The club looked outside for a month, found nothing it preferred, and handed the job to the man who had been doing it anyway. He knows the building; now he has to prove he knows the rest.
Íñigo Martínez 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.
$450.0K was the most the club would pay and Levante 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.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Albacete have kept their man, and Leganés go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
“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.
The dugout19 Jun 2028
Íñigo Martínez is playing like a man with something to prove
The oldest phenomenon in the sport: a new voice in the dressing room and suddenly everybody is available for everything. Íñigo Martínez is training as though the last team sheet never existed, because as far as he is concerned it does not.
Íñigo Martínez 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.
Squad24 Apr 2028
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.
Successful dribbles: 16. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
The dugout24 Apr 2028
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 0‑1 Jan Medina left the room before anybody could ask which.
Nobody at Leganés will say this on the record and the team sheets have been saying it for weeks. There is a small group in every squad who get picked when the fixture is difficult, and he has joined it.
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.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Leganés have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Raúl De Tomás 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.
It is the most legitimate ambition in the sport and the hardest for most clubs to satisfy. Elías Báez wants continental football; whether Leganés can provide it is a question about the next two seasons, not about him.
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.
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.
Cartagena 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.
Álvaro Tejero 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 goalkeeper’s error has no defender behind it to tidy it away. He knew before the ball crossed the line, the crowd knew a second later, and there is nothing anybody can say tonight.
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.
“The supporters are entitled to be angry. So am I. We will put it right.” 0‑4, a manager saying the necessary things, and a dressing room that heard a different version of them.
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.
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.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Real Madrid have kept their man, and Leganés go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Leganés can pretend not to have heard.
“I want to be playing for trophies while my legs still let me.” Nothing in that sentence is a transfer request, and nobody at Leganés heard it as anything else.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Yassine Kechta 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 Leganés this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
The last thing about a transfer that is still about the player is his signature on his own terms, and it is there. Leganés have lost him in all but the paperwork.
$7.6M on the table at Athletic Bilbao. 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 an age at which every good afternoon gets described as a throwback, which is unfair and also accurate. 7.89 at 33, and nobody on the pitch was better.
Raúl De Tomás 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.
It is not a grievance and it is not a demand: he wants to play continental football, and he has stopped hiding it. Whether Leganés can give him that is a question about the club, not about him.
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: 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.
The dugout22 Nov 2027
The view from the dugout
“We will look at it, we will learn from it, and we go again.” The three sentences every manager keeps for a 0‑1 defeat, delivered by Jan Medina to a room that had heard them before.
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 Marvel is on it.
The dugout22 Nov 2027
Somebody else is better right now than Ignasi Miquel
The team sheet says it in public every week until it changes. The only version of being dropped a footballer cannot argue with, and the one he takes hardest.
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Yassine Kechta signs something — a contract at Leganés or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Leganés have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Íñigo Martínez 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.
Somebody else has been better, the manager has said so with a team sheet, and there is no argument to be had. He will get the shirt back the only way it can be got back.
The dugout25 Oct 2027
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.” Jan Medina chose the glass-half-full version of 0‑0; the supporters left with the other one.
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.
Ninety minutes, no goals, and the argument started before the car park emptied: a point gained, or two thrown away against Lugo? Both sides of it will still be going on Thursday.
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Yassine Kechta signs something — a contract at Leganés or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
6 attempts, none of them in. He got into the right places all afternoon, which is the hard part, and did the easy part badly — and that is the version of a bad day a manager can live with.
At 33 he is supposed to be managing his minutes. Instead he was marked 7.86 and looked, for ninety minutes, exactly like the player everybody remembers.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Yassine Kechta was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Rubén Peña 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.
There is no complaint available here and everybody involved knows it, which does not make the walk to the bench any shorter. Form is the only currency in football that cannot be borrowed against.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Leganés can pretend not to have heard.
3 games without scoring. Strikers stop looking up, midfielders take the extra touch, and every shot that clears the bar is followed by a groan that has been building since the last goal.
It is not much of a headline and it is the reason players believe the next promise. Leganés told Juan Cruz something would happen and then it happened, which in this industry passes for remarkable.
Successful dribbles: 15. 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.
“We keep meeting, and we keep leaving the room with the same numbers we walked in with.” Another round of talks at Leganés, another week without a signature from Óscar Plano.
The team sheet says it in public every week until it changes. The only version of being dropped a footballer cannot argue with, and the one he takes hardest.
Íñigo Martínez 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.
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Tommaso Ebone is 21, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
It is not a grievance and it is not a demand: he wants to play continental football, and he has stopped hiding it. Whether Leganés can give him that is a question about the club, not about him.
Squad20 Sep 2027
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.
“The supporters are entitled to be angry. So am I. We will put it right.” 0‑1, a manager saying the necessary things, and a dressing room that heard a different version of them.
In brief
The dugoutElías Báez is still being punished for one mistake
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Leganés can pretend not to have heard.
The offer went to Athletic Bilbao this week and it is theirs to answer. First bids are rarely meant to succeed; they are meant to find out how loud the door closes.
Leganés offered $48.0K; Las Palmas said it was not close. The manager will be told the money is still there for the right player, which is what managers are told.
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.
10 new signings in one window. Every one may be an upgrade and the side can still be worse for a while, which is the part of a rebuild the verdicts never mention.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Athletic Bilbao have kept their man, and Leganés go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
“The manager did not use many words, and he did not need to.” Ignasi Miquel has his answer from Leganés; what he does with it is the next window’s story.
“I have tried. I have really tried, and every day I wake up in the wrong place.” Nobody at Leganés can coach that out of a man, and nobody there is pretending to.
8 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.
“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 Leganés, and it is not being withdrawn.
“I have ambitions, and I would like the club to share them.” Nobody has asked to leave and nobody has been shown the door — but a player chooses that sentence carefully, and a boardroom hears it exactly as it was meant.
Leganés offered $1.1M; Mallorca said it was not close. The manager will be told the money is still there for the right player, which is what managers are told.
Leganés had done everything except persuade the man himself. He stays at Newell's Old Boys, and the manager goes back to the drawing board with the money still in the bank.
“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 Leganés know it.
Íñigo Martínez 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 most common injury in the game and the most rushed back from. Leganés will quote 16 days and will be careful with it, because the second one is always worse than the first.
$48.0K on the table at Las Palmas. The manager wanted him, the board agreed a number, and the only voices still to be heard are the ones at the other club.
In brief
SquadYassine Kechta falls out with a teammate over standards
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Leganés can pretend not to have heard.
The offer from Caxias for Willian Lira 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.
Leganés asked and Tarazona 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 offer went to Mallorca this week and it is theirs to answer. First bids are rarely meant to succeed; they are meant to find out how loud the door closes.
The general version of this complaint is that a player wants more. The specific version names the thing: he wants to walk out under floodlights against clubs from other countries, and he has stopped pretending otherwise.
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.
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.
Leganés offered $390.0K; Alcorcón said it was not close. The manager will be told the money is still there for the right player, which is what managers are told.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Godoy Cruz have kept their man, and Leganés go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
A loan enquiry to Newell's Old Boys: cover, or a look at somebody the club cannot afford to buy yet. Either way the answer will come back inside the week.
The kind of year that ends with a name being read out in a hall. Leganés had the benefit of it every week and now have the problem of everybody else knowing.
Córdoba paid $750.0K and Leganés took it, which is the whole story in one sentence. The longer version involves a wage budget and will be told all season.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Yassine Kechta was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Barcelona have kept their man, and Leganés go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
Words at Alcorcón training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Marvel 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.
Lautaro Cardozo 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.
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Alcorcón, and both men came out saying it was fine.
He asked about his future and was given an answer with minutes in it. The manager has now made a promise in a building where promises are remembered, and the clock on it has started.
Javi Pérez 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 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.
It is not much of a headline and it is the reason players believe the next promise. Alcorcón told Agustín Fernández something would happen and then it happened, which in this industry passes for remarkable.
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.
A mark of 8.40 means one thing beside a twenty-nine-year-old's name and something else entirely beside a 21-year-old's. Nobody at the ground needed telling which this was.
3 wins on the spin now, and the question has changed from whether the run ends to who ends it. Confidence like this cannot be bought; it has to be earned exactly this way.
9 without defeat on their own grass. The pitch has not changed; the crowd has — louder earlier, and quicker to sense when the opposition would rather be somewhere else.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Marvel was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
There is a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 20-year-old it feels ownership of. Rodrigo Marina has it now, and everything he does for the rest of his time here will be measured against the goodwill he was handed for free.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Alcorcón this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad3 May 2027
Words at Alcorcón training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Marvel 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.
Marked 8.07 — the sort of number a correspondent writes down twice to be sure. Everything he tried came off, and what he did not try was not worth trying.
“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 Alcorcón know it.
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.
Going 2 down does something to a side, and what it usually does is finish them. Not here. Alcorcón rebuilt the afternoon goal by goal, and Betis Deportivo had no answer to any of it.
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Agustín Fernández provided it, and the 8.60 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
Javi Pérez 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 Marvel was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
He is 21 and the ground already sings his name, which is a thing that happens to local boys and almost never to signings. Everything from here is measured against an affection he did nothing to earn except be from here.
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Rodrigo Marina, and the manager let it.
Player ratings19 Apr 2027
Enzo Loiodice was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.09. 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.
A goalkeeper’s error has no defender behind it to tidy it away. He knew before the ball crossed the line, the crowd knew a second later, and there is nothing anybody can say tonight.
1 for Pol Domingo, marked 7.98, and a centre-half's name in the part of the report he normally only reaches by mistake. He will not be allowed to forget it in the dressing room for a month.
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.
Lautaro Cardozo 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.
Marked 8.00 — the sort of number a correspondent writes down twice to be sure. Everything he tried came off, and what he did not try was not worth trying.
“I did not come here to warm up in front of people.” He is out of contract eventually, he is old enough to count the weeks, and Alcorcón will have to give him a reason to stay or an exit.
“The players deserve the credit. My job was easy today.” It was not, and everybody in the room knew it; after 2‑1, Hugo Lozano could afford to be generous.
Javi Pérez 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.
Squad29 Mar 2027
Words at Alcorcón training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Marvel 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.
The team at the top of the table next, and the honest measure of where this side actually is. Anybody can beat the club below them; the question is what happens against Sabadell.
Squad29 Mar 2027
The division's best last weekend was a Alcorcón man
It is a small honour and it is not nothing: somebody watched every match in the division and decided that Enol Rodríguez was the best thing in any of them.
Nobody at Alcorcón will say this on the record and the team sheets have been saying it for weeks. There is a small group in every squad who get picked when the fixture is difficult, and he has joined it.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Pol Domingo trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
Every squad has one of these fixtures for somebody every season. This one is Vladyslav Kopotun’s: the club that knew him first, the supporters who will decide in the first minute whether to applaud, and Alcorcón needing him to play as if none of it matters.
“I respect the manager and I am not going to sit here and pretend I am happy.” It is the most common sentence in football and it has never once been the end of a story.
Álvaro Carreras 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.
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.
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Leganés, and both men came out saying it was fine.
Huesca 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.
Position 4 on 57 points, and the places that carry a European ticket are close enough to count. Seasons like this are decided by two results in April, and the club knows which two.
Nothing in writing and nothing in public: a word about playing time, given face to face at Leganés. The team sheets over the next month will show whether it was worth having.
Javi Pérez and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Squad8 Mar 2027
Pol Domingo 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.
Clubs make promises constantly and the page usually only hears about them when they are broken. This one was honoured, and the dressing room noticed that faster than any supporter did.
10 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.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Matías Tagliamonte trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
The dugout8 Mar 2027
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.” Hugo Lozano chose the glass-half-full version of 1‑1; the supporters left with the other one.
Javi Pérez 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.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Marvel was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
“I have tried. I have really tried, and every day I wake up in the wrong place.” Nobody at Alcorcón can coach that out of a man, and nobody there is pretending to.
“There is a gap, and pretending there is not helps nobody.” Neither side has moved, and the calendar is working for exactly one of them.
The dugout1 Mar 2027
The view from the dugout
“We will look at it, we will learn from it, and we go again.” The three sentences every manager keeps for a 0‑2 defeat, delivered by Hugo Lozano to a room that had heard them before.
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Alcorcón, and both men came out saying it was fine.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Marvel was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Antequera have kept their man, and Alcorcón go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
He is 23 and the ground already sings his name, which is a thing that happens to local boys and almost never to signings. Everything from here is measured against an affection he did nothing to earn except be from here.
“We earned that. I asked them for a reaction and I got one, and now I want the same again on Saturday.” Hugo Lozano on a 1‑0 afternoon that pleased him more than he was prepared to show.
1 for Javi Villar, marked 7.88, and a centre-half's name in the part of the report he normally only reaches by mistake. He will not be allowed to forget it in the dressing room for a month.
A medical, a signature, a shirt held up in front of a sponsor’s board. Alcorcón have done the hard part with Racing Club, and the part that remains is the part supporters actually see.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Rayo Vallecano have kept their man, and Alcorcón go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Marvel was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
He is doing things on a Saturday afternoon that nobody around him can answer, which is flattering for about one season and a problem after that. Alcorcón will not keep him by pretending otherwise.
20 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Alcorcón lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
A bad atmosphere can be waited out. A group of people meeting afterwards to decide what to do about it cannot, and everybody in the building knows which stage this is.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Alcorcón can pretend not to have heard.
The deadline has passed and the squad is the squad. 9 arrived, 0 left, and everything else printed about this club last month was a rumour that stayed one.
The offer went to Rayo Vallecano this week and it is theirs to answer. First bids are rarely meant to succeed; they are meant to find out how loud the door closes.
$760.0K was the most the club would pay and Betis 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.
Javi Pérez 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.
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Dani Rodríguez provided it, and the 8.34 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
It is not a grievance and it is not a demand: he wants to play continental football, and he has stopped hiding it. Whether Leganés can give him that is a question about the club, not about him.
10 without defeat on their own grass. The pitch has not changed; the crowd has — louder earlier, and quicker to sense when the opposition would rather be somewhere else.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Óscar Plano was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Player ratings21 Dec 2026
Yassine Kechta was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.01. 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.
“We earned that. I asked them for a reaction and I got one, and now I want the same again on Saturday.” Jan Medina on a 3‑0 afternoon that pleased him more than he was prepared to show.
Clubs make promises constantly and the page usually only hears about them when they are broken. This one was honoured, and the dressing room noticed that faster than any supporter did.
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.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Yassine Kechta was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
“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 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 1‑2 Jan Medina left the room before anybody could ask which.
Somebody else has been better, the manager has said so with a team sheet, and there is no argument to be had. He will get the shirt back the only way it can be got back.
Álvaro Morata and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Squad16 Nov 2026
Words at Leganés training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Óscar Plano 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.
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Leganés, and both men came out saying it was fine.
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.
He used to wear the other shirt. On Saturday he plays against Burgos in this one, and whatever he says this week about it being just another game will be untrue.
“I have done everything asked of me in training and it has not changed a thing on a Saturday.” The most familiar complaint in football, and one Leganés will have to answer with minutes or with a transfer.
He asked about his future and was given an answer with minutes in it. The manager has now made a promise in a building where promises are remembered, and the clock on it has started.
Rodrigo Lugo has done the arithmetic and does not like the answer. Nothing corrodes a squad faster, and no club has ever solved it by explaining the wage structure to a footballer.
Óscar Plano 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.
Íñigo Martínez is 35 and has run out of things to prove. What he has left is where to stand, when to slow it down and what to say at half-time, and none of that is on a fitness chart.
He is doing things on a Saturday afternoon that nobody around him can answer, which is flattering for about one season and a problem after that. Leganés will not keep him by pretending otherwise.
A new face in his position, and Rubén Peña suddenly has to win back what he thought he owned. Leganés have promised nothing — clubs rarely do at this stage.
A side in position 17 visits next. The result will not make anybody’s season and it could quietly break the shape of one, which is why the manager has been watching the video since Sunday.