Marked for Duván Ruiz
From our football correspondent
Crisis
The terraces27 Sep 2027
Anger at Real Santander spills outside the ground
It has stopped being a mood in the stands and started being something organised. Boards can ignore a bad atmosphere for a long time; they cannot ignore this stage of it for very long at all.
Match27 Sep 2027
Every point is an argument now for Real Santander
Position 12 and 18 points, and the table gets read bottom-up in this part of town. The calendar has stopped being a schedule and started being a countdown.
Market27 Sep 2027
“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 The request is on a desk at Real Santander, and it is not being withdrawn.
Squad27 Sep 2027
Santiago Rey 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 Real Santander this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad27 Sep 2027
Johao Camacho 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.
Squad27 Sep 2027
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Helibelton Palacios trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Market9 Aug 2027
“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 The request is on a desk at Real Santander, and it is not being withdrawn.
Boardroom9 Aug 2027
Pressure builds in the Real Santander boardroom
The directors have stopped offering the manager public warmth. In football that is usually the stage before the short statement.
Squad9 Aug 2027
Santiago Rey 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.
Squad9 Aug 2027
Words at Real Santander training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Johao Camacho 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.
Boardroom9 Aug 2027
Wages eat 85% of everything Real Santander earn
There is a figure at which a wage bill stops being ambitious and becomes the reason nothing else is possible, and this club has reached it. Nothing is left over for a transfer, a stand or a rainy afternoon.
Squad9 Aug 2027
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Helibelton Palacios trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
The terraces2 Aug 2027
Anger at Real Santander spills outside the ground
It has stopped being a mood in the stands and started being something organised. Boards can ignore a bad atmosphere for a long time; they cannot ignore this stage of it for very long at all.
Boardroom2 Aug 2027
The club looked outside for a month, found nothing it preferred, and handed the job to the man who had been doing it anyway. He knows the building; now he has to prove he knows the rest.
Match2 Aug 2027
18 points, and a fixture list that is running out. The mathematics are not yet cruel, but they are no longer kind.
Market2 Aug 2027
Harlem Salas hands in a written request
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Real Santander can pretend not to have heard.
Market2 Aug 2027
The bid was some way short and Real Santander did not need long over it. Nobody in the game reads a first refusal as the end of anything.
Squad2 Aug 2027
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Real Santander this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Boardroom28 Jun 2027
The silence upstairs is getting loud at Real Santander
Nobody on the board has said anything against the manager, which is the point — they have stopped saying anything for him either.
Market28 Jun 2027
Álex Segura hands in a written request
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Real Santander can pretend not to have heard.
Squad28 Jun 2027
Santiago Rey 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.
Squad28 Jun 2027
Words at Real Santander training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Johao Camacho 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.
Squad28 Jun 2027
The manager has not finished forgetting Jaime Mora's mistake
Publicly it is behind everybody. It is not behind the man who picks the team, and the only place that shows is a team sheet. He will get another chance; he will get it in a match that matters less.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Market15 Mar 2027
Dilan Tapia hands in a written request
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Real Santander can pretend not to have heard.
Match15 Mar 2027
Position 11, 6 points, and a fixture list with fewer games left in it than excuses. The arithmetic is not cruel yet, but it has stopped being kind.
Squad15 Mar 2027
“I remember the meeting. I remember exactly what was promised in it.” Real Santander may remember it differently, which is precisely the problem.
Player ratings15 Mar 2027
Successful dribbles: 24. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
Match13 Mar 2027
The run now stands at 4, and the questions being asked around Real Santander are no longer polite ones.
Match13 Mar 2027
4 matches without a goal for Real Santander
The chances are being made and something is happening between the making and the finishing. 4 matches now, and the anxiety in the ground arrives a little earlier every week.
Squad15 Mar 2027
Jesús Mejía is a better footballer than he was
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.
Squad15 Mar 2027
Camilo Durán 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 Real Santander this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad15 Mar 2027
Words at Real Santander training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Juan David Rueda 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.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad11 Jan 2027
Santiago Rey 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 Real Santander this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad11 Jan 2027
Juan David Rueda 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.
Squad11 Jan 2027
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.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad21 Dec 2026
Santiago Rey 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.
Squad21 Dec 2026
A move Rafael Porfírio would have made for nothing
There is a version of every career where the player ends up somewhere he chose rather than somewhere that chose him. Rafael Porfírio is living that version at Real Santander, and it tends to show in the first month.
Squad21 Dec 2026
Words at Real Santander training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Juan David Rueda 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.