Marked for Simon Eriksson
From our football correspondent
Steady
Transfer targets9 Aug 2027
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Exeter City have kept their man, and Racing Santander go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
Squad9 Aug 2027
Iván Martín in a row with a teammate
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Racing Santander this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad9 Aug 2027
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.
Squad9 Aug 2027
Carlos Guirao 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.
Squad9 Aug 2027
Juan Bauzá 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.
Market9 Aug 2027
“We keep meeting, and we keep leaving the room with the same numbers we walked in with.” Another round of talks at Racing Santander, another week without a signature from Íñigo Vicente.
Loan watch9 Aug 2027
“I did not go to Birmingham to sit and watch. I want to come back to Racing Santander and fight for my place.” 0 appearances in 5 matches say the rest.
Transfer targets9 Aug 2027
A loan enquiry to Port Vale: cover, or a look at somebody the club cannot afford to buy yet. Either way the answer will come back inside the week.
The dugout9 Aug 2027
The manager makes an example of Maguette Guèye
“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.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad28 Jun 2027
A knee injury of the worst kind for Joaquín Postigo
36 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Racing Santander lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Match28 Jun 2027
104 points and nobody above them. The word is not being said around the ground yet, and it is being thought in every seat.
Market28 Jun 2027
The paperwork is done: Luis López joins from Eibar in a deal worth $1.4M. Now comes the harder part.
Market28 Jun 2027
The bid was some way short and Racing Santander did not need long over it. Nobody in the game reads a first refusal as the end of anything.
Squad28 Jun 2027
Matteo Prati is a better footballer than he was
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.
Squad28 Jun 2027
Julen Agirrezabala has improved at 26, 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.
Squad28 Jun 2027
Pablo Ramón in a row with a teammate
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Racing Santander this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Transfer targets28 Jun 2027
Racing Santander asked and Real Madrid said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
Market28 Jun 2027
LOSC Lille are about to pick up the phone
A conversation is coming this week. Racing Santander will put a number on him, and from there it stops being football and becomes arithmetic.
From our football correspondent
Triumph
Market11 Jan 2027
The bid was some way short and Racing Santander did not need long over it. Nobody in the game reads a first refusal as the end of anything.
Match11 Jan 2027
First, on 56 points. The table is a fact and a fact is allowed to be enjoyed, which is as far as anybody at the club is prepared to go in public.
Match9 Jan 2027
There were 88 minutes on the clock and Eibar had all but banked the point. Football rarely reads the room, and Racing Santander did not stop to explain themselves.
Match9 Jan 2027
5 wins on the spin now, and the question has changed from whether the run ends to who ends it. Confidence like this cannot be bought; it has to be earned exactly this way.
Player ratings11 Jan 2027
Selton, 19, steals the show — 7.83
Marked 7.83 at 19, in a side that makes no allowances for age. He did not need any, and he looked the least nervous man on the pitch.
Market11 Jan 2027
Villarreal pay $5.5M, and the deal is done. The number reads well on a balance sheet; whether it reads well on the pitch is next season's question.
Transfer targets11 Jan 2027
$1.4M on the table at Getafe. The manager wanted him, the board agreed a number, and the only voices still to be heard are the ones at the other club.
Match9 Jan 2027
11 without defeat on their own grass. The pitch has not changed; the crowd has — louder earlier, and quicker to sense when the opposition would rather be somewhere else.
Squad11 Jan 2027
Iván Martín 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.
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Squad12 Oct 2026
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 81 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
Match10 Oct 2026
Mirandés will want this one forgotten quickly: 3‑0, every duel lost, and a long ride home. Racing Santander were ruthless in the way good sides are ruthless.
Player ratings12 Oct 2026
Two goals and a mark of 8.51 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
Player ratings12 Oct 2026
Yassir Zabiri, 21, steals the show — 8.28
Marked 8.28 at 21, in a side that makes no allowances for age. He did not need any, and he looked the least nervous man on the pitch.
Match10 Oct 2026
Momentum is a hard thing to buy and an easy thing to lose, and right now Racing Santander have 4 straight wins of it.
The dugout12 Oct 2026
“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.
Squad12 Oct 2026
Iván Martín in a row with a teammate
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Racing Santander this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad12 Oct 2026
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Simon Eriksson is 20, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
Squad12 Oct 2026
“I never wanted to be anywhere else. There is unfinished business here.” Jorge Salinas commits to Racing Santander for another 5 years.