Marked for Marvel
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad8 Mar 2027
The knee: Mario Ramos out for 14 days
14 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Leganés lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
Match6 Mar 2027
15 unbeaten for Leganés
Hard to beat is not the same as winning, but 15 matches without defeat is a foundation Leganés did not have in the autumn.
Squad8 Mar 2027
21 goals and a season average of 7.50. Form like that gets noticed well beyond this town.
Player ratings8 Mar 2027
Álvaro Morata, 34, rolls back the years — 7.94
There is an age at which every good afternoon gets described as a throwback, which is unfair and also accurate. 7.94 at 34, and nobody on the pitch was better.
Squad8 Mar 2027
“The easiest signature of my career.” Dani Rodríguez and Leganés agree another 2 years, and the manager can plan around him rather than about him.
Squad8 Mar 2027
A falling-out at Leganés
Álvaro Morata and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Match6 Mar 2027
Leganés make home a hard place to visit
8 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.
Player ratings8 Mar 2027
Successful dribbles: 15. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
The dugout8 Mar 2027
The manager makes an example of Marvel
“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.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Match16 Jan 2027
Rarely has this fixture seen a display like it: 4‑0 against Mirandés, and it could have been more.
Market18 Jan 2027
“I know what people will say. I know what I want, and it is here.” Rayo Vallecano had the fee agreed and the shirt ready; they did not have the player, and now they will not.
Squad18 Jan 2027
3 goals in one afternoon from one man. The other players were also present, a witness confirmed.
Player ratings18 Jan 2027
Álvaro Morata, 34, rolls back the years — 9.80
There is an age at which every good afternoon gets described as a throwback, which is unfair and also accurate. 9.80 at 34, and nobody on the pitch was better.
Squad18 Jan 2027
16 goals and a season average of 7.37. Form like that gets noticed well beyond this town.
Market18 Jan 2027
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.
Match16 Jan 2027
Leganés make it 3 in a row
Momentum is a hard thing to buy and an easy thing to lose, and right now Leganés have 3 straight wins of it.
Squad18 Jan 2027
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.
Squad18 Jan 2027
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.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Player ratings21 Dec 2026
Successful dribbles: 31. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Squad21 Dec 2026
A falling-out at Leganés
Óscar Plano and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Squad21 Dec 2026
A row about effort at Leganés
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Enric Franquesa was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Squad21 Dec 2026
Marvel signs a new deal
“I never wanted to be anywhere else. There is unfinished business here.” Marvel commits to Leganés for another 4 years.
The dugout21 Dec 2026
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Brian Machuca, and the manager let it.
The dugout21 Dec 2026
The manager’s verdict
“I am frustrated, honestly. We did enough to win and we did not win.” Biel Vázquez was not hiding it after 0‑0, and nobody in the Leganés dressing room was either.
The dugout21 Dec 2026
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 dugout21 Dec 2026
Somebody else is better right now than Darío
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.
Match19 Dec 2026
The crowd waited for a goal that never came. Deportivo La Coruña defended in numbers and left with what they came for, and the two sides could be playing still without troubling a scorer.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad12 Oct 2026
Words exchanged at Leganés
Álvaro Morata 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.
Squad12 Oct 2026
At 28 the improving is meant to be over. It is not: 3 points better than the mark taken at the start of the year, which is the sort of thing that happens to players who take the boring parts of the job seriously.
Match10 Oct 2026
The goals have deserted Leganés
3 matches, no goals, and a training ground that has tried everything. It will end — droughts always do — but nobody at Leganés can tell you which week it ends in.
The terraces12 Oct 2026
The crowd has taken to Marvel
At 23 he is being sung about by people twice his age, which is an affection a signing has to earn over years and a local kid gets for turning up. It is also the hardest thing in football to live up to.
Player ratings12 Oct 2026
Successful dribbles: 19. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
Squad12 Oct 2026
A row about effort at Leganés
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Ignasi Miquel was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
The dugout12 Oct 2026
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Brian Machuca, and the manager let it.
Player ratings12 Oct 2026
Marked 7.73. Ask anyone leaving the ground what settled it and you will get one name, which is the only award that has ever really counted.
The dugout12 Oct 2026
Half-satisfied: Biel Vázquez on the draw
“There are things I liked and things we will be doing on Tuesday until they are right.” 0‑0, and a manager who had already decided what Tuesday looked like.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad28 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.
Squad28 Sep 2026
Ardian Bajrami gets the move he always wanted
Footballers are asked about their boyhood club so often that nobody listens to the answer. Ardian Bajrami has just signed for Leganés, and for once the answer mattered.
Match26 Sep 2026
Racing Santander left with the points after a 0‑1 defeat that will take some explaining on the terraces.
Squad28 Sep 2026
Ignasi Miquel 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.
Player ratings28 Sep 2026
Successful dribbles: 17. 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.
Squad28 Sep 2026
19 new faces, and Leganés 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.
The dugout28 Sep 2026
“I could talk about decisions and I could talk about luck. I will not. We lost.” The manager, 0‑1, and a press conference that lasted four minutes.
The dugout28 Sep 2026
Marvel gets it from the manager
“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 dugout28 Sep 2026
The manager has not finished forgetting Miguel Atienza'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.