Marked for Dani Rodríguez
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Boardroom7 Sep 2026
Window shuts: 18 in, 0 out at Leganés
The deadline has passed and the squad is the squad. 18 arrived, 0 left, and everything else printed about this club last month was a rumour that stayed one.
Squad7 Sep 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 Leganés this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad7 Sep 2026
Words at Leganés training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Yassine Kechta 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.
Transfer targets7 Sep 2026
Leganés asked and La Equidad said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
The dugout7 Sep 2026
Roberto López asks for a word with the manager
“I would rather say it to his face than read about it.” The meeting was requested by the player, which tells you most of what you need to know.
Squad7 Sep 2026
The captaincy has been taken off Roberto López. Leganés will call it a decision about the team; a dressing room reads it as a verdict on a man.
Squad7 Sep 2026
Not a new contract, not a new number: a new place in the manager’s thinking, which is the only promotion in football that actually matters. Yassine Kechta has moved up it.
Looking ahead7 Sep 2026
Las Palmas next, and one man in the Leganés dressing room knows their training ground better than his own. The reception will tell him what they thought of him.
Market7 Sep 2026
Leganés have made Andrés Campos available for transfer. A career at this club is over in all but paperwork.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Transfer targets31 Aug 2026
The clubs had agreed and the player had not. A snub, and a public one: Athletic Bilbao keep him, and the supporters here are left wondering what he had heard about the place.
Transfer targets31 Aug 2026
The approach was made and the answer came back in a sentence. There is no number on the table because there was no number that would have been enough.
Match29 Aug 2026
Málaga left with the points after a 0‑2 defeat that will take some explaining on the terraces.
The dugout31 Aug 2026
The manager has not finished forgetting Luca Zidane'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.
Squad31 Aug 2026
Too much change too quickly at Leganés
11 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.
Squad31 Aug 2026
A mistake Luca Zidane will not forget
Goalkeepers do not get to make mistakes; they get to make goals. He made one, he knew it instantly, and there was nobody behind him to make it anything else.
The dugout31 Aug 2026
“I could talk about decisions and I could talk about luck. I will not. We lost.” The manager, 0‑2, and a press conference that lasted four minutes.
Squad31 Aug 2026
Luca Zidane wants out of the spotlight
The ambition story running the other way, and the one nobody tells: a footballer asking for a smaller stage, fewer cameras and a crowd that does not turn. It is not weakness and it is very rarely reported as anything else.
Player ratings31 Aug 2026
Successful dribbles: 13. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Market3 Aug 2026
Dani Rodríguez wants to know where this is going
“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 Leganés hears a sentence like that exactly as it was built.
Squad3 Aug 2026
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Dani Rodríguez and Leganés agree another 2 years.
Squad3 Aug 2026
Álvaro Morata 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.
Squad3 Aug 2026
Óscar Plano 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.
Transfer targets3 Aug 2026
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Burgos have kept their man, and Leganés go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
Market3 Aug 2026
“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.