“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 The request is on a desk at Juventud Torremolinos, and it is not being withdrawn.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Juventud Torremolinos have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Everything agreed with Athletic Bilbao, everything agreed with the player; a doctor is the only person left to persuade. The photograph is a day or two away.
Bernabé 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.
Squad5 Jun 2028
Álex Camacho 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.
Every shape has positions in it and this one does not have his. Juventud Torremolinos will either change the shape, change his job, or change his club, and he is waiting to hear which.
In brief
The dugoutÁngel Climent knocks on the manager’s door
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Juventud Torremolinos 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.
“I have given this everything, but my family is not here and neither am I, not really.” A footballer can be coached out of bad form. Nobody has ever been coached out of this, and Juventud Torremolinos know it.
Every manager keeps a short list in his head of the men he wants on the pitch when the stakes rise, and it is never published. The team sheets for the big afternoons say Bernabé is on it.
“A point is a point and I will take it, but we should have had all three.” Mateo González after the 1‑1 draw, and the sentence every manager in the country said at some stage this weekend.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Juventud Torremolinos can pretend not to have heard.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Juventud Torremolinos this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad30 Aug 2027
Álex Camacho 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.
“I have given this everything, but my family is not here and neither am I, not really.” A footballer can be coached out of bad form. Nobody has ever been coached out of this, and Juventud Torremolinos know it.
Atlético Madrid have been asked whether they would lend him. Loans are agreed quickly or not at all, and this one will be one or the other by the weekend.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Juventud Torremolinos can pretend not to have heard.
The accountants will call it good business and they will be right, which is not the point anybody outside the boardroom is making. Pau Pérez was one of the reasons people came, and $3.8M does not replace that by itself.
The name of Ibán Ribeiro has come up in conversations Juventud Torremolinos were not part of. Nothing formal, nothing signed — but nothing about it accidental either.
Juventud Torremolinos asked and Antequera said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
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.
Juventud Torremolinos have made the call to Lugo. No fee, a share of the wages, and a spare shirt in the position where the squad has been thinnest all season.
At 23 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.
5 without a win is the sort of run that changes how a town talks about its club, and Sanluqueño were the afternoon it stopped. Nothing is fixed by one result and everything feels different by one.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Francisco Gallego 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 watch every Juventud Torremolinos game from here. That says everything about where my head is.” The loan at Mérida runs its course, but his heart never made the trip.
“We earned that. I asked them for a reaction and I got one, and now I want the same again on Saturday.” Mateo González on a 2‑0 afternoon that pleased him more than he was prepared to show.
“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 Juventud Torremolinos, and it is not being withdrawn.
5 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 deal that would have taken Pito Camacho to Teruel has collapsed at the last stage, and he reports back to Juventud Torremolinos with a summer to forget and a season still to play. Nobody is saying which side walked 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 Juventud Torremolinos this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
There is a version of every career where the player ends up somewhere he chose rather than somewhere that chose him. Nektarios Alafakis is living that version at Juventud Torremolinos, and it tends to show in the first month.
Juventud Torremolinos asked and Sevilla said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Nicolás Elosú and Juventud Torremolinos agree another 4 years.