“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Ceuta can pretend not to have heard.
Cédric Teguia 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 Stefan Džodić was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Marc Domènech, 20, plays like he has been here for years — 7.94
A mark of 7.94 means one thing beside a twenty-nine-year-old's name and something else entirely beside a 20-year-old's. Nobody at the ground needed telling which this was.
There is an age at which every good afternoon gets described as a throwback, which is unfair and also accurate. 7.90 at 35, and nobody on the pitch was better.
Salvi Sánchez 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.
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.
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Cristian Rodríguez. 2‑0 against Real Sociedad B, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
There is no fee, no unveiling and no agent on the steps. Martí Torres has been at this club since he was a boy and is now, formally, one of the first-team squad — which for a local readership beats any signing of any size.
The academy exists for exactly this morning. Sergio Sierra has come through every age group the club runs and has now been handed a senior number, and the people who coached him at twelve will be the proudest in the building.
Guillermo Vallejo 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.
“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.
Squad23 Nov 2026
Stefan Džodić 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.
The dugout23 Nov 2026
The manager’s verdict
“I am frustrated, honestly. We did enough to win and we did not win.” Luken Prieto was not hiding it after 0‑0, and nobody in the Ceuta dressing room was either.
A bone, which is the one injury with a calendar attached. Ceuta will name a return date and, unusually for this business, will probably be right about it.
25 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Ceuta lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
Every club in football pays most of what it earns to its players. Paying nearly all of it is a different arrangement, and it has ended the same way every time somebody has tried it.
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.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Stefan Džodić was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
In brief
The dugoutSalvi Sánchez is still being punished for one mistake
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 27 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
33 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Ceuta lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
Salvi 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.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Álex Petxarromán was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
“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 dugout26 Oct 2026
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.” Luken Prieto chose the glass-half-full version of 0‑0; the supporters left with the other one.
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.
The words a physio says slowly. 48 days is what the club will announce and everybody who has heard this diagnosis before knows the number is the least of it: the knee comes back before the player does.
7 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.
5 matches, no goals, and a training ground that has tried everything. It will end — droughts always do — but nobody at Ceuta can tell you which week it ends in.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Ceuta 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 Stefan Džodić was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
“A point is a point and I will take it, but we should have had all three.” Luken Prieto after the 0‑0 draw, and the sentence every manager in the country said at some stage this weekend.
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.
0‑1 against Deportivo La Coruña, and the road stops here. Cup exits are quick deaths — no second leg, no next week, just the league from now until May.
Guillermo Vallejo 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 Stefan Džodić was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
“A point is a point and I will take it, but we should have had all three.” Luken Prieto after the 0‑0 draw, and the sentence every manager in the country said at some stage this weekend.
Every shape has positions in it and this one does not have his. Ceuta will either change the shape, change his job, or change his club, and he is waiting to hear which.
In brief
The dugoutThe plan did not have a place for Adrián Lapeña
The offer from Villarreal for Adrián Embarba 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.
Celta paid $13.4M and Almería took it, which is the whole story in one sentence. The longer version involves a wage budget and will be told all season.
Jon Morcillo has gone, the accounts have $13.4M in them, and the supporters have the feeling of having been sold something themselves. Good business and a good decision are not always the same thing.
A 2‑0 win over Burgos, earned rather than given, and the sort of afternoon that sends everyone home talking about next week instead of this one.
Player ratings31 Aug 2026
Sergio Arribas was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.15. 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.
In brief
Squad13 new faces, and Almería are still learning each other
A defender on the scoresheet, which happens rarely enough that everybody in the ground remembers who took the corner. 1 for him, and a mark of 7.73 for the rest of it.
Guillermo Vallejo 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 is the rarest sequence in football: supporters ask for something, and the club goes and does it. $2.9M for Stefan Džodić, and for one week nobody is complaining about anything.
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Anuar. 3‑1 against Mirandés, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
Marked 8.13 — 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.
In brief
SquadStefan Džodić falls out with a teammate over standards
“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 Ceuta, and it is not being withdrawn.
The accountants will call it good business and they will be right, which is not the point anybody outside the boardroom is making. José Campaña was one of the reasons people came, and $1.3M does not replace that by itself.
Ceuta have gone to Almería 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.
Footballers are asked about their boyhood club so often that nobody listens to the answer. Ignacio Zambudio has just signed for Ceuta, and for once the answer mattered.
Everything agreed with another club, everything agreed with the player; a doctor is the only person left to persuade. The photograph is a day or two away.
Terms were offered and declined. Whether it was the wages, the role or the town, nobody at Real Madrid is saying, and nobody at Ceuta is enjoying the guessing.
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.