“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Puebla can pretend not to have heard.
Everything agreed with Angers SCO, everything agreed with the player; a doctor is the only person left to persuade. The photograph is a day or two away.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Puebla this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
The chase for Ángel Romero ended with $76.0K changing hands and Guadalajara out of reasons to say no. The supporters will judge the fee the only way that matters: on Saturdays.
At 22 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.
Puebla offered $57.0K; Cruz Azul said it was not close. The manager will be told the money is still there for the right player, which is what managers are told.
Squad5 Jul 2027
Words at Puebla training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Mathías Tomás 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.
At 26 the improving is meant to be over. It is not: 3 points better than the mark taken at the start of the year, which is the sort of thing that happens to players who take the boring parts of the job seriously.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Puebla is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
Ignacio Maestro Puch 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.
It is not a grievance and it is not a demand: he wants to play continental football, and he has stopped hiding it. Whether Puebla can give him that is a question about the club, not about him.
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.
“Judge me on him.” Managers do not say that kind of thing by accident — it moves the pressure from Emiliano Gómez’s shoulders onto his own, and both of them know it.
In brief
SquadOwen González is the talk of the training ground
Ignacio Maestro Puch 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.
Squad29 Mar 2027
Words at Puebla training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Mathías Tomás 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.