The words a physio says slowly. 15 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.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Jorge Salinas was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
23 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Racing Santander lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Position 2, 33 points, and the result everyone checks first is now theirs. The word is still not being said around the ground, which is how you know everyone is thinking it.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Racing Santander is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
“I listened, I thought about it, and I am staying. That is the whole story.” The clubs had agreed a fee. Íñigo had not agreed to go, which turned out to be the part that mattered.
“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 The request is on a desk at Racing Santander, and it is not being withdrawn.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Iván Martín was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Íñigo Vicente 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.
At 23 he is being sung about by people twice his age, which is an affection a signing has to earn over years and a local kid gets for turning up. It is also the hardest thing in football to live up to.
37 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Racing Santander lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
“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 The request is on a desk at Racing Santander, and it is not being withdrawn.
Successful dribbles: 28. 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.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Racing Santander this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad3 Dec 2029
Jorge Salinas 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.
A point taken on 89 minutes is worth exactly one point and considerably more than that to a dressing room. This side does not stop, which is a reputation worth more than the result.
It finished 1‑1, and it somehow always looked like it would. One of those afternoons where the table moves less than the tempers.
The dugout3 Dec 2029
The manager’s verdict
“I am frustrated, honestly. We did enough to win and we did not win.” Andrés Morales was not hiding it after 1‑1, and nobody in the Racing Santander dressing room was either.
The words a physio says slowly. 51 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.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Jorge Salinas will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Racing Santander the goodbyes have quietly begun.
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.
Íñigo Vicente 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.
He is 23 and the ground already sings his name, which is a thing that happens to local boys and almost never to signings. Everything from here is measured against an affection he did nothing to earn except be from here.
A goalkeeper's career is counted in the games nobody scored in, and Julen Agirrezabala now has 50 of them across 247 appearances. Nothing about that number was luck.
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.
58 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Racing Santander lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
Iván Martín 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.
Squad12 Nov 2029
Jorge Salinas 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.
“A point is a point and I will take it, but we should have had all three.” Andrés Morales after the 0‑0 draw, and the sentence every manager in the country said at some stage this weekend.
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.
82 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Racing Santander lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Jorge Salinas will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Racing Santander the goodbyes have quietly begun.
“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 Racing Santander, and it is not being withdrawn.
Iván Martín 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.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Jorge Salinas was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
105 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Racing Santander lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Racing Santander can pretend not to have heard.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Jorge Salinas 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.
3 matches, no goals, and a training ground that has tried everything. It will end — droughts always do — but nobody at Racing Santander can tell you which week it ends in.
17 times he got in the way of something. Centre-halves get written about when they make mistakes and ignored when they do not, so an afternoon like this needs saying out loud: he is the reason the scoreline reads as it does.
The dugout1 Oct 2029
The manager’s verdict
“I am frustrated, honestly. We did enough to win and we did not win.” Andrés Morales was not hiding it after 0‑0, and nobody in the Racing Santander dressing room was either.
The demotion a club never announces and a dressing room always notices. Andrea Orlando is further from the side than he was, and the reason will not be given until he asks.
112 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Racing Santander lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Racing Santander is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Racing Santander can pretend not to have heard.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Racing Santander have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Sergio Canales 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.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Racing Santander this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
The ambition story running the other way, and the one nobody tells: a footballer asking for a smaller stage, fewer cameras and a crowd that does not turn. It is not weakness and it is very rarely reported as anything else.
127 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Racing Santander lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Racing Santander can pretend not to have heard.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Racing Santander this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Jorge Salinas was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
8 signings in three months. Every one of them may be an upgrade and the team can still be worse for a while, which is the part of a rebuild that never appears in the transfer-window verdicts.
“The supporters are entitled to be angry. So am I. We will put it right.” 0‑1, a manager saying the necessary things, and a dressing room that heard a different version of them.
Real Sociedad B will want this one forgotten quickly: 3‑0, every duel lost, and a long ride home. Racing Santander were ruthless in the way good sides are ruthless.
The last thing about a transfer that is still about the player is his signature on his own terms, and it is there. Racing Santander have lost him in all but the paperwork.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Racing Santander is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Iván Martín was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Íñigo Vicente 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.
A bad atmosphere can be waited out. A group of people meeting afterwards to decide what to do about it cannot, and everybody in the building knows which stage this is.
“Somebody has to pick the team on Saturday, and this week that is me.” An interim appointment with no promises attached, which is how most of them start.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Racing Santander they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
Iván Martín 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.
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.
“I have ambitions, and I would like the club to share them.” Nobody has asked to leave and nobody has been shown the door — but a player chooses that sentence carefully, and a boardroom hears it exactly as it was meant.
In brief
SquadJorge Salinas falls out with a teammate over standards
Boardroom5 academy players handed senior numbers at Racing Santander
The clubs have settled the fee and he has settled his wages. What remains is a medical and a photograph, and around Racing Santander people have started saying his name in the past tense.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Iván Martín was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Pablo Ramón 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.
“The manager did not use many words, and he did not need to.” Jorge Salinas has his answer from Racing Santander; what he does with it is the next window’s story.
The academy exists for exactly this morning. Aimar Cabrera has come through every age group the club runs and has now been handed a senior number, and the people who coached him at twelve will be the proudest in the building.
Squad13 Aug 2029
10 new faces, and Racing Santander are still learning each other
A squad rebuilt inside one window pays for it in a currency nobody budgets for. The football is not worse than the sum of the players; it is worse than the sum of the players who have played together before.
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 Pablo Ramón is on it.
29 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Racing Santander lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Fee agreed, wages agreed, and Burgos waiting with a shirt. Nobody at Racing Santander is pretending otherwise, and the supporters have stopped asking whether and started asking when.
Every footballer has an answer to the question about his boyhood club, and most of them never get to act on it. Mateo Coronel has, at Racing Santander, and the first month will show what that does to a man.
Albacete have accepted the money. What Racing Santander do not yet have is the man, and between here and the photograph is a conversation about wages that both sides are dreading.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Racing Santander can pretend not to have heard.
Iván Martín 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.
37 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Racing Santander lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
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.
The clubs have settled the fee and he has settled his wages. What remains is a medical and a photograph, and around Racing Santander people have started saying his name in the past tense.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Racing Santander have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Racing Santander they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Ismael Iglesias is 17, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Sergio Canales 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.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Sheffield Wednesday have kept their man, and Racing Santander go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
The words a physio says slowly. 46 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.
The last thing about a transfer that is still about the player is his signature on his own terms, and it is there. Racing Santander have lost him in all but the paperwork.
“It was not right for me. I am not going to explain why to anybody except the people I owe an explanation to.” A deal agreed between two clubs, and a player who declined to be part of it.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Racing Santander can pretend not to have heard.
The deal with Estudiantes is done in every sense but the one that puts him on the pitch. Nothing goes wrong at this stage, except on the occasions when it does.
Racing Santander have gone to Andorra 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.
At 23 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.
“I want to win things, and I would like to do it here.” Nothing has been demanded and nothing has been threatened — but a boardroom at Racing Santander hears a sentence like that exactly as it was built.
The words a physio says slowly. 53 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.
The last thing about a transfer that is still about the player is his signature on his own terms, and it is there. Racing Santander have lost him in all but the paperwork.
“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 Racing Santander, and it is not being withdrawn.
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 22 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.
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Sergio Canales and Racing Santander agree another 2 years.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Racing Santander will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the whole of the defence. 8 saves, several of them the kind nobody expects to see made, and ten outfield players who owe him a drink.
There is no worse way to lose a footballer. Paulinho has pre-agreed a move away, which means every appearance between now and June is made by a man the club can no longer sell, and somebody upstairs will be asked why the contract was allowed to get here.
Successful dribbles: 23. There was always a defender in front of him and there was never a defender in front of him for long.
Squad12 Mar 2029
Andrés Martín 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.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 110 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
Everything was agreed until it was not, and Mariano Miño reports back to Racing Santander with a summer to forget. Neither club is saying who walked away from the table.
Iván Martín and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Squad12 Feb 2029
Andrés Martín 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.
Racing Santander asked and Córdoba said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
5 without a win is the sort of run that changes how a town talks about its club, and Real Sociedad were the afternoon it stopped. Nothing is fixed by one result and everything feels different by one.
A bone, which is the one injury with a calendar attached. Racing Santander will name a return date and, unusually for this business, will probably be right about it.
Fee agreed, wages agreed, and Norwich City waiting with a shirt. Nobody at Racing Santander is pretending otherwise, and the supporters have stopped asking whether and started asking when.
“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 Racing Santander, and it is not being withdrawn.
The offer from Oviedo for Asier Villalibre was heard out and sent back the same day. First bids are rarely meant to succeed; they are meant to find out how loudly the door closes.
4 matches now without a victory, and the excuses have worn thinner than the patience. Somebody at Racing Santander has to find a result from somewhere.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Racing Santander this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad29 Jan 2029
Andrés Martín 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.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 133 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
The words a physio says slowly. 16 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.
“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 Racing Santander, and it is not being withdrawn.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Fernando will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Racing Santander the goodbyes have quietly begun.
There is no worse way to lose a footballer. Fernando has pre-agreed a move away, which means every appearance between now and June is made by a man the club can no longer sell, and somebody upstairs will be asked why the contract was allowed to get here.
Iván Martín 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.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Andrés Martín 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 words a physio says slowly. 23 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.
The last thing about a transfer that is still about the player is his signature on his own terms, and it is there. Racing Santander have lost him in all but the paperwork.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Andrés Martín 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.
Marked 7.08 on 10 actions at both ends of the pitch. Midfielders like this get described as unspectacular by people who have never tried to play against one.
The words a physio says slowly. 37 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.
The hardest thing about being 21 in a senior side is that nobody makes allowances. Jorge Salinas did not need any: 7.69, and he looked the most comfortable man on the pitch.
Iván Martín 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.
23 defensive actions and a clean sheet at the end of them. A defender's afternoon can only be told by what did not happen, which is why nobody makes a highlights package out of one and every manager in the division would take it.
In brief
SquadAndrés Martín falls out with a teammate over standards
The words a physio says slowly. 52 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.
8 matches now without a victory, and the excuses have worn thinner than the patience. Somebody at Racing Santander has to find a result from somewhere.
2‑3 away to the standard of Slovan Bratislava. Nobody will pretend this was a scandal; the gap is real, it is measurable, and closing it is a project rather than a team talk.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Racing Santander can pretend not to have heard.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Sergio Canales 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 have tried. I have really tried, and every day I wake up in the wrong place.” Nobody at Racing Santander can coach that out of a man, and nobody there is pretending to.
The words a physio says slowly. 87 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.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Racing Santander can pretend not to have heard.
Sergio Canales 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.
Squad20 Nov 2028
Andrés Martín 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.
“The supporters are entitled to be angry. So am I. We will put it right.” 0‑1, a manager saying the necessary things, and a dressing room that heard a different version of them.
A squad rebuilt inside one window pays for it in a currency nobody budgets for. The football is not worse than the sum of the players; it is worse than the sum of the players who have played together before.
Nobody at Racing Santander 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.
45 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Racing Santander lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the team. 11 saves, several of them the sort nobody expects to see stopped, and a scoreline that flatters everybody in front of him.
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.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Racing Santander can pretend not to have heard.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Andrés Martín 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.
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 Aarón is on it.
77 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Racing Santander lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
1‑2 against Basaksehir. Continental football is unforgiving about the things a domestic league lets a side get away with, and this was a night spent finding out which of those the club still has.
The terraces25 Sep 2028
The ground has had enough
“We travel everywhere and we get this.” 12 of the 38 senior players heard it walking off, and the ones who did not hear it were not playing.
1-5. Going out of a cup is one afternoon; going out like that is a week of phone-ins, and the manager will hear every one of them.
Player ratings25 Sep 2028
Ismael Iglesias, 16, plays like he has been here for years — 7.76
A mark of 7.76 means one thing beside a twenty-nine-year-old's name and something else entirely beside a 16-year-old's. Nobody at the ground needed telling which this was.
4 matches now without a victory, and the excuses have worn thinner than the patience. Somebody at Racing Santander has to find a result from somewhere.
122 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Racing Santander lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Racing Santander they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
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.
“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 Racing Santander, and it is not being withdrawn.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Real Sociedad have kept their man, and Racing Santander go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
Iván Martín 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.
Squad14 Aug 2028
Andrés Martín 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.
Add another name to the list: Ferencvaros have asked the question everybody in the game has been asking about Jokin Ezkieta. The answer from Racing Santander has not changed — yet.
The words a physio says slowly. 145 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.
“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 Racing Santander, and it is not being withdrawn.
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.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Sergio Canales 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.
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 Giorgi Guliashvili is on it.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Aarón Ochoa will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Racing Santander the goodbyes have quietly begun.
“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 Racing Santander, and it is not being withdrawn.
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Jorge Salinas is 21, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Sergio Canales was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Racing Santander this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
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 Julen Agirrezabala is on it.
Iván Martín 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.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Andrés Martín 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.
“Some mornings you wake up and you are still a long way from everything you know.” It is not the football and it never was; Racing Santander are dealing with a man who wants a different country.
5 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.
“We keep meeting, and we keep leaving the room with the same numbers we walked in with.” Another round of talks at Racing Santander, another week without a signature from Jorge Salinas.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Racing Santander can pretend not to have heard.
Footballers are asked about their boyhood club so often that nobody listens to the answer. Sebastián Ramírez has just signed for Racing Santander, and for once the answer mattered.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Racing Santander this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
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 have given this everything, but my family is not here and neither am I, not really.” A footballer can be coached out of bad form. Nobody has ever been coached out of this, and Racing Santander know it.
A loan enquiry to Red Bull Salzburg: cover, or a look at somebody the club cannot afford to buy yet. Either way the answer will come back inside the week.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Andrés Martín was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Andrés Martín signs something — a contract at Racing Santander or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Jorge Salinas trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
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 Manu Hernando is on it.
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.
The shrug has gone, the language is coming, and he now argues in training like somebody who expects to be here next year. Half a signing's value is this and none of it appears on a fee.
Iván Martín 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.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Sergio Canales 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 did not go to Sheffield Wednesday to sit and watch. I want to come back to Racing Santander and fight for my place.” 16 appearances in 48 matches say the rest.
“I have given this everything, but my family is not here and neither am I, not really.” A footballer can be coached out of bad form. Nobody has ever been coached out of this, and Racing Santander know it.
Nobody at Racing Santander 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.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Racing Santander have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
7 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.
Iván Martín 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.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Andrés Martín was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
The chances are being made and something is happening between the making and the finishing. 3 matches now, and the anxiety in the ground arrives a little earlier every week.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Manu Hernando will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Racing Santander the goodbyes have quietly begun.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Andrés Martín was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
“I have tried. I have really tried, and every day I wake up in the wrong place.” Nobody at Racing Santander can coach that out of a man, and nobody there is pretending to.