The words a physio says slowly. 83 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.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Almería will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
The clubs have shaken hands with Cádiz; the player has not yet. Personal terms are next, and personal terms are where more deals die than anybody prints.
At 22 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.
There is a version of every career where the player ends up somewhere he chose rather than somewhere that chose him. Tomáš Digaňa is living that version at Almería, and it tends to show in the first month.
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.
In brief
The dugoutIbrahima Koné knocks on the manager's door
The words a physio says slowly. 117 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.
A bone, which is the one injury with a calendar attached. Almería will name a return date and, unusually for this business, will probably be right about it.
The clubs have shaken hands with Leganés; the player has not yet. Personal terms are next, and personal terms are where more deals die than anybody prints.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Almería can pretend not to have heard.
“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.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Almería this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Vélez have kept their man, and Almería go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
The academy exists for exactly this morning. Manuel Navarro 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.
The academy exists for exactly this morning. Carlos Márquez 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.
A bone, which is the one injury with a calendar attached. Almería will name a return date and, unusually for this business, will probably be right about it.
“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 Almería, and it is not being withdrawn.
“I want to be playing for trophies while my legs still let me.” Nothing in that sentence is a transfer request, and nobody at Almería heard it as anything else.
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 22 he is doing things at this level he could not do at the start of the season, and the coaching staff will tell you exactly which of them.
Peque 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.
Almería asked and Zaragoza said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
7 arrivals, an average age nobody would call a squad, and a set of parents being shown around a building their sons will spend more time in than at home. The scouting has already happened; today is only the paperwork.
In brief
MarketNobody at Almería has picked up the phone to Gui
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 120 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
The chase for Yangel Herrera ended with $9.4M changing hands and Real Sociedad out of reasons to say no. The supporters will judge the fee the only way that matters: on Saturdays.
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Áron Yaakobishvili is 21, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
A bone, which is the one injury with a calendar attached. Almería will name a return date and, unusually for this business, will probably be right about it.
Sevilla paid $21.8M 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.
Almería and Deportivo La Coruña have settled on $2.2M. The rest belongs to the player and his agent, and a supporter who has watched one of these before knows not to buy the shirt yet.
Almería asked and Betis said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Almería this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Every run ends on an afternoon somebody had marked down as routine. This one went 16 matches, which is long enough that a town had stopped counting, and short enough that it will remember exactly who stopped it.
Marc Bernal 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.
0‑1 to Racing Santander, and no complaints worth printing. The performance asked for nothing more than it got.
Squad10 May 2027
Álex Muñoz 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 dugout10 May 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 Mario Prieto to a room that had heard them before.
He is not being dropped. There is simply nowhere in the formation Almería are playing to put a man who does what he does, which is a harder thing to be told than any team sheet.
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.
In brief
The dugoutThe manager has not finished forgetting Thalys's mistake
5 wins in a row changes how opponents warm up: quieter, more glances across. Runs end, everybody knows that — but nobody in this dressing room is planning for it.
Marc Bernal 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 finished 1‑0, and it was Peque’s afternoon: on the scoresheet when it mattered, and the reason the points belong to Almería.
Squad5 Apr 2027
André Horta 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.
Marked 8.04 — 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.
A player who expected to start watched it instead. The manager will call it a decision for the team; Carles Soria will call it something else in private.
A bone, which is the one injury with a calendar attached. Almería will name a return date and, unusually for this business, will probably be right about it.
Marc Bernal 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 Carles Soria was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
It needed Nico Melamed to find the net to bring anything home at all: 1‑1 against Valladolid, and half the dressing room will call it a point won.
The dugout15 Feb 2027
Somebody else is better right now than Carles Soria
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 is not the end of the world and it is not good enough. Both of those are true.” The manager, after a 1‑1 draw, said the honest thing and then went to say it again inside.
In brief
The dugoutThalys is still paying for one afternoon at Almería
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Almería will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
Marc Bernal 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.
Almería asked and Castellón said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and André Horta was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
5 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.
The list is a quiet document with a loud meaning. Sergio Arribas may talk to anybody who asks, and everybody at the club understands what that means.
The dugout18 Jan 2027
Somebody else is better right now than Carles Soria
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.
In brief
The dugoutThe view from the dugout
The dugoutThalys is still being punished for one mistake
A bone, which is the one injury with a calendar attached. Almería will name a return date and, unusually for this business, will probably be right about it.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the team. 7 saves, several of them the sort nobody expects to see stopped, and a scoreline that flatters everybody in front of him.
The terraces28 Dec 2026
A cup hiding at Sevilla leaves Almería explaining themselves
0-5, and long before the end the away end had switched from encouragement to something considerably more pointed. Nobody rings a phone-in about losing narrowly.
“I want to win things, and I would like to do it here.” Nothing has been demanded and nothing has been threatened — but a boardroom at Almería hears a sentence like that exactly as it was built.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Almería this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Almería will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
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 7.87 for the rest of it.
Marc Bernal 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 a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 21-year-old it feels ownership of. Thalys 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.
5 matches without a win, and then this, against Andorra. Relief is a strange noise in a football ground and it was the only noise at the end.
Squad21 Dec 2026
André Horta 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.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Almería will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
5 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.
Marc Bernal 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.
There is a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 19-year-old it feels ownership of. Marc Bernal 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.
The academy exists for exactly this morning. Antonio Gómez 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.
Squad14 Dec 2026
Words at Almería training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Carles Soria 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 words a physio says slowly. 140 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.
The clubs have settled the fee and he has settled his wages. What remains is a medical and a photograph, and around Almería people have started saying his name in the past tense.
Sevilla did not want to sell and the number is why they did. $24.4M for Peque, and the expectation that arrives with him is the kind no amount of settling-in period softens.
There is no crueller way to lose a football match. Almería scored in the 91th minute, the restart barely happened, and the away end was still standing when the whistle went.
Almería asked and Cultural Leonesa said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
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 7.64 for the rest of it.
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 7.64 for the rest of it.