Marked for Leonardo Marcano
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Match8 Mar 2028
A 0‑0 win over General Caballero, and the draw for the next round can be watched with some interest for once.
Squad13 Mar 2028
A shoot-out is remembered by its ending, and this one ends with Marcos Giménez: 1 kept out, and a set of supporters who will describe every one of them for the next twenty years.
Player ratings13 Mar 2028
Successful dribbles: 23. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Squad13 Mar 2028
Emanuel Kovacs 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.
Squad13 Mar 2028
Luciano Sánchez 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.
Squad13 Mar 2028
The manager makes an example of Tulio Schwarz
“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 ratings13 Mar 2028
Marked 8.42 — the sort of number a correspondent writes down twice to be sure. Everything he tried came off, and what he did not try was not worth trying.
Player ratings13 Mar 2028
Defensive actions: 19, and a clean sheet at the end of it. A centre-half's best afternoons look like nothing happening, which is precisely the point.
Match11 Mar 2028
It finished 1‑1, and it somehow always looked like it would. One of those afternoons where the table moves less than the tempers.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad2 Aug 2027
“I remember the meeting. I remember exactly what was promised in it.” Cádiz may remember it differently, which is precisely the problem.
Market2 Aug 2027
Moussa Diakité wants to know where this is going
“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 Cádiz hears a sentence like that exactly as it was built.
Squad2 Aug 2027
Words at Cádiz training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Javi Ontiveros 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.
Squad2 Aug 2027
Tempers go at Cádiz
Jerónimo Domina 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.
Squad2 Aug 2027
Nobody will confirm this and nothing else explains the last month of selections. A costly error buys a player a period of being second choice that is always longer than the error was.
Market2 Aug 2027
Every press conference now starts and ends the same way: with Mario Climent’s future. The manager has run out of new ways to say nothing.
In brief
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Market
Cádiz shop where it costs nothing
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Market
Cádiz shop where it costs nothing
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Squad10 May 2027
The medical room confirms 63 days on the sidelines for Yellu Santiago, and a plan built around him now has to be rebuilt.
Boardroom10 May 2027
The paperwork is done long before the player is. Leonardo Marcano has agreed terms to come here when his current deal runs out, which means Arouca have spent a summer's transfer budget on a phone call.
Squad10 May 2027
Niclas Anspach 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.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad10 May 2027
Sébastien Cibois: that is not what I was promised
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Portimonense have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Market10 May 2027
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Portimonense is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
Boardroom10 May 2027
There is no worse way to lose a footballer. Leonardo Marcano 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.
Squad10 May 2027
Silas Andersen 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.
Squad10 May 2027
Words at Portimonense training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Jarleysom 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.
Squad10 May 2027
“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.