Popayán Exacts Revenge as Struggling Depor FC's Misery Deepens in Segunda B

The football gods have a cruel sense of timing.

Just over a month ago, Depor FC had traveled to face Popayán with confidence, emerging with a hard-fought 2-1 victory that suggested their season might be turning a corner. On Sunday evening, those same two sides met again, and the script was rewritten in brutal fashion. Popayán claimed a 1-0 revenge victory, leaving Depor FC to contemplate yet another defeat in what has become a nightmarish stretch of Colombia's Primera B season.

The match's defining moment arrived four minutes after halftime, when Popayán broke through Depor FC's defensive lines to score what would prove to be the game's only goal. The breakthrough came at a pivotal moment—Depor FC had weathered the first-half storm and appeared to be settling into the kind of defensive shell that had earned them a scoreless draw against Cúcuta just weeks earlier. Instead, Popayán's clinical finish shattered any hopes of accumulating points.

What followed was a desperate scramble from the home side, one that ultimately proved self-defeating. In the 62nd minute, with Depor FC pushing numbers forward in search of an equalizer, frustration boiled over into recklessness. A red card—the details of which remain murky but the consequences crystal clear—reduced them to ten men and effectively ended any realistic chance of salvaging a result. Playing a man down for nearly half an hour against a Popayán side that had rediscovered its scoring touch was a mathematical impossibility dressed up as a football match.

The defeat extends Depor FC's alarming slide, one that has seen them collect just one point from their last four matches. Their recent form reads like a litany of defensive collapses: a 4-0 thrashing at Real Cartagena on October 5, a 4-0 humiliation at Real Santander in late September, and now this deflating home loss. The pattern is unmistakable—goals have dried up completely, with Depor FC failing to find the net in three of their last four outings. Their attacking impotence stands in stark contrast to mid-September, when they put four past Internacional Palmira and seemed capable of troubling any defense in the division.

For Popayán, Sunday's victory represented more than mere revenge—it was confirmation of a genuine resurgence. The visitors have now won three of their last four matches, a run that includes back-to-back victories over Bogotá FC and Orsomarso. That 3-0 dismantling of Orsomarso on September 28 was particularly impressive, with three goals in the final 25 minutes showcasing both their attacking depth and their ability to finish strong. Currently sitting in eighth place with 16 points from 13 matches, Popayán have climbed back into contention after their own mid-season struggles, which included that home loss to Depor FC and a narrow defeat to Tigres FC.

The head-to-head history between these sides now stands balanced, with each claiming a victory in their two meetings this season. But the manner of these victories tells different stories. Depor FC's September triumph came during a period when they could still generate offense; Popayán's response arrived at a moment when their opponents were already reeling, making the psychological blow that much heavier.

The mathematics of Colombia's Segunda B are unforgiving, and Depor FC now find themselves in a precarious position. Without a win since mid-September and hemorrhaging goals at an alarming rate, they face the very real prospect of being dragged into a relegation fight if this slide continues. Their next fixtures will be critical—not just for points, but for morale. A team that concedes four goals in consecutive away matches and then loses at home to ten men doesn't rediscover confidence overnight.

Popayán, meanwhile, can smell opportunity. Three wins in four matches represents the kind of momentum that can carry a mid-table side into the playoff conversation, particularly in a league as compressed and unpredictable as the Primera B. Their ability to grind out results—narrow victories over Huila and now Depor FC—suggests a team that has learned how to win ugly when necessary.

The red card will dominate Depor FC's post-match analysis, but it shouldn't obscure the larger truth: they were already losing when it happened, and they had created precious little to suggest that would change. Sometimes the cruelest scorelines are the ones that look respectable.