8 matches now without a victory, and the excuses have worn thinner than the patience. Somebody at San Diego Football Club has to find a result from somewhere.
Hirving Lozano 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. Jeppe Tverskov 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 is not much of a headline and it is the reason players believe the next promise. San Diego Football Club told Thulani Mahlangu something would happen and then it happened, which in this industry passes for remarkable.
“I did not go to Seattle Sounders to sit and watch. I want to come back to San Diego Football Club and fight for my place.” 0 appearances in 9 matches say the rest.
Ninety minutes, no goals, and the argument started before the car park emptied: a point gained, or two thrown away against LA Galaxy? Both sides of it will still be going on Thursday.
Some transfers need a press campaign. This one needed a shirt with the old number on it. Stephen Eustáquio is a San Diego Football Club player again, and the town has its story of the summer.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what San Diego Football Club can pretend not to have heard.
“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.
The board have signed the man in the dugout to a longer contract, which says more than any statement of support. Stability is easy to promise and costly to keep.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at San Diego Football Club 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.
5 boys move up, and somewhere in the building the people who coached them at twelve are quietly having the best morning of their working year. Nothing about this shows up in a result and it is why the academy exists.
FC Dallas go through. The table said this team was good enough for months and the format does not care what the table said, which is the argument every eliminated club has had with itself since playoffs were invented.
2 kept out in the shoot-out, and a stadium that will still be describing them in twenty years. A goalkeeper only needs one of these to be remembered forever.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” San Diego Football Club have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at San Diego Football Club 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.
Ajax Cape Town did not want to sell and the number is why they did. $5.0M for Thulani Mahlangu, and the expectation that arrives with him is the kind no amount of settling-in period softens.
“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 San Diego Football Club, 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 San Diego Football Club heard it as anything else.
“The easiest signature of my career.” Hirving Lozano and San Diego Football Club agree another 2 years, and the manager can plan around him rather than about 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 San Diego Football Club 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.
Every paper's favourite story and every manager's least. What happened is being dealt with internally, which is the phrase clubs use when they would rather nobody asked again.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Hirving Lozano 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.
Ian Murphy 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.
Colorado Rapids did not take him to make up a number: they want him playing. For David Vazquez that is worth more than another season of watching from San Diego Football Club's bench, and everyone involved has said so out loud.
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Marcus Ingvartsen provided it, and the 8.54 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what San Diego Football Club can pretend not to have heard.
5 matches now without a victory, and the excuses have worn thinner than the patience. Somebody at San Diego Football Club has to find a result from somewhere.
Hirving Lozano 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. Jeppe Tverskov 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 Toronto FC to sit and watch. I want to come back to San Diego Football Club and fight for my place.” 2 appearances in 13 matches say the rest.
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.