The deal that would have taken Jon Karrikaburu to Valencia has collapsed at the last stage, and he reports back to Burgos with a summer to forget and a season still to play. Nobody is saying which side walked away.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Burgos is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
Burgos asked and Teruel said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
Squad26 Jun 2028
Álex Lizancos 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.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Burgos this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Atlético Madrid 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.
Marked 8.19 — 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.
Level with 93 minutes on the clock, after an afternoon Burgos had all but put away. Málaga will call it a point earned; the home dressing room will call it two given away, and both of them are right.
Squad24 Apr 2028
Markel Lozano 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.
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.
A goalkeeper’s error has no defender behind it to tidy it away. He knew before the ball crossed the line, the crowd knew a second later, and there is nothing anybody can say tonight.
Curro 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 now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Getafe have kept their man, and Burgos go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Jon Karrikaburu. 1‑0 against Castellón, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
Headers, blocks, tackles, interceptions — 18 of them, and not one goal behind him. The sort of performance that never makes a highlight reel and wins football matches.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Burgos have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Curro 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 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.
It finished 2‑0, and it was David González’s afternoon: on the scoresheet when it mattered, and the reason the points belong to Burgos.
Squad29 Nov 2027
Mateo Mejía 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.
“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 Burgos, and it is not being withdrawn.
The clubs had agreed and the player had not. A snub, and a public one: Gil Vicente keep him, and the supporters here are left wondering what he had heard about the place.
Centre-halves are allowed forward twice a season and are judged on what they do when they get there. Pablo Galdames scored, was marked 7.97, and got back before anybody noticed he had gone.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Burgos this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
It finished 1‑0, and it was Pablo Galdames’s afternoon: on the scoresheet when it mattered, and the reason the points belong to Burgos.
Squad30 Aug 2027
Words at Burgos training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Mateo Mejía 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 one version of being left out a player cannot argue with, and the one he takes worst. Somebody else has been better and the team sheet says so, in public, every week until it changes.
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Ander Cantero, and the manager let it.
Squad21 Dec 2026
Words at Burgos training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. José Gragera 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 were not good enough today and I am not going to dress it up.” Pol Alonso after 1‑2, in the tone of a man who knows the next question and does not intend to answer it.
Every squad has one of these fixtures for somebody every season. This one is Víctor Mollejo’s: the club that knew him first, the supporters who will decide in the first minute whether to applaud, and Burgos needing him to play as if none of it matters.
Successful dribbles: 10. 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.