Marked for Gorka Gorosabel
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Match19 Sep 2035
A 4‑1 win over Castellón, a place in the next round, and the quiet arithmetic every supporter does on the walk home: how many more until a final?
Match22 Sep 2035
Some goals win a match and some take one off somebody else. Yeray Cabanzón scored in the 88th minute, Leganés had already begun thinking about the journey home, and Racing Santander took the lot.
Player ratings24 Sep 2035
A brace, and Yeray Cabanzón takes the afternoon — 8.44
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Yeray Cabanzón provided it, and the 8.44 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
Squad24 Sep 2035
“I remember the meeting. I remember exactly what was promised in it.” Racing Santander may remember it differently, which is precisely the problem.
Player ratings24 Sep 2035
A brace, and Gorka Gorosabel takes the afternoon — 8.05
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Gorka Gorosabel provided it, and the 8.05 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
Market24 Sep 2035
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Sergio Martínez will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Racing Santander the goodbyes have quietly begun.
Squad24 Sep 2035
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Racing Santander this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad24 Sep 2035
Words at Racing Santander training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Suleiman Camara 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.
Match22 Sep 2035
A 3‑2 win over Leganés, earned rather than given, and the sort of afternoon that sends everyone home talking about next week instead of this one.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad10 Sep 2035
“I remember the meeting. I remember exactly what was promised in it.” Racing Santander may remember it differently, which is precisely the problem.
Squad10 Sep 2035
Jokin Ezkieta 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.
Market10 Sep 2035
Stefan Babic has one foot out of the door
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Racing Santander they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
Squad10 Sep 2035
Suleiman Camara 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.
Market10 Sep 2035
Both sides expect a conversation in the coming days. Racing Santander will name a price, and everything after that is arithmetic.
Squad10 Sep 2035
The manager makes an example of Álvaro Mantilla
“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 ratings10 Sep 2035
Successful dribbles: 15. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Market10 Sep 2035
“The manager did not use many words, and he did not need to.” Gorka Gorosabel has his answer from Racing Santander; what he does with it is the next window’s story.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad15 Jan 2035
There were 8 saves in it, and at least three that had no business being saves at all. The ten outfield players owe him a drink and they know it.
Squad15 Jan 2035
“I was told what my role would be, and I signed on that basis. It has not happened.” A grievance with a date attached is the hardest kind to settle.
Squad15 Jan 2035
Jokin Ezkieta 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.
Market15 Jan 2035
The name of Joaquín Piñeyro has come up in conversations Racing Santander were not part of. Nothing formal, nothing signed — but nothing about it accidental either.
Squad15 Jan 2035
Yeray Cabanzón 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.
Player ratings15 Jan 2035
15 defensive actions and a clean sheet at the end of them. A defender's afternoon can only be told by what did not happen, which is why nobody makes a highlights package out of one and every manager in the division would take it.
Market15 Jan 2035
Ondřej Prodělal is free to find somewhere else
“I was told straight, and I would rather have it straight.” The manager at Racing Santander has been clear about where Ondřej Prodělal stands, which is more than many ever get.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad13 Nov 2034
A knee injury of the worst kind for Asier Villalibre
19 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Racing Santander lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Squad13 Nov 2034
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the team. 10 saves, several of them the sort nobody expects to see stopped, and a scoreline that flatters everybody in front of him.
Match13 Nov 2034
Position 1 and 30 points on the board. Nobody at the ground will say the word out loud yet, and everybody at the ground is thinking it.
Match8 Nov 2034
Celta go through and Racing Santander go home, 2‑3 the scoreline that did it. The dressing room will call the league the priority now, because that is what dressing rooms say.
Player ratings13 Nov 2034
Up for the corner, and Dominik Kirnbauer delivers — 7.65
Centre-halves are allowed forward twice a season and are judged on what they do when they get there. Dominik Kirnbauer scored, was marked 7.65, and got back before anybody noticed he had gone.
Squad13 Nov 2034
Jokin Ezkieta 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 Nov 2034
45 days, the medical staff say, and medical staff are optimists by profession. The team sheet will look wrong without him.
Player ratings13 Nov 2034
Successful dribbles: 22. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
Match11 Nov 2034
1‑1, and both dressing rooms will call it two points lost. A draw that asked plenty of questions and answered none of them.
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Squad18 Sep 2034
A knee injury of the worst kind for Asier Villalibre
75 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Racing Santander lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Match16 Sep 2034
Rarely has this fixture seen a display like it: 5‑1 against Osasuna, and it could have been more.
Squad18 Sep 2034
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the team. 8 saves, several of them the sort nobody expects to see stopped, and a scoreline that flatters everybody in front of him.
Squad18 Sep 2034
The match ball belongs to Joaquín Piñeyro, whose 3 goals turned a difficult afternoon into a procession.
Squad18 Sep 2034
Jokin Ezkieta 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.
Match16 Sep 2034
6 goals. Both benches spent the second half looking at each other rather than at the pitch. Purists will complain about Racing Santander and Osasuna in equal measure; everybody else had a wonderful time.
Player ratings18 Sep 2034
A performance of 9.33 does not come along often, and when it does the rest of the team becomes scenery. He was magnificent.
Match16 Sep 2034
Another one collected away from home
3 on the bounce on the road for Racing Santander. The coaches leave early, arrive at unlovely grounds in the dark, and keep coming home with three points.
Player ratings18 Sep 2034
There is a version of this player everybody suspected was in there, and on this evidence it is. 8.34, and no argument anywhere in the ground.
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Squad28 Aug 2034
A knee injury of the worst kind for Asier Villalibre
96 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Racing Santander lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Player ratings28 Aug 2034
Andrés Martín, 35, rolls back the years — 8.30
There is an age at which every good afternoon gets described as a throwback, which is unfair and also accurate. 8.30 at 35, and nobody on the pitch was better.
Squad28 Aug 2034
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Racing Santander this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Player ratings28 Aug 2034
22 times he got in the way of something. Centre-halves get written about when they make mistakes and ignored when they do not, so an afternoon like this needs saying out loud: he is the reason the scoreline reads as it does.
Squad28 Aug 2034
Words at Racing Santander training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Yeray Cabanzón 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.
Player ratings28 Aug 2034
Ninety minutes of Yeray Cabanzón at his very best
Marked 8.18. Players have careers without a single afternoon like this in them, and he has just had one in front of everybody at Racing Santander.
Player ratings28 Aug 2034
Successful dribbles: 16. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Squad28 Aug 2034
“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.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad10 Jul 2034
A knee injury of the worst kind for Asier Villalibre
145 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Racing Santander lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Squad10 Jul 2034
Gorka Gorosabel: 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.” Racing Santander have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Squad10 Jul 2034
Jokin Ezkieta 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.
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Squad29 May 2034
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 30 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
Squad29 May 2034
Jokin Ezkieta 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.
Squad29 May 2034
Yeray Cabanzón 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.
Match27 May 2034
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Gorka Gorosabel. 3‑1 against Valencia, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
Match27 May 2034
Valencia blown away early
There is a particular helplessness in conceding 2 times before the twentieth minute. Valencia tried to reorganise, Racing Santander did not allow it, and the result was written long before it was confirmed.
Player ratings29 May 2034
There is a version of this player everybody suspected was in there, and on this evidence it is. 8.08, and no argument anywhere in the ground.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Squad30 Jan 2034
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Racing Santander will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
Squad30 Jan 2034
Jokin Ezkieta 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.
Squad30 Jan 2034
Yeray Cabanzón 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.
Match28 Jan 2034
Levante left with the points after a 2‑3 defeat that will take some explaining on the terraces.
Player ratings30 Jan 2034
Successful dribbles: 17. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Boardroom30 Jan 2034
107% of the income goes out in wages at Racing Santander
Every club in football pays most of what it earns to its players. Paying nearly all of it is a different arrangement, and it has ended the same way every time somebody has tried it.