Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Jokin Gabilondo will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Zaragoza the goodbyes have quietly begun.
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Ivan, and the manager let it.
Squad26 Apr 2027
Paul Akouokou 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.
There is a version of this player everybody suspected was in there, and on this evidence it is. 8.34, and no argument anywhere in the ground.
Player ratings26 Apr 2027
Sebas Moyano was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.21. 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.
It is not much of a headline and it is the reason players believe the next promise. Zaragoza told Alejandro Catena something would happen and then it happened, which in this industry passes for remarkable.
“The players deserve the credit. My job was easy today.” It was not, and everybody in the room knew it; after 2‑1, Mario Espinosa could afford to be generous.
In brief
Loan watchThe goals keep arriving from Sinan Bakış’s exile
The dugoutPablo Insua asks for a word with the manager
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 14 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
“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 Zaragoza know it.
Paul Akouokou 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 supporters are entitled to be angry. So am I. We will put it right.” 1‑2, a manager saying the necessary things, and a dressing room that heard a different version of them.
A bone, which is the one injury with a calendar attached. Zaragoza will name a return date and, unusually for this business, will probably be right about it.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Zaragoza is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
12 home matches unbeaten. Visiting sides arrive already talking about the atmosphere, which is usually the sign that they have half-lost before kickoff.
“I have tried. I have really tried, and every day I wake up in the wrong place.” Nobody at Zaragoza can coach that out of a man, and nobody there is pretending to.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Zaragoza this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
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. 12 actions, 7.88, and a manager who will not be substituting him again in a hurry.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 93 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Zaragoza have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Three points for Zaragoza, 1‑0 the final word against Burgos in a contest settled by the finer margins.
Squad28 Dec 2026
Paul Akouokou 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.
“We earned that. I asked them for a reaction and I got one, and now I want the same again on Saturday.” Mario Espinosa on a 1‑0 afternoon that pleased him more than he was prepared to show.
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.
In brief
Player ratingsHalf an hour was enough for Sinan Bakış
Two goals and a mark of 8.35 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
50 for the club now, each one filed in somebody’s memory with a date and a scoreline. Numbers like this are what supporters argue about in twenty years.
2 goals inside twenty minutes with Sebas Moyano in the middle of it, and Huesca unable to get near the ball long enough to change anything. Some matches are won before the first drink.
Squad21 Dec 2026
Words at Zaragoza training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Paul Akouokou 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 Sinan Bakış is on it.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the team. 7 saves, several of them the sort nobody expects to see stopped, and a scoreline that flatters everybody in front of him.
“I am grateful for the games, but I did not become a footballer to be somebody else's spare part.” He wants to be at Zaragoza, and 4 appearances in 17 say he has earned the hearing.
Cádiz left with the points after a 0‑2 defeat that will take some explaining on the terraces.
Squad7 Dec 2026
Paul Akouokou 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.
Successful dribbles: 17. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
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 0‑2 Mario Espinosa left the room before anybody could ask which.
A month is long enough that nobody gets in by accident. Yussif Saidu is in the division's best eleven for it, which is a quieter compliment than an award and a more reliable one.
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. 18 actions, 7.73, and a manager who will not be substituting him again in a hurry.
“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; Zaragoza are dealing with a man who wants a different country.
A 1‑0 win over Córdoba, earned rather than given, and the sort of afternoon that sends everyone home talking about next week instead of this one.
Squad30 Nov 2026
Paul Akouokou 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.
“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 dugout30 Nov 2026
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.” Mario Espinosa, on a 1‑0 win that he was already picking apart on the walk to the press room.
Paul Akouokou 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.
Successful dribbles: 18. 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.
Behind, and beaten by any honest reading, until minute 88. Andorra had the points in their pocket and a corner of the ground still believed, which is generally when it happens.
It finished 1‑1, and it somehow always looked like it would. One of those afternoons where the table moves less than the tempers.
The dugout23 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.” Mario Espinosa chose the glass-half-full version of 1‑1; the supporters left with the other one.
Córdoba next, and one man in the Zaragoza dressing room knows their training ground better than his own. The reception will tell him what they thought of him.
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.
The manager wanted a different profile for this opponent, which is a real football reason and no consolation. He did nothing wrong and he did not play.
Nothing in writing and nothing in public: a word about playing time, given face to face at Zaragoza. The team sheets over the next month will show whether it was worth having.
Words at Zaragoza training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Paul Akouokou 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 Sinan Bakış is on it.
Andorra next, and one man in the Zaragoza dressing room knows their training ground better than his own. The reception will tell him what they thought of him.
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 Zaragoza that is a harder question to answer.
Nothing in writing and nothing in public: a word about playing time, given face to face at Zaragoza. The team sheets over the next month will show whether it was worth having.
The demotion a club never announces and a dressing room always notices. Sergio Escudero is further from the side than he was, and the reason will not be given until he asks.
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.
Successful dribbles: 14. 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.
In brief
The dugoutYussif Saidu knocks on the manager’s door
Everybody saw it before anybody said it. At 37 the numbers say 3 points down on what he was, and the question for Zaragoza is how to handle a man they owe a great deal.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Sergio Escudero was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
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.
It is not much of a headline and it is the reason players believe the next promise. Zaragoza told Ivan something would happen and then it happened, which in this industry passes for remarkable.
He used to wear the other shirt. On Saturday he plays against Málaga in this one, and whatever he says this week about it being just another game will be untrue.
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Zaragoza, and both men came out saying it was fine.
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 Aleksandar Radovanović has written the date down.
Another week, another link, another denial nobody quite believes. Zaragoza know the market decides these things, not the back pages — but the back pages are louder.
“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 Zaragoza know it.
Squad5 Oct 2026
Words at Zaragoza training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Sergio Escudero 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.
A month is long enough that nobody gets in by accident. Raúl Guti is in the division's best eleven for it, which is a quieter compliment than an award and a more reliable one.
“The players deserve the credit. My job was easy today.” It was not, and everybody in the room knew it; after 1‑0, Mario Espinosa could afford to be generous.
Fee agreed, wages agreed, and Ceuta waiting with a shirt. Nobody at Zaragoza is pretending otherwise, and the supporters have stopped asking whether and started asking when.
$3.6M was the most the club would pay and Valladolid 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 Flamengo 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.
Squad24 Aug 2026
Words at Zaragoza training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Paul Akouokou 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 dressing room knows how to read a signing like this one. Danilo Gómez is not here to sit and wait indefinitely, and the man whose place he has been bought to take knows it better than anyone.
Zaragoza have made the call to Estudiantes. No fee, a share of the wages, and a spare shirt in the position where the squad has been thinnest all season.
$6.4M was the most the club would pay and Barcelona 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.
$3.6M on the table at Valladolid. The manager wanted him, the board agreed a number, and the only voices still to be heard are the ones at the other club.
He is going to Sevilla, the club has $3.0M 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.
The offer from Barakaldo for Marcos Cuenca 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.
Everything agreed with Real Madrid, everything agreed with the player; a doctor is the only person left to persuade. The photograph is a day or two away.
Squad17 Aug 2026
Paul Akouokou 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. River Plate have kept their man, and Zaragoza go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
$6.4M on the table at Barcelona. The manager wanted him, the board agreed a number, and the only voices still to be heard are the ones at the other club.
There is a version of every career where the player ends up somewhere he chose rather than somewhere that chose him. Ivan is living that version at Zaragoza, and it tends to show in the first month.
The number the board signed off was not enough. It has been asked again and raised its own offer to $6.9M — a club that wants Marc Bernal enough to be asked twice.
Terms were offered and declined. Whether it was the wages, the role or the town, nobody at Belgrano is saying, and nobody at Zaragoza is enjoying the guessing.
Paul Akouokou 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.
Zaragoza asked and River Plate 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. Ibai Suárez 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.