The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Levante is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
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.
3 games without scoring. Strikers stop looking up, midfielders take the extra touch, and every shot that clears the bar is followed by a groan that has been building since the last goal.
Sevilla left with the points after a 0‑2 defeat that will take some explaining on the terraces.
Squad28 Feb 2028
Words at Levante training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Aníbal Chalá 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.
“We were not good enough today and I am not going to dress it up.” David Montes after 0‑2, in the tone of a man who knows the next question and does not intend to answer it.
He won it back and then made something of it, which is two jobs and the reason the scoreline looks the way it does. 15 combined actions and a mark of 6.62, and not one of them will make a highlights package.
0‑1 to Barcelona, and no complaints worth printing. The performance asked for nothing more than it got.
Squad6 Dec 2027
Words at Levante training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Aníbal Chalá 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 easiest signature of my career.” Leonel Herrera and Levante agree another 4 years, and the manager can plan around him rather than about him.
The dugout6 Dec 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 David Montes to a room that had heard them before.
A month is long enough that nobody gets in by accident. Jon Ander Olasagasti is in the division's best eleven for it, which is a quieter compliment than an award and a more reliable one.
“The manager did not use many words, and he did not need to.” Camilo Salamanca has his answer from Levante; what he does with it is the next window’s story.
In brief
The dugoutJosep Cerdà has become a man the manager trusts
The dugoutXavi Grande knocks on the manager’s door
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.
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.
Something was said to Gerard Martín and then it happened. In this industry that passes for remarkable, and the dressing room noticed faster than any supporter could.
Squad22 Nov 2027
Words at Levante training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Francisco Funes 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.
Leonel Herrera 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.
“I want to be playing for trophies while my legs still let me.” Nothing in that sentence is a transfer request, and nobody at Levante heard it as anything else.
3 games without scoring. Strikers stop looking up, midfielders take the extra touch, and every shot that clears the bar is followed by a groan that has been building since the last goal.
Successful dribbles: 19. 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.
Squad4 Oct 2027
Words at Levante training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Aníbal Chalá 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 Levante this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
4 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.
Mathew Ryan 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 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.
6 goals in one match, Roger Brugué on the scoresheet, and a scoreline that will look like a misprint. Neutrals could not have asked more of Levante and Getafe.
Levante asked and Barcelona said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
Squad13 Sep 2027
Words at Levante training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Aníbal Chalá 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 offer from Zaragoza for Xavi Grande 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.
“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.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Levante this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Levante 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.
“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.
Squad2 Aug 2027
José Martínez 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.
10 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.
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.