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.
Mikkel Gjerdalen is 20, and Juventud Torremolinos have signed him for the player he will be rather than the one he is. The first team can wait; the point of a deal like this is the years it buys.
6 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.
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Martín Castillo and Juventud Torremolinos agree another 4 years.
0 appearances, 0 clean sheets, and a goalkeeper no further forward than the day he left. Whether that belongs to him, to the club that borrowed him or to the people who arranged it is the argument Juventud Torremolinos will have this month.
0 appearances, 0 clean sheets, and a goalkeeper no further forward than the day he left. Whether that belongs to him, to the club that borrowed him or to the people who arranged it is the argument Juventud Torremolinos will have this month.
2 appearances and 0 goals is not a season away, it is a year lost. He is back at Juventud Torremolinos no further forward, and everybody involved will explain why it was not their fault.
In brief
The dugoutThe manager makes an example of Diego Ojeda
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Juventud Torremolinos can pretend not to have heard.
Jonan Amelibia 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.
“I watch every Juventud Torremolinos game from here. That says everything about where my head is.” The loan at Sevilla runs its course, but his heart never made the trip.
The dugout10 May 2027
The view from the dugout
“We will look at it, we will learn from it, and we go again.” The three sentences every manager keeps for a 0‑1 defeat, delivered by Aimar Rojas to a room that had heard them before.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Edu 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.
Successful dribbles: 13. 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.
“I was told straight, and I would rather have it straight.” The manager at Juventud Torremolinos has been clear about where Ignacio Zabal stands, which is more than many ever get.
8 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.
A bone, which is the one injury with a calendar attached. Juventud Torremolinos will name a return date and, unusually for this business, will probably be right about it.
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.
“I did not go to Sevilla to sit and watch. I want to come back to Juventud Torremolinos and fight for my place.” 0 appearances in 35 matches say the rest.
The dugout12 Apr 2027
The manager’s verdict
“That is on me. I pick the team and I picked wrong.” Managers say that when they mean it and when they need to be seen to, and after 1‑3 Aimar Rojas left the room before anybody could ask which.
In brief
The terracesEverybody has an opinion about Bernabé
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the whole of the defence. 7 saves, several of them the kind nobody expects to see made, and ten outfield players who owe him a drink.
5 matches now without a victory, and the excuses have worn thinner than the patience. Somebody at Juventud Torremolinos has to find a result from somewhere.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Francisco Gallego 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.
“I am grateful for the games, but I did not become a footballer to be somebody else's spare part.” He wants to be at Juventud Torremolinos, and 0 appearances in 31 say he has earned the hearing.
“The supporters are entitled to be angry. So am I. We will put it right.” 0‑3, a manager saying the necessary things, and a dressing room that heard a different version of them.
9 saves, and a scoreline the ten men in front of him had no right to. Goalkeepers only get noticed on the bad days; this was one of the other ones.
Player ratings15 Feb 2027
A brace, and Álex Camacho takes the afternoon — 8.45
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Álex Camacho provided it, and the 8.45 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
Defending was optional and nobody took up the option. 6 goals between Juventud Torremolinos and Sanluqueño, and not one of the people who paid to be there will ask for the money back.
“I have tried. I have really tried, and every day I wake up in the wrong place.” Nobody at Juventud Torremolinos can coach that out of a man, and nobody there is pretending to.
“I watch every Juventud Torremolinos game from here. That says everything about where my head is.” The loan at Sevilla runs its course, but his heart never made the trip.
The dugout15 Feb 2027
The view from the dugout
“We will look at it, we will learn from it, and we go again.” The three sentences every manager keeps for a 2‑4 defeat, delivered by Aimar Rojas to a room that had heard them before.
In brief
Player ratingsThe one thing Pau Pérez could not do
7.93, 1 on the scoresheet, and the specific comedy of a back-four player celebrating like somebody who does this every week. He does not, and that is exactly why the ground reacted the way it did.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Juventud Torremolinos this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
A midfielder is measured on whether the team functions when he is on the pitch, which is nearly impossible to see and completely obvious in retrospect. 12 actions, 6.71, and a manager who will not be substituting him again in a hurry.
Add another name to the list: Ourense CF have asked the question everybody in the game has been asking about Miguel Clavería. The answer from Juventud Torremolinos has not changed — yet.
100 games in this shirt, through managers and relegations and everything else. Service like it is disappearing from the game and the crowd knows what it is watching.
“I watch every Juventud Torremolinos game from here. That says everything about where my head is.” The loan at Sevilla runs its course, but his heart never made the trip.
The words a physio says slowly. 54 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.
$39.4M was the most the club would pay and Ipswich Town were asking for more. Deals like this are revived in the last week of a window roughly half the time, and everybody involved knows it.
Fee agreed, wages agreed, and Ceuta waiting with a shirt. Nobody at Sevilla is pretending otherwise, and the supporters have stopped asking whether and started asking when.
“I listened, I thought about it, and I am staying. That is the whole story.” The clubs had agreed a fee. Juan Iglesias had not agreed to go, which turned out to be the part that mattered.
Sevilla asked and Villarreal said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
He left as a boy and has come back still knowing where the away end is. Most signings have to be explained to a town; this one needed a photograph and nothing else.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Sevilla have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
There is a version of every career where the player ends up somewhere he chose rather than somewhere that chose him. Pedro Ortiz is living that version at Sevilla, and it tends to show in the first month.
In brief
SquadYulen Vila is a better footballer than he was