Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Andorra will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
17 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Andorra lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Andorra they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Andorra can pretend not to have heard.
Diego Altube 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 thought about how hard another man trains, and Gonzalo Gutiérrez was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
“The supporters are entitled to be angry. So am I. We will put it right.” 0‑1, a manager saying the necessary things, and a dressing room that heard a different version of them.
In brief
Player ratingsBrage Hylen beats them one at a time
BoardroomNobody arrives at Andorra until somebody leaves
MarketAndorra and Ander are talking past each other
The most common injury in the game and the most rushed back from. Qarabag will quote 16 days and will be careful with it, because the second one is always worse than the first.
Ruben Akalé 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 mornings you wake up and you are still a long way from everything you know.” It is not the football and it never was; Qarabag are dealing with a man who wants a different country.
The embargo bars a fee being paid for a player, whatever the manager thinks the squad needs. Every rumour printed about this club between now and its lifting is a rumour about a deal that cannot happen.
Squad15 Oct 2035
Words at Qarabag training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Damian van der Haar 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 borrowing is past what the bank agreed, which is the line where a debt stops being how football is financed and starts being a problem. Every phone-in in this town will quote the figure for the next five years.
Nobody at Qarabag will say this on the record and the team sheets have been saying it for weeks. There is a small group in every squad who get picked when the fixture is difficult, and he has joined it.
5 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.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Qarabag they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
Toral Bayramov and a teammate said things this week that will take longer than a week to unsay. It was not about football, and both of them play on Saturday.
Past the limit the bank set, which is the line between a club being financed and a club being in trouble. $94.8M is now the number every conversation about this club will start with.
The last thing about a transfer that is still about the player is his signature on his own terms, and it is there. Qarabag have lost him in all but the paperwork.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Qarabag can pretend not to have heard.
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.
“I remember the meeting. I remember exactly what was promised in it.” Qarabag may remember it differently, which is precisely the problem.
Boardroom3 Sep 2035
Deadline passes with 21 signed and 26 gone
That is the business done at Qarabag until the window opens again. Whether it was enough will be answered on Saturdays rather than in a column, and the first Saturday is close.
The instruction has come from upstairs rather than from the dugout, which is the version of this conversation no manager enjoys. Somebody in that squad is now available whether the man who picks the team thinks so or not.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Qarabag is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
The deal that would have taken Rok Sesko to MOIK Baku has collapsed at the last stage, and he reports back to Qarabag with a summer to forget and a season still to play. Nobody is saying which side walked away.
Nino Milić and a teammate said things this week that will take longer than a week to unsay. It was not about football, and both of them play on Saturday.
Toral Bayramov and a teammate said things this week that will take longer than a week to unsay. It was not about football, and both of them play on Saturday.
Squad2 Apr 2035
Words at Qarabag training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Guilherme Montóia 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 gap in the accounts was filled from upstairs again. Supporters are entitled to be grateful and to ask what happens the month it is not, and both feelings arrive together.
Past the limit the bank set, which is the line between a club being financed and a club being in trouble. $89.6M is now the number every conversation about this club will start with.
13 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.
It is never announced and it is entirely visible: the biggest afternoons of the season keep containing him. A press box works this out long before anybody at the club confirms a word of it.
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Qarabag, and both men came out saying it was fine.
26 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Qarabag lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
Position 2, 48 points, and the result everyone checks first is now theirs. The word is still not being said around the ground, which is how you know everyone is thinking it.
Every footballer has an answer to the question about his boyhood club, and most of them never get to act on it. Nino Milić has, at Qarabag, and the first month will show what that does to a man.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Qarabag is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
Nino Milić and a teammate said things this week that will take longer than a week to unsay. It was not about football, and both of them play on Saturday.
Squad19 Feb 2035
Words at Qarabag training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Guilherme Montóia 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 am grateful for the games, but I did not become a footballer to be somebody else's spare part.” He wants to be at Qarabag, and 0 appearances in 24 say he has earned the hearing.
It is never announced and it is entirely visible: the biggest afternoons of the season keep containing him. A press box works this out long before anybody at the club confirms a word of it.