Marked for Ramiro Centurión
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad11 Oct 2027
The knee: Manu García out for 163 days
163 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Marbella lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
Squad11 Oct 2027
Íñigo 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 Marbella this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad11 Oct 2027
A row about effort at Marbella
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Martín García was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Squad11 Oct 2027
A muscle injury and 16 days out for Felipe Hereda
The most common injury in the game and the most rushed back from. Marbella will quote 16 days and will be careful with it, because the second one is always worse than the first.
Boardroom11 Oct 2027
Wages eat 89% of everything Marbella 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.
The dugout11 Oct 2027
“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.
Looking ahead11 Oct 2027
He used to wear the other shirt. On Saturday he plays against Juventud Torremolinos in this one, and whatever he says this week about it being just another game will be untrue.
The dugout11 Oct 2027
Dani Selma has become a man the manager trusts
Nobody at Marbella will say this on the record and the team sheets have been saying it for weeks. There is a small group in every squad who get picked when the fixture is difficult, and he has joined it.
The dugout11 Oct 2027
He asked about his future and was given an answer with minutes in it. The manager has now made a promise in a building where promises are remembered, and the clock on it has started.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Squad16 Aug 2027
A fracture rules Emanuel Díaz out for 34 days
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Marbella will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
Transfer targets16 Aug 2027
Marbella have gone to Girona with a bid, and the supporters have gone to the internet with an opinion about it. Whether either changes anything is up to the selling club.
Squad16 Aug 2027
Íñigo 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 Marbella this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad16 Aug 2027
Marbella are still strangers to each other
8 new signings in one window. Every one may be an upgrade and the side can still be worse for a while, which is the part of a rebuild the verdicts never mention.
The dugout16 Aug 2027
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Ramiro Centurión, and the manager let it.
Squad16 Aug 2027
Words at Marbella training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Manu García 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.
Market16 Aug 2027
Manu García is free to find somewhere else
“I was told straight, and I would rather have it straight.” The manager at Marbella has been clear about where Manu García stands, which is more than many ever get.
The dugout16 Aug 2027
Dani Selma gets picked when it counts
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 Dani Selma is on it.
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Squad24 May 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 Marbella this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad24 May 2027
18 days, the scan says, and scans are kinder than reality. The fixtures in that window have just become somebody else’s job.
The dugout24 May 2027
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Ramiro Centurión, and the manager let it.
The dugout24 May 2027
It is not much of a headline and it is the reason players believe the next promise. Marbella told Rodrigo Linares something would happen and then it happened, which in this industry passes for remarkable.
Squad24 May 2027
A row about effort at Marbella
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Manu García was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
The dugout24 May 2027
Adri Castellano asks for a word with the manager
“I would rather say it to his face than read about it.” The meeting was requested by the player, which tells you most of what you need to know.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad5 Apr 2027
Adri Castellano damages knee ligaments — 49 days out
The words a physio says slowly. 49 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.
Squad5 Apr 2027
Words exchanged at Marbella
Lander Olaetxea 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.
Match3 Apr 2027
Hard to beat is not the same as winning, but 6 matches without defeat is a foundation Marbella did not have in the autumn.
Squad5 Apr 2027
Santiago Úbeda 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.
Squad5 Apr 2027
At 38, 3 points below where he was, and a body that has started charging interest. It happens to all of them and it is still the hardest paragraph on this page.
The dugout5 Apr 2027
“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.
Match3 Apr 2027
1‑1, and both dressing rooms will call it two points lost. A draw that asked plenty of questions and answered none of them.
The dugout5 Apr 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.
Market5 Apr 2027
“We keep meeting, and we keep leaving the room with the same numbers we walked in with.” Another round of talks at Marbella, another week without a signature from Adri Castellano.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad11 Jan 2027
A bone, which is the one injury with a calendar attached. Marbella will name a return date and, unusually for this business, will probably be right about it.
Market11 Jan 2027
“I have given everything here and I need a new challenge.” The request is formal, and the relationship will never be quite the same again.
Player ratings11 Jan 2027
A defender's goal wins it for Marbella — 7.98
1 for Santiago Úbeda, marked 7.98, and a centre-half's name in the part of the report he normally only reaches by mistake. He will not be allowed to forget it in the dressing room for a month.
Squad11 Jan 2027
Footballers are asked about their boyhood club so often that nobody listens to the answer. Ramiro Centurión has just signed for Marbella, and for once the answer mattered.
Match9 Jan 2027
Marbella make home a hard place to visit
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.
Transfer targets11 Jan 2027
Everything agreed with Oviedo, everything agreed with the player; a doctor is the only person left to persuade. The photograph is a day or two away.
Squad11 Jan 2027
Maicom David 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 Marbella this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad11 Jan 2027
“I never wanted to be anywhere else. There is unfinished business here.” Pablo Moreno commits to Marbella for another 3 years.
Transfer targets11 Jan 2027
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Hércules have kept their man, and Marbella go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Market21 Dec 2026
The offer was not close and it was refused without much discussion. Whether the second one is refused as quickly is another matter.
Market21 Dec 2026
The clubs have settled the fee and he has settled his wages. What remains is a medical and a photograph, and around San Lorenzo people have started saying his name in the past tense.
Squad21 Dec 2026
An individual honour is a strange thing in a team game, and the best of them are never argued with. He has had the sort of year that ends with his name being read out, and San Lorenzo have had the benefit of it.
Boardroom21 Dec 2026
He will play here until the summer and then walk out of the door for free, having already signed elsewhere. Supporters will manage the first part of that sentence; it is the second they will struggle with.
Squad21 Dec 2026
At 19 he is doing things this season that he could not do last season, and doing them every week. Form comes and goes; this has stayed long enough to be called something else.
Market21 Dec 2026
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around San Lorenzo they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
Squad21 Dec 2026
Gastón Hernández and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Squad21 Dec 2026
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Facundo Farías was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.