A medical, a signature, a shirt held up in front of a sponsor’s board. Antequera have done the hard part with Universidad de Concepcion, and the part that remains is the part supporters actually see.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Antequera this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad9 Aug 2027
Words at Antequera training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Giorgi Guliashvili 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.
“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 Antequera know it.
“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 Antequera, and 0 appearances in 5 say he has earned the hearing.
Giorgi Guliashvili 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.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Samu Pérez was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
The system has changed and his position has not. A footballer can improve his form; he cannot improve the manager’s formation, and that is the whole of the problem.
Squad2 Aug 2027
7 new faces, and Antequera are still learning each other
A squad rebuilt inside one window pays for it in a currency nobody budgets for. The football is not worse than the sum of the players; it is worse than the sum of the players who have played together before.
Universidad de Concepcion have been asked whether they would lend him. Loans are agreed quickly or not at all, and this one will be one or the other by the weekend.
The clubs have settled the fee and he has settled his wages. What remains is a medical and a photograph, and around Antequera people have started saying his name in the past tense.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Giorgi Guliashvili was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Antequera this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
The injury that keeps coming back, keeps being rushed back from, and quietly costs more careers than the dramatic ones. 14 days is the estimate; the honest figure depends on whether anybody is patient.
“This is not anger. I have thought about it for months, and nothing that has happened lately changed my mind.” The request is on a desk at Antequera, and it is not being withdrawn.
Antequera had done everything except persuade the man himself. He stays at Osasuna, and the manager goes back to the drawing board with the money still in the bank.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Giorgi Guliashvili was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Antequera asked and Lugo 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 most common injury in the game and the most rushed back from. Antequera will quote 14 days and will be careful with it, because the second one is always worse than the first.
Antequera have made the call to Pescara. No fee, a share of the wages, and a spare shirt in the position where the squad has been thinnest all season.
The dugout21 Jun 2027
The manager has not finished forgetting Fèlix Garreta'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.
Position 12 on 47 points. Every season is a story and this is the last line of it, and now the club has three months to decide what the next one is about.
6 without a win now, and the ground has developed the special quiet of a crowd that expects the worst. One scrappy 1-0 would cure most of it; that is the maddening part.
Miguel Loureiro 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.
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 will confirm it and the team sheets confirm it every week. One error has bought him a spell as second choice that is already longer than the error deserved.
30 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Antequera lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” José Mauri and Antequera agree another 3 years.
Squad8 Mar 2027
Words at Antequera training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Giorgi Guliashvili 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.
Adrià Gené 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.
A player who expected to start watched it instead. The manager will call it a decision for the team; Emiliano Agüero will call it something else in private.