The deal that would have taken Aihen Muñoz to Córdoba has collapsed at the last stage, and he reports back to Real Sociedad with a summer to forget and a season still to play. Nobody is saying which side walked away.
Matías Soulé 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.
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.
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 Ez Abde is on it.
Matías Soulé 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 a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 21 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.
Real Sociedad asked and Almería said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
Squad21 Jun 2027
Aitor Fraga has improved at 24, which nobody expected
Careers are supposed to plateau and then decline, and the players who ignore that are always the ones who were listening on the training ground. 3 points of it, over months, at an age where the direction normally only goes one way.
It is not a grievance and it is not a demand: he wants to play continental football, and he has stopped hiding it. Whether Real Sociedad 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 Real Sociedad know it.
In brief
Transfer targetsA loan move for Miguel Rodríguez is in the works
The dugoutEz Abde has become a man the manager trusts
Granada paid $30.9M and Real Sociedad took it, which is the whole story in one sentence. The longer version involves a wage budget and will be told all season.
$21.4M was the most the club would pay and Atlético Madrid 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.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Racing Santander have kept their man, and Real Sociedad go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
The offer from Almería for Yangel Herrera 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.
There is a version of every career where the player ends up somewhere he chose rather than somewhere that chose him. Jonathan Asp-Jensen is living that version at Real Sociedad, and it tends to show in the first month.
Matías Soulé 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 want to be playing for trophies while my legs still let me.” Nothing in that sentence is a transfer request, and nobody at Real Sociedad heard it as anything else.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Valencia have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
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.
Squad24 May 2027
Pau Cubarsí 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.
10 goals in 39 games at Racing Santander — numbers that travel home faster than he does. Somebody at Valencia updates a spreadsheet every Monday, and it makes better reading each week.
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.
8 goals in 34 games at Valladolid — numbers that travel home faster than he does. Somebody at Valencia updates a spreadsheet every Monday, and it makes better reading each week.
The board’s statement ran to three sentences and one of them mentioned results. Ignacio Gallardo has managed long enough to translate: win soon, or the next statement is shorter.
Luis Rioja 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.
Squad3 May 2027
Pau Cubarsí 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.
3 matches, no goals, and a training ground that has tried everything. It will end — droughts always do — but nobody at Valencia can tell you which week it ends in.
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.
Warm-up bib, ninety minutes of watching, and a handshake at the end that fooled nobody. Big matches tell you who a manager trusts; this one told Arnaut Danjuma.
A bone, which is the one injury with a calendar attached. Real Sociedad will name a return date and, unusually for this business, will probably be right about it.
Matías Soulé 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.
Match27 Mar 2027
Another one collected away from home
4 on the bounce on the road for Real Sociedad. The coaches leave early, arrive at unlovely grounds in the dark, and keep coming home with three points.
At 22 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.
Marked 8.25 — 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.
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.
“I watch every Real Sociedad game from here. That says everything about where my head is.” The loan at Valencia runs its course, but his heart never made the trip.
0‑10 against Real Madrid, and no complaints that would survive the replay. The manager spoke about character afterwards; the terraces used shorter words.
The deadline has passed and the squad is the squad. 7 arrived, 2 left, and everything else printed about this club last month was a rumour that stayed one.
Every footballer has an answer to the question about his boyhood club, and most of them never get to act on it. Jon Martín has, at Valencia, and the first month will show what that does to a man.
Pau Cubarsí 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.
It is not a grievance and it is not a demand: he wants to play continental football, and he has stopped hiding it. Whether Valencia can give him that is a question about the club, not about him.
Match30 Jan 2027
Nobody could stop scoring
10 goals. Both benches spent the second half looking at each other rather than at the pitch. Purists will complain about Valencia and Real Madrid in equal measure; everybody else had a wonderful time.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Arnaut Danjuma was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
$51.8M settles it between the clubs for Pau Cubarsí
Barcelona have accepted the money. What Real Sociedad do not yet have is the man, and between here and the photograph is a conversation about wages that both sides are dreading.
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.
Every footballer has an answer to the question about his boyhood club, and most of them never get to act on it. Ezequiel Ávila has, at Real Sociedad, and the first month will show what that does to a man.
Igor Zubeldia 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.
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 23 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.
Add another name to the list: Barcelona have asked the question everybody in the game has been asking about Luka Sučić. The answer from Real Sociedad has not changed — yet.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Real Sociedad will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
Unax Agote 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.
“I want to be playing for trophies while my legs still let me.” Nothing in that sentence is a transfer request, and nobody at Real Sociedad heard it as anything else.
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.
“The easiest signature of my career.” Tomy Carbonell and Real Sociedad agree another 5 years, and the manager can plan around him rather than about him.
Marked 8.21 — 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 bone, which is the one injury with a calendar attached. Real Sociedad will name a return date and, unusually for this business, will probably be right about it.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Gonçalo Guedes was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
He has had enough of the noise. Whether Real Sociedad can be a quieter place for him, or whether the only cure is a move somewhere the phone-ins are gentler, is a question for the next few months.
15 times he got in the way of something. Centre-halves get written about when they make mistakes and ignored when they do not, so an afternoon like this needs saying out loud: he is the reason the scoreline reads as it does.
“It is not the end of the world and it is not good enough. Both of those are true.” The manager, after a 0‑0 draw, said the honest thing and then went to say it again inside.
In brief
The dugoutLuka Sučić is still being punished for one mistake