The defeat against Velez in one of the semi-finals of the Argentine Cup encouraged the leadership of Boca to accelerate negotiations to form the squad for the 2025 season. Along these lines, the first objective Juan Roman Riquelme is the chilean Carlos Palacioswho this weekend could travel to Buenos Aires to boost his incorporation. The attacking midfielder Colo-Colo It is an old desire of the president of Boca, who already tried to add it in the last two transfer markets.
Nobody worries about hiding the negotiation. Hannibal Meusepresident of Blanco y Negro, the dealership that manages Colo-Colo, made it public on Thursday. “The people of Boca contacted us a couple of days ago. They are looking at how to reach an agreement with us to retain Carlos’ services. He really wants to go“, revealed. And he added: “No one on the board wants him to leave, but there is an exit clause and if this negotiation is on good terms, he will surely leave.”
Esa severance clause is 4.8 million dollars and that money (discounted the 10% that would correspond to the footballer) would be divided equally between the Chilean club and Vasco da Gamaowner of 50% of the player’s record, born 24 years ago in Renca, a commune located in the northwest of Santiago.
Palacios had already publicly expressed his desire to leave Colo-Colo. “I feel like I completed a cycle here in the country. That’s what I want, to leave Chile in December. It’s what everyone around me knows, including my representative.”he had warned at the beginning of October in an interview for the Sin Retoque podcast. A couple of weeks ago, after winning the domestic championship with his team, he confirmed his will.
The Jewel was one of the figures of Cacique During this year, in which the club won its 34th title in the Chilean competition and reached the quarterfinals of the Copa Libertadores (it was eliminated by River): He scored 13 goals, gave 10 assists and was the most unbalanced man in the attack of the team led by Jorge Almirón. Thus, he seems to have definitively left behind a couple of unfruitful experiences abroad.
Palacios trained in the lower divisions of Unión Española, the team in which he debuted in the first division in February 2018, when he was only 17 years old, in a 1-1 draw with Deportes Antofagasta. Only at the end of 2019 did he earn a place in the starting lineup and in 2020 he made the big leap: he scored eight goals, gave six assists and was the great figure of the team that finished fourth in the Chilean competition. Thanks to these good performances, Inter de Porto Alegre hired him in March 2021.
Carlos Palacios debuted in the first team of Unión Española when he was only 17 years old.“He is surely the Chilean player with the most potential. He is very intelligent, dedicated, with a lot of individual quality. And one against one he is unstoppable”the Spaniard praised him Miguel Angel RamirezInter coach at the time. Beyond the praise, Palacios had a hard time finding a foothold in the Rio Grande do Sul team, where he was never able to establish himself as a starter.
“We believe a lot in his football, he only needs the goal,” Alessandro Barcellos, president of Inter, supported him in December 2021. However, four months later, the Chilean left the club he had represented in 35 games, in which which he could never convert: on April 6, 2022 he moved to Vasco da Gama, who was then playing in Serie B of the Brasileirão.
Carlos Palacios played 13 months at Inter de Porto Alegre. Photo: Silvio Avila / EFE / EPA.“Obviously I wasn’t 100 percent professional there (at Inter). “I made my mistakes, my mind was on something else.”acknowledged the footballer a few weeks after his move from Porto Alegre to Rio de Janeiro. He was not able to consolidate himself in Vasco either: he was a substitute for almost the entire tournament, in which he participated in 24 games and scored just one goal (against Operário de Ponta Grossa). A month after the team achieved promotion after finishing fourth in the second division competition, the Rio leadership let him leave.
According to the Brazilian press, the decision was not based only on his sporting performance. “In recent weeks, the player presented some indiscipline problems that Vasco did not like. In late December, Palacios missed a practice and was late for another. “He got a slap on the wrist, but the event further deteriorated his relationship with the club.”Globo Esporte reported in those days.
On January 10, 2023, Palacios joined Colo-Colo, initially on a one-year loan. “What motivated me the most is being a fan of the club and that my entire family also agreed to leave Brazilian football and opt for Colo-Colo, the most important challenge of my career”he explained in his presentation. “I came to fight in the Libertadores and win all the possible titleswhich is what this club always aims for. “It is one of the happiest days of my life, after the birth of my son.”he added.
His first season with the jersey Or trans-Andean was irregular. Despite this, in January 2024 Boca became interested in his services for the first time and even made Vasco an offer of four million dollars for his token. But the footballer chose to stay in Colo-Colo. “Román (Riquelme) was always my idol. I had the opportunity to talk with him, but here I found my place in the world. When I arrived, it wasn’t going well, but I got used to it. It was always my dream to play for Colo-Colo, I was always a fan of the club. The decision comes from there, being close to my family and trying to make an important name for myself here.”he justified.
By virtue of the fulfillment of the objectives that had been agreed upon with Vasco at the time of the transfer in January 2023, Colo-Colo was acquiring portions of the player’s record who can play as a striker, as a left winger and even as a center forward: first he was a 20%, then another 20% and finally 10%. The trust and economic investment were rewarded with very good returns and goals.
These good performances reopened the doors of the national team, in which he had debuted, with the help of Colombian Reinaldo Rueda, on November 17, 2020 (at only 20 years and 120 days old) in a 2-1 defeat against Venezuela in Caracas for qualification for the Qatar World Cup. He had also participated in six games in 2021, during the management of Uruguayan Martín Lasarte.
After a three-year hiatus, Palacios was called up again last September. Ricardo Gareca summoned him for the double date of the World Cup qualification that took place that month: he made him enter the second half of the duel against Argentina in Buenos Aires (the Roja lost 3 to 0) and included him as a starter in the surprising 2 to 1 defeat against Bolivia in Santiago.
In October he was called up again and played 14 minutes against Brazil (2-1 loss in Santiago). But one day after that match, while the team was preparing to travel to Barranquilla to face Colombia, the midfielder left the concentration at the Juan Pinto Durán complex. “It was unexpected, but I can’t go on any further than that. We had given him (the day) free to meet with his family, he asked to leave a little early, I sent my collaborators to talk to him and he stated that personal issues were leading him to disaffect himself from the national team. When they are personal issues, I don’t get involved,” Gareca explained.
Carlos Palacios played 10 games with the Chilean national team. Photo: Natacha Pisarenko / APAccording to CNN Chile, the player’s decision was linked to the reactivation of a judicial case that had been opened based on a complaint filed in November 2022 by his ex-partner for threats and non-payment of child support. However, the woman denied it. “That is totally a lie, stop inventing things. He fulfills his role as a father accordingly. If you want to make him look bad, don’t involve us,” he wrote on his Instagram account.
Palacios did not travel to Barranquilla, where the Chilean team was beaten 4-0 by Colombia, but instead rejoined the Colo-Colo squad with the intention of playing a match in the domestic tournament against Unión La Calera, scheduled for the day after the match. of the selected one. However, the National Professional Football Association prevented him from playing for having unilaterally abandoned the national team’s concentration. After that situation, Gareca did not summon him for the duels against Peru and Venezuela in November.