Marked for Thimothé David
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Boardroom5 Apr 2027
The board have said in public what they had been saying in private. Results between now and the next meeting decide it, and everybody in the building knows the arithmetic.
Player ratings5 Apr 2027
At 35 he is supposed to be managing his minutes. Instead he was marked 8.46 and looked, for ninety minutes, exactly like the player everybody remembers.
Player ratings5 Apr 2027
Successful dribbles: 23. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
Squad5 Apr 2027
Thimothé David is a better footballer than he was
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 22 he is doing things at this level he could not do at the start of the season, and the coaching staff will tell you exactly which of them.
Squad5 Apr 2027
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Albacete this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad5 Apr 2027
Words at Albacete training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. William Carvalho 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.
Squad5 Apr 2027
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Jefté Betancor, and the manager let it.
Match3 Apr 2027
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 terraces5 Apr 2027
Every touch is being weighed now, in print and everywhere else. Some players grow into that and some are quietly ruined by it, and nobody knows which in advance.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Market8 Mar 2027
“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 The request is on a desk at Albacete, and it is not being withdrawn.
Player ratings8 Mar 2027
Age has not caught Higinio yet — 7.92
At 33 he is supposed to be managing his minutes. Instead he was marked 7.92 and looked, for ninety minutes, exactly like the player everybody remembers.
Squad8 Mar 2027
“I remember the meeting. I remember exactly what was promised in it.” Albacete may remember it differently, which is precisely the problem.
Match6 Mar 2027
No end in sight to Albacete's wait for a win
4 matches now without a victory, and the excuses have worn thinner than the patience. Somebody at Albacete has to find a result from somewhere.
Squad8 Mar 2027
“I never wanted to be anywhere else. There is unfinished business here.” Antonio Puertas commits to Albacete for another 2 years.
Squad8 Mar 2027
Jesús Vallejo 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.
Squad8 Mar 2027
Javi Díaz in a row with a teammate
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Albacete this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Match6 Mar 2027
No clean sheets in sight for Albacete
4 games now with at least two against. The back line has been rearranged, the goalkeeper has been backed publicly, and the goals keep going in anyway.
Match6 Mar 2027
Higinio scored, and precious little else went right: 1‑2 to Eibar, and a quiet walk to the dressing room.
In brief
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Player ratings
Álex Rubio runs at them all day
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The terraces
The spotlight tightens on Carlos Neva
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Boardroom
Albacete pull $398.1K back off the table
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Market4 Jan 2027
The name of Mario Soberón has come up in conversations Albacete were not part of. Nothing formal, nothing signed — but nothing about it accidental either.
Squad4 Jan 2027
Antonio Puertas 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.
Match2 Jan 2027
Still nobody has beaten Albacete
The unbeaten run reaches 7. Some of them were wins and some were escapes, but a side that refuses to lose is a side other dressing rooms talk about.
Squad4 Jan 2027
“If you cannot run for the shirt, somebody else will wear it.” No name was used and none was needed; every player in that room knew who it was for.
Player ratings4 Jan 2027
Jesús Vallejo was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.72. 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.
Player ratings4 Jan 2027
Successful dribbles: 18. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Squad4 Jan 2027
Words at Albacete training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Álex Rubio 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.
Squad4 Jan 2027
Iván Cuéllar dropped after a run of poor form
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.
Match2 Jan 2027
It needed Jesús Vallejo to find the net to bring anything home at all: 1‑1 against Leganés, and half the dressing room will call it a point won.