Marked for Slavko Jović
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Squad10 Sep 2035
Iñigo Córdoba damages knee ligaments — 42 days out
The words a physio says slowly. 42 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.
Match8 Sep 2035
The wait goes on for Castellón
11 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.
Squad10 Sep 2035
There were 9 saves in it, and at least three that had no business being saves at all. The ten outfield players owe him a drink and they know it.
Squad10 Sep 2035
Mario Rivas 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 Castellón this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad10 Sep 2035
Agustín Sienra 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.
Match8 Sep 2035
Beaten 1‑3, and beaten fairly. The manager kept his words short afterwards, which was probably wise.
Boardroom10 Sep 2035
Castellón cannot sign anybody
The embargo bars a fee being paid for a player, whatever the manager thinks the squad needs. Every rumour printed about this club between now and its lifting is a rumour about a deal that cannot happen.
Boardroom10 Sep 2035
Castellón are $78.1M in the red
The borrowing is past what the bank agreed, which is the line where a debt stops being how football is financed and starts being a problem. Every phone-in in this town will quote the figure for the next five years.
Market10 Sep 2035
“They were honest with me, and I would rather know.” Georges Iyem has been informed he is not in the manager's thinking at Castellón.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Squad27 Aug 2035
Iñigo Córdoba damages knee ligaments — 56 days out
The words a physio says slowly. 56 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.
Match25 Aug 2035
The wait goes on for Castellón
9 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.
Market27 Aug 2035
“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 Castellón, and it is not being withdrawn.
Market27 Aug 2035
Only the photograph left for Rafael Pereira
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Rafael Pereira will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Castellón the goodbyes have quietly begun.
Match25 Aug 2035
1‑3 to Valencia, and no complaints worth printing. The performance asked for nothing more than it got.
Squad27 Aug 2035
Words at Castellón training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Wallace Davi 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.
Squad27 Aug 2035
“Nobody here is above being told.” It was not said with a name attached, but the dressing room can count, and so can everybody who was listening.
Squad27 Aug 2035
Francisco Machado 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 terraces27 Aug 2035
Every touch is being weighed now, in print and everywhere else. Some players grow into that and some are quietly ruined by it, and nobody knows which in advance.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
The terraces25 Jun 2035
The mood at Castellón has turned into something else
Supporters who sing when it goes badly are supporters. Supporters who gather afterwards are a problem, and everybody inside the building knows which of the two this now is.
Market25 Jun 2035
“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 Castellón, and it is not being withdrawn.
Squad25 Jun 2035
Agustín Sienra 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.
Squad25 Jun 2035
Joe Williams 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.
Market25 Jun 2035
Another week, another link, another denial nobody quite believes. Castellón know the market decides these things, not the back pages — but the back pages are louder.
Market25 Jun 2035
2 months remain and no agreement is close. Every week without a signature costs Castellón money.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad10 Jul 2034
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 61 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
Squad10 Jul 2034
Noah Okyere gets the move he always wanted
Footballers are asked about their boyhood club so often that nobody listens to the answer. Noah Okyere has just signed for OB, and for once the answer mattered.
Squad10 Jul 2034
Fiete Arp 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 OB this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad10 Jul 2034
Thomas Damsgaard is a better footballer than he was
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 19 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.
Market10 Jul 2034
The best deals are the ones the accountants never notice. Noah Okyere arrives at OB with his wages the only cost and something to prove the only clause.
Market10 Jul 2034
OB have made Bertil Grønkjær available for transfer. A career at this club is over in all but paperwork.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad3 Apr 2034
Tempers go at OB
Adam Sørensen 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.
Squad3 Apr 2034
Words at OB training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Jona Niemiec 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.
Squad3 Apr 2034
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.