, and doing them every week. Form comes and goes; this has stayed long enough to be called something else.
Add another name to the list: Cruz Azul have asked the question everybody in the game has been asking about Aldahir Pérez. The answer from Tijuana has not changed — yet.
124 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.
At 18 he is doing things this season that he could not do last season, and doing them every week. Form comes and goes; this has stayed long enough to be called something else.
Unai Bilbao 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.
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.
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 the most legitimate ambition in the sport and the hardest for most clubs to satisfy. Jose Vazquez wants continental football; whether Tijuana can provide it is a question about the next two seasons, not about him.
Mourad 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.
“Some mornings you wake up and you are still a long way from everything you know.” It is not the football and it never was; Tijuana are dealing with a man who wants a different country.
Squad21 Dec 2026
Words at Tijuana training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Elias Manoel 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 dugout21 Dec 2026
The manager’s verdict
“That is on me. I pick the team and I picked wrong.” Managers say that when they mean it and when they need to be seen to, and after 0‑2 Santiago Jimenez left the room before anybody could ask which.
Something was said to Francisco González and then it happened. In this industry that passes for remarkable, and the dressing room noticed faster than any supporter could.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Tijuana 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 Tijuana this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
At 21 he is doing things this season that he could not do last season, and doing them every week. Form comes and goes; this has stayed long enough to be called something else.
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.
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.
A 1‑0 win over Cruz Azul, earned rather than given, and the sort of afternoon that sends everyone home talking about next week instead of this one.
Squad14 Dec 2026
Words at Tijuana training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Antonio Portales 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.
Half the programme played, position 8, 28 on the board. Doubling it is the sum every supporter has done and the only one nobody at the club will do out loud.
In brief
The dugoutThe manager makes an example of Elias Manoel
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the whole of the defence. 6 saves, several of them the kind nobody expects to see made, and ten outfield players who owe him a drink.
Jose Vazquez 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 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.
Squad7 Dec 2026
Gilberto Mora is the division's best young player this month
At 18 he has spent a month being better than everybody his age in the league, which is a different and harder thing than one good afternoon. Tijuana will try very hard not to make too much of it.
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Iván Tona, and the manager let it.
The dugout7 Dec 2026
The manager’s verdict
“That is on me. I pick the team and I picked wrong.” Managers say that when they mean it and when they need to be seen to, and after 1‑2 Santiago Jimenez left the room before anybody could ask which.
Nobody at Tijuana 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 dugout7 Dec 2026
Somebody else is better right now than Elias Manoel
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.
Gilberto Mora, 18, plays like he has been here for years — 7.62
A mark of 7.62 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.
Jose Vazquez 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 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.
Squad30 Nov 2026
Elias Manoel 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 dugout30 Nov 2026
The manager has not finished forgetting Unai Bilbao'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.
It needed Francisco González to find the net to bring anything home at all: 1‑1 against Pumas UNAM, and half the dressing room will call it a point won.
The dugout30 Nov 2026
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.” Santiago Jimenez chose the glass-half-full version of 1‑1; the supporters left with the other one.
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.
In brief
SquadGilberto Mora, 18, is the weekend’s best young player
Player ratingsAn afternoon Unai Bilbao will want back
0‑1 to Tigres, and no complaints worth printing. The performance asked for nothing more than it got.
Squad23 Nov 2026
Words at Tijuana training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Ulises Torres 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.
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.
The dugout23 Nov 2026
The manager’s verdict
“That is on me. I pick the team and I picked wrong.” Managers say that when they mean it and when they need to be seen to, and after 0‑1 Santiago Jimenez left the room before anybody could ask which.
The team at the top of the table next, and the honest measure of where this side actually is. Anybody can beat the club below them; the question is what happens against Pumas UNAM.
In brief
The dugoutUlises Torres knocks on the manager's door
Alejandro Gómez 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 Antonio Portales, and the manager let it.
Squad16 Nov 2026
Elias Manoel 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.
Gilberto Mora is 18, and for one weekend he was the best of everybody his age in the division. Nobody should build a career on it and everybody quietly does.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Iván Tona trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
The hardest thing about being 18 in a senior side is that nobody makes allowances. Gilberto Mora did not need any: 8.29, and he looked the most comfortable man on the pitch.
At 34 he is supposed to be managing his minutes. Instead he was marked 8.28 and looked, for ninety minutes, exactly like the player everybody remembers.
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.
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Gilberto Mora. 1‑0 against Atlas, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
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.
At 18 he is being measured against the rest of the division's kids and coming out in front. The senior version of this award is where the club would like this to lead.
Nobody at Tijuana 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.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the team. 6 saves, several of them the sort nobody expects to see stopped, and a scoreline that flatters everybody in front of him.
“I want to be playing for trophies while my legs still let me.” Nothing in that sentence is a transfer request, and nobody at Tijuana heard it as anything 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 Tijuana this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
A 1‑0 win over Santos Laguna, earned rather than given, and the sort of afternoon that sends everyone home talking about next week instead of this one.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Antonio Portales was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Marked 6.85 on 9 actions at both ends of the pitch. Midfielders like this get described as unspectacular by people who have never tried to play against one.
There is an age at which every good afternoon gets described as a throwback, which is unfair and also accurate. 8.37 at 34, and nobody on the pitch was better.
One scored and one made, which is a different afternoon from scoring twice and an easier one to overlook. Marked 7.72, and involved in 2 of his side's goals.
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.
It is the most legitimate ambition in the sport and the hardest for most clubs to satisfy. Elias Manoel wants continental football; whether Tijuana can provide it is a question about the next two seasons, not about him.
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.
At 20 he is doing things this season that he could not do last season, and doing them every week. Form comes and goes; this has stayed long enough to be called something else.
It 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.
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.
At 25 the improving is meant to be over, and it is not: 3 points better than a year ago. It happens to the ones who take the boring parts seriously.
Squad19 Oct 2026
Elias Manoel 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.
Jose Vazquez was at the centre of it, and by the time it was pulled apart there were three or four others involved. Training grounds are small places and long seasons make them smaller.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Ulises Torres was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
He used to wear the other shirt. On Saturday he plays against Queretaro in this one, and whatever he says this week about it being just another game will be untrue.
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Mourad signs something — a contract at Tijuana or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
“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.
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.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Jorge Hernández trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
At 21 he is doing things this season that he could not do last season, and doing them every week. Form comes and goes; this has stayed long enough to be called something else.
Jose Vazquez 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.
“I have given this everything, but my family is not here and neither am I, not really.” A footballer can be coached out of bad form. Nobody has ever been coached out of this, and Tijuana know it.
Squad5 Oct 2026
Gilberto Mora is the division's best young player this month
At 17 he has spent a month being better than everybody his age in the league, which is a different and harder thing than one good afternoon. Tijuana will try very hard not to make too much of it.
“The manager did not use many words, and he did not need to.” Diego Abreu has his answer from Tijuana; what he does with it is the next window’s story.
Every club pays most of what it earns to its players. Paying nearly all of it is a different arrangement, and it has ended the same way every time it has been tried.
Marked 7.82. Ask anyone leaving the ground what settled it and you will get one name, which is the only award that has ever really counted.
The dugout5 Oct 2026
The manager has not finished forgetting Jackson Porozo'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.
Gilberto Mora, 17, plays like he has been here for years — 8.14
A mark of 8.14 means one thing beside a twenty-nine-year-old's name and something else entirely beside a 17-year-old's. Nobody at the ground needed telling which this was.
Alejandro Gómez and a teammate said things this week that will take longer than a week to unsay. It was not about football, and both of them play on Saturday.
The goal that put Guadalajara ahead was still being replayed on the concourse when Tijuana equalised, 4 minutes later. Leads are only worth what you do with them.
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.
“They were honest with me, and I would rather know.” Iván Tona has been informed he is not in the manager's thinking at Tijuana.
Squad28 Sep 2026
Elias Manoel 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.
10 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.
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.
In brief
The dugoutThe manager has not finished forgetting Frank Boya's mistake
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.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Tijuana 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 Tijuana this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
0‑2 to Leon, and no complaints worth printing. The performance asked for nothing more than it got.
Squad21 Sep 2026
Words at Tijuana training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Ulises Torres 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.
“We were not good enough today and I am not going to dress it up.” Santiago Jimenez after 0‑2, in the tone of a man who knows the next question and does not intend to answer it.
A brace, and Jose Vazquez takes the afternoon — 8.25
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Jose Vazquez provided it, and the 8.25 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
3 wins on the spin now, and the question has changed from whether the run ends to who ends it. Confidence like this cannot be bought; it has to be earned exactly this way.
The fee was agreed and the flight was looked at — and then the phone stopped ringing. Veracruz moved on, Christian Castillo reports back to Tijuana, and everybody pretends Monday is just Monday.
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 22 he is doing things at this level he could not do at the start of the season, and the coaching staff will tell you exactly which of them.
Defending was optional and nobody took up the option. 6 goals between Tijuana and Toluca, and not one of the people who paid to be there will ask for the money back.
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Jose Vazquez. 4‑2 against Toluca, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
“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.
The clubs have settled the fee and he has settled his wages. What remains is a medical and a photograph, and around Tijuana people have started saying his name in the past tense.
The deal that would have taken Mourad to Monterrey has collapsed at the last stage, and he reports back to Tijuana with a summer to forget and a season still to play. Nobody is saying which side walked away.
The deadline has passed and the squad is the squad. 7 arrived, 4 left, and everything else printed about this club last month was a rumour that stayed one.
Jose Vazquez 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.
$78.0K was the most the club would pay and Tigres 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.
The young player of the month award goes to a 17-year-old at Tijuana who has looked like the finished article for four weekends running. The next four are the ones that decide whether he is.
Two goals and a mark of 8.37 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
Mourad 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.
Tijuana offered $200.0K; Leon 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.
He is 21 and the ground already sings his name, which is a thing that happens to local boys and almost never to signings. Everything from here is measured against an affection he did nothing to earn except be from here.
Squad31 Aug 2026
Ulises Torres 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. Club America have kept their man, and Tijuana go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
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 5.66 for the rest of it.
The number the board signed off was not enough. It has been asked again and raised its own offer to $82.2K — a club that wants Kenneth Jaime enough to be asked twice.
Tijuana have gone to Leon 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.
Tijuana have gone to Tigres with a bid, and the supporters have gone to the internet with an opinion about it. Whether either changes anything is up to the selling club.
The academy exists for exactly this morning. Jonathan Dos Santos 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 academy exists for exactly this morning. Javier Martin 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.
Clubs spend fortunes looking for players and occasionally find one down the corridor. Kevin Dos Santos is that, and the reception he gets on his first appearance will be different in kind from the one any signing receives.
The academy exists for exactly this morning. Francisco Rodriguez 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.
Squad17 Aug 2026
Words at Tijuana training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Elias Manoel 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.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Guadalajara have kept their man, and Tijuana go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
Mourad 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.
Involvement in 2 goals, from a player who spent the ninety minutes doing the thing a manager actually wants: being where the ball was going to end up. 7.99 beside his name.
The terraces10 Aug 2026
Tijuana spend $3.2M on the signing the town wanted
It is the rarest sequence in football: supporters ask for something, and the club goes and does it. $3.2M for Jose Vazquez, and for one week nobody is complaining about anything.
At 17 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.
In brief
SquadWords at Tijuana training over how hard people work
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.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Unai Bilbao was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
A midfielder is measured on whether the team functions when he is on the pitch, which is nearly impossible to see and completely obvious in retrospect. 13 actions, 6.99, and a manager who will not be substituting him again in a hurry.
24 months to run and not a word offered. A club that lets the calendar negotiate for it usually ends up losing to the calendar.
Squad3 Aug 2026
7 new faces, and Tijuana are still learning each other
A squad rebuilt inside one window pays for it in a currency nobody budgets for. The football is not worse than the sum of the players; it is worse than the sum of the players who have played together before.
“We were not good enough today and I am not going to dress it up.” Santiago Jimenez after 0‑1, in the tone of a man who knows the next question and does not intend to answer it.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Ignacio Rivero trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.