From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad14 Dec 2026
A knee injury of the worst kind for Williams Riveros
92 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Universitario lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Market14 Dec 2026
The bid was some way short and Universitario did not need long over it. Nobody in the game reads a first refusal as the end of anything.
Market14 Dec 2026
César Inga wants European nights
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.
Market14 Dec 2026
The interest is real enough to have reached print. Universitario have said nothing, which in a transfer window is its own kind of answer.
Squad14 Dec 2026
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Anderson Santamaría, and the manager let it.
Market14 Dec 2026
Both sides expect a conversation in the coming days. Universitario will name a price, and everything after that is arithmetic.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad7 Dec 2026
Williams Riveros damages knee ligaments — 100 days out
The words a physio says slowly. 100 days is what the club will announce and everybody who has heard this diagnosis before knows the number is the least of it: the knee comes back before the player does.
Market7 Dec 2026
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.
Squad7 Dec 2026
Lisandro Alzugaray 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.
Market7 Dec 2026
No place for Jems Tenorio in the plan
“The manager did not use many words, and he did not need to.” Jems Tenorio has his answer from Universitario; what he does with it is the next window’s story.
Market7 Dec 2026
The list is a quiet document with a loud meaning. Lisandro Alzugaray may talk to anybody who asks, and everybody at the club understands what that means.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad30 Nov 2026
Williams Riveros damages knee ligaments — 107 days out
The words a physio says slowly. 107 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.
Market30 Nov 2026
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.
Squad30 Nov 2026
Alex Valera in a row with a teammate
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Universitario this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad23 Nov 2026
A knee injury of the worst kind for Williams Riveros
115 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Universitario lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Market23 Nov 2026
Alex Valera hands in a written request
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Universitario can pretend not to have heard.
Squad23 Nov 2026
Alex Valera 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.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad16 Nov 2026
A knee injury of the worst kind for Jorge Murrugarra
58 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Universitario lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Squad16 Nov 2026
Alex Valera in a row with a teammate
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Universitario this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad16 Nov 2026
Words at Universitario training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Lisandro Alzugaray is at the centre of it, and the squad will now find out whether the standard rises or the pair of them simply stop speaking.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad9 Nov 2026
Jorge Murrugarra damages knee ligaments — 66 days out
The words a physio says slowly. 66 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.
Squad9 Nov 2026
Alex Valera 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.
Squad9 Nov 2026
Anderson Santamaría 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.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad2 Nov 2026
Jorge Murrugarra damages knee ligaments — 73 days out
The words a physio says slowly. 73 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.
Boardroom2 Nov 2026
Wages eat 192% of everything Universitario earn
There is a figure at which a wage bill stops being ambitious and becomes the reason nothing else is possible, and this club has reached it. Nothing is left over for a transfer, a stand or a rainy afternoon.
Squad2 Nov 2026
Universitario will explain it as a decision about the team, and it may well be one. A dressing room has never once read it that way.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad26 Oct 2026
A knee injury of the worst kind for Jorge Murrugarra
81 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Universitario lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Market26 Oct 2026
“I have given everything here and I need a new challenge.” The request is formal, and the relationship will never be quite the same again.
Squad26 Oct 2026
Lisandro Alzugaray 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.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad19 Oct 2026
A knee injury of the worst kind for Jorge Murrugarra
88 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Universitario lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Squad19 Oct 2026
Ayrton Unzueta is a better footballer than he was
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 21 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.
Squad19 Oct 2026
Words at Universitario training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Lisandro Alzugaray is at the centre of it, and the squad will now find out whether the standard rises or the pair of them simply stop speaking.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad12 Oct 2026
A knee injury of the worst kind for Jorge Murrugarra
97 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Universitario lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Squad12 Oct 2026
Alex Valera was at the centre of it, and by the time it was pulled apart there were three or four others involved. Training grounds are small places and long seasons make them smaller.
Squad12 Oct 2026
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Jarek Elías is 22, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad5 Oct 2026
Jorge Murrugarra damages knee ligaments — 105 days out
The words a physio says slowly. 105 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.
Market5 Oct 2026
César Inga wants European nights
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.
Squad5 Oct 2026
Alex Valera in a row with a teammate
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Universitario this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad28 Sep 2026
A knee injury of the worst kind for Jorge Murrugarra
113 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Universitario lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Market28 Sep 2026
Alex Valera hands in a written request
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Universitario can pretend not to have heard.
Market28 Sep 2026
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.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad21 Sep 2026
Alex Valera in a row with a teammate
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Universitario this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad21 Sep 2026
When it matters, Paolo Reyna plays
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.
Squad21 Sep 2026
The message was aimed at the stands as much as the dressing room: Lisandro Alzugaray plays, and the argument is closed until the manager decides otherwise.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad14 Sep 2026
Lisandro Alzugaray 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.
Squad14 Sep 2026
“Nobody here is above being told.” It was not said with a name attached, but the dressing room can count, and so can everybody who was listening.
Squad14 Sep 2026
61 days, the medical staff say, and medical staff are optimists by profession. The team sheet will look wrong without him.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Match2 Sep 2026
1‑2 against Melgar, and the road stops here. Cup exits are quick deaths — no second leg, no next week, just the league from now until May.
Player ratings7 Sep 2026
Successful dribbles: 22. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Squad7 Sep 2026
Words at Universitario training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Lisandro Alzugaray 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.
Boardroom7 Sep 2026
175% of the income goes out in wages at Universitario
Every club in football pays most of what it earns to its players. Paying nearly all of it is a different arrangement, and it has ended the same way every time somebody has tried it.
Squad7 Sep 2026
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Alex Valera, and the manager let it.
Player ratings7 Sep 2026
A performance of 8.50 does not come along often, and when it does the rest of the team becomes scenery. He was magnificent.
Squad7 Sep 2026
Universitario will explain it as a decision about the team, and it may well be one. A dressing room has never once read it that way.
Squad7 Sep 2026
José Carabalí dropped after a run of poor form
The one version of being left out a player cannot argue with, and the one he takes worst. Somebody else has been better and the team sheet says so, in public, every week until it changes.
Player ratings7 Sep 2026
Shots: 12, not one of them in. A centre forward is paid for one thing, and on this evidence he has forgotten which thing it is.
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Squad31 Aug 2026
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Universitario this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad31 Aug 2026
Héctor Fertoli has become a man the manager trusts
Nobody at Universitario 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.
Squad31 Aug 2026
Yuriel Celi is training like a man with a point to make
Nobody has promised him anything and he has not asked. The coaching staff have noticed, which at this stage of a season is the only thing that matters.
From our football correspondent
Triumph
Match19 Aug 2026
A 1‑0 win over UTC, a place in the next round, and the quiet arithmetic every supporter does on the walk home: how many more until a final?
Match19 Aug 2026
There were 87 minutes on the clock and UTC had all but banked the point. Football rarely reads the room, and Universitario did not stop to explain themselves.
Player ratings24 Aug 2026
Successful dribbles: 25. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Squad24 Aug 2026
Alex Valera in a row with a teammate
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Universitario this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad24 Aug 2026
Words at Universitario training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Lisandro Alzugaray 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.
Player ratings24 Aug 2026
Jorge Murrugarra was on a different afternoon to everybody else
9.10. 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.
Squad24 Aug 2026
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Jesús Castillo, and the manager let it.
Player ratings24 Aug 2026
A defender's afternoon for Jorge Agüero
Defensive actions: 17. He was first to everything and second to nothing, and the goalkeeper had an easy day because of it.
Player ratings24 Aug 2026
Defensive actions: 16, and a clean sheet at the end of it. A centre-half's best afternoons look like nothing happening, which is precisely the point.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad17 Aug 2026
Alex Valera 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 Aug 2026
Jairo Concha keeps his manager's vote
The message was aimed at the stands as much as the dressing room: Jairo Concha plays, and the argument is closed until the manager decides otherwise.
Squad17 Aug 2026
Jairo Concha is training like a man with a point to make
Nobody has promised him anything and he has not asked. The coaching staff have noticed, which at this stage of a season is the only thing that matters.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Market10 Aug 2026
Diego Romero has left for Osasuna in a $7.0M deal. The accountants are pleased; the supporters are less certain.
The terraces10 Aug 2026
Supporters turn on the $7.0M sale of Diego Romero
He is going to Osasuna, the club has $7.0M 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.
Market10 Aug 2026
The bid was some way short and Universitario did not need long over it. Nobody in the game reads a first refusal as the end of anything.
Market10 Aug 2026
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.
Squad10 Aug 2026
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Jesús Castillo and Universitario agree another 3 years.
Squad10 Aug 2026
Alex Valera 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.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Market3 Aug 2026
Kasimpasa come back empty-handed
The bid was some way short and Universitario did not need long over it. Nobody in the game reads a first refusal as the end of anything.
Market3 Aug 2026
The interest is real enough to have reached print. Universitario have said nothing, which in a transfer window is its own kind of answer.
Market3 Aug 2026
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.
Squad3 Aug 2026
“I never wanted to be anywhere else. There is unfinished business here.” Alex Valera commits to Universitario for another 3 years.
Squad3 Aug 2026
César Inga in a row with a teammate
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Universitario this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad3 Aug 2026
Words at Universitario training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Lisandro Alzugaray 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.