The deadline has passed and the squad is the squad. 14 arrived, 9 left, and everything else printed about this club last month was a rumour that stayed one.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Cacereño this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
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.
The manager has re-ordered his thinking and Rodrigo Lugo has come out of it lower. He will be told it is temporary, and the players who have heard that before will avoid his eye.
“We were not good enough today and I am not going to dress it up.” Interim Coach after 0‑1, in the tone of a man who knows the next question and does not intend to answer it.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Barcelona have kept their man, and Cacereño go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
Raúl Navarro 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.
Deportivo La Coruña 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.
Nobody will confirm this and nothing else explains the last month of selections. A costly error buys a player a period of being second choice that is always longer than the error was.
In brief
The dugoutRaúl Sanchís asks for a word with the manager
What was said behind closed doors has now been said in front of a microphone. Everybody at Cacereño can do the arithmetic, including the man it is aimed at.
The whole football department in one room on a weekday morning. Nothing was announced afterwards, which is what a board announces when it has run out of patience.
The deal with Andorra is done in every sense but the one that puts him on the pitch. Nothing goes wrong at this stage, except on the occasions when it does.
Raúl Navarro 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.
Squad7 Aug 2028
Words at Cacereño training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Wilfrid Kaptoum 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.
Cacereño asked and Huesca said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
He is not being dropped. There is simply nowhere in the formation Cacereño are playing to put a man who does what he does, which is a harder thing to be told than any team sheet.
112 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Cacereño lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
The deal with Ibiza is done in every sense but the one that puts him on the pitch. Nothing goes wrong at this stage, except on the occasions when it does.
The offer went to Zaragoza 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.
Cacereño asked and Barcelona said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
$25.0K was the most the club would pay and Lugo 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.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Rafa De Vicente was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Rubén Sanchidrián 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.
In brief
The dugoutRubén Valdera is still being punished for one mistake
The last thing about a transfer that is still about the player is his signature on his own terms, and it is there. Cacereño have lost him in all but the paperwork.
“Some mornings you wake up and you are still a long way from everything you know.” It is not the football and it never was; Cacereño are dealing with a man who wants a different country.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Barcelona have kept their man, and Cacereño go back to a list with one name crossed off 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 Cacereño this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad19 Jun 2028
Words at Cacereño training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Juanjo Sánchez 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.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Nando García trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
9 without a win is the sort of run that changes how a town talks about its club, and Talavera were the afternoon it stopped. Nothing is fixed by one result and everything feels different by one.
Centre-halves are allowed forward twice a season and are judged on what they do when they get there. Emi scored, was marked 7.94, and got back before anybody noticed he had gone.
Kensly Vázquez and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Squad15 May 2028
Words at Cacereño training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Juanjo Sánchez 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.
“We earned that. I asked them for a reaction and I got one, and now I want the same again on Saturday.” Luka Nieto on a 1‑0 afternoon that pleased him more than he was prepared to show.
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.
8 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.
Juanjo Sánchez 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.
Albacete left with the points after a 0‑1 defeat that will take some explaining on the terraces.
The dugout1 May 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 Luka Nieto left the room before anybody could ask which.
It is not much of a headline and it is the reason players believe the next promise. Cacereño told Diego Nieves something would happen and then it happened, which in this industry passes for remarkable.
Every squad is half players the manager chose and half players he inherited. Thiago Ojeda was chosen, the man who chose him has gone, and he starts again from nothing under the next one.
Squad1 May 2028
Ángel Galván 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.
11 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.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the team. 6 saves, several of them the sort nobody expects to see stopped, and a scoreline that flatters everybody in front of him.
Miguel Berlanga 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.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Granada have kept their man, and Cacereño go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
1‑2 to Celta Fortuna, and no complaints worth printing. The performance asked for nothing more than it got.
The dugout15 Feb 2027
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 Nil Moreno left the room before anybody could ask which.
A year in and the city has not opened up, the language has not come, and lunch is eaten alone more often than anybody at Cacereño would admit. It shows on Saturdays.
In brief
The dugoutPau Palacín knocks on the manager's door