“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 The request is on a desk at Cádiz, and it is not being withdrawn.
“I remember the meeting. I remember exactly what was promised in it.” Cádiz may remember it differently, which is precisely the problem.
Player ratings1 Feb 2027
Lautaro Millán, 21, plays like he has been here for years — 7.83
A mark of 7.83 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.
The bid was some way short and Cádiz did not need long over it. Nobody in the game reads a first refusal as the end of anything.
Boardroom1 Feb 2027
Cádiz close the window on a squad of their own making
1 in and 2 out, and no more changes for months. The manager has what he has, the supporters have their opinion of it, and the table will have the last word.
Cádiz ran out of time with Mallorca. The paperwork was open when the deadline passed, and a transfer that was almost done is now a transfer that never happened.
The phone has started ringing about Roger Martí again, and this time the name on the line is Mallorca. Cádiz are listening politely and promising nothing.
Roger Martí 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.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the whole of the defence. 9 saves, several of them the kind nobody expects to see made, and ten outfield players who owe him a drink.
Ninety minutes of very little, and then everything at once. The winner arrived in the 88th, and Gijón spent what remained of the match appealing to the referee rather than chasing the ball.
The 85th minute, half the ground already edging towards the exits, and Jerónimo Domina decided nobody was going anywhere. Espanyol had no time left to answer.
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Jerónimo Domina provided it, and the 7.91 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
Player ratings14 Dec 2026
Lautaro Millán, 21, plays like he has been here for years — 7.60
A mark of 7.60 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.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the team. 9 saves, several of them the sort nobody expects to see stopped, and a scoreline that flatters everybody in front of him.
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.
Marked 8.20 — 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.
“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 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.” Jan Gutiérrez, on a 2‑1 win that he was already picking apart on the walk to the press room.
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 José Antonio De la Rosa is on it.
Zaragoza next, and one man in the Cádiz dressing room knows their training ground better than his own. The reception will tell him what they thought of him.
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.
Nobody at Cádiz 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 Iza trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
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.
“We keep meeting, and we keep leaving the room with the same numbers we walked in with.” Another round of talks at Cádiz, another week without a signature from Marc-Olivier Doué.
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 Cádiz that is a harder question to answer.
Javi Ontiveros wins it after the whistle should have gone
97 minutes played. Javi Ontiveros found the finish in time that only existed because of earlier delays, and Ceuta went from a point to nothing inside one movement.
“I was told what my role would be, and I signed on that basis. It has not happened.” A grievance with a date attached is the hardest kind to settle.
Player ratings2 Nov 2026
Lautaro Millán, 21, plays like he has been here for years — 7.78
A mark of 7.78 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.
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.
At 19 he is doing things this season that he could not do last season, and doing them every week. Form comes and goes; this has stayed long enough to be called something else.
Jerónimo Domina 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.
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Roger Martí, and the manager let it.
The dugout19 Oct 2026
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 Jan Gutiérrez to a room that had heard them before.
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 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.
Marked 4.87. Nothing he attempted worked and by the hour mark he had stopped attempting much, which is the part a manager notices rather than the mistakes.
He used to wear the other shirt. On Saturday he plays against Castellón in this one, and whatever he says this week about it being just another game will be untrue.
A brace, and Urko Izeta takes the afternoon — 8.36
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Urko Izeta provided it, and the 8.36 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
Player ratings28 Sep 2026
Lautaro Millán, 21, plays like he has been here for years — 7.73
A mark of 7.73 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.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Cádiz this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
At 21 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.
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.
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.
“The players deserve the credit. My job was easy today.” It was not, and everybody in the room knew it; after 2‑1, Jan Gutiérrez could afford to be generous.
The clubs had agreed and the player had not. A snub, and a public one: Real Sociedad keep him, and the supporters here are left wondering what he had heard about the place.
Centre-halves are allowed forward twice a season and are judged on what they do when they get there. Damián scored, was marked 7.75, and got back before anybody noticed he had gone.
There is a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 23-year-old it feels ownership of. Damián 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.
“We earned that. I asked them for a reaction and I got one, and now I want the same again on Saturday.” Jan Gutiérrez on a 1‑0 afternoon that pleased him more than he was prepared to show.
$660.0K on the table at Betis. The manager wanted him, the board agreed a number, and the only voices still to be heard are the ones at the other club.
Cádiz have gone to Central Norte with a bid, and the supporters have gone to the internet with an opinion about it. Whether either changes anything is up to the selling club.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Cádiz this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
It is not a grievance and it is not a demand: he wants to play continental football, and he has stopped hiding it. Whether Cádiz can give him that is a question about the club, not about him.
“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 Cádiz know it.
49 months to run and not a word offered. A club that lets the calendar negotiate for it usually ends up losing to the calendar.
Squad3 Aug 2026
9 new faces, and Cádiz 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.