15 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.
“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 The request is on a desk at Real Sociedad B, and it is not being withdrawn.
“I want to be playing for trophies while my legs still let me.” Nothing in that sentence is a transfer request, and nobody at Real Sociedad B heard it as anything else.
“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 Oct 2028
Jon Garro 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.
Darío Ramírez 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.
There is no complaint available here and everybody involved knows it, which does not make the walk to the bench any shorter. Form is the only currency in football that cannot be borrowed against.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the team. 15 saves, several of them the sort nobody expects to see stopped, and a scoreline that flatters everybody in front of him.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Real Sociedad B this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
“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.
Player ratings18 Sep 2028
Dani Díaz was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.07. There are performances a supporter describes to somebody who was not there and cannot quite convey; this was one, and the number does not help either.
There is no complaint available here and everybody involved knows it, which does not make the walk to the bench any shorter. Form is the only currency in football that cannot be borrowed against.
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Jon Eceizabarrena is 23, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
Dani Díaz 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.
Some goals win a match and some take one off somebody else. Dani Díaz scored in the 86th minute, Albacete had already begun thinking about the journey home, and Real Sociedad B took the lot.
Player ratings27 Mar 2028
Dani Díaz, 21, plays like he has been here for years — 8.27
A mark of 8.27 means one thing beside a twenty-nine-year-old's name and something else entirely beside a 21-year-old's. Nobody at the ground needed telling which this was.
At 21 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.
The one version of being left out a player cannot argue with, and the one he takes worst. Somebody else has been better and the team sheet says so, in public, every week until it changes.
39 matches now without a victory, and the excuses have worn thinner than the patience. Somebody at Real Sociedad B has to find a result from somewhere.
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Jon Eceizabarrena is 22, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Real Sociedad B this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
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.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Real Sociedad B this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Real Sociedad B have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Tomy Carbonell 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.
Unax Agote 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.
“The easiest signature of my career.” Jon Eceizabarrena and Real Sociedad B agree another 4 years, and the manager can plan around him rather than 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.
26 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.
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 easiest signature of my career.” Jon Eceizabarrena and Real Sociedad B agree another 4 years, and the manager can plan around him rather than about him.
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.
Squad11 Jan 2027
Egoitz Arana has improved at 24, which nobody expected
Careers are supposed to plateau and then decline, and the players who ignore that are always the ones who were listening on the training ground. 3 points of it, over months, at an age where the direction normally only goes one way.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Tomy Carbonell 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.