Bernabé 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.
Squad11 Oct 2027
Dylan Duran 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 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.
Atlético Madrileño next, and one man in the Juventud Torremolinos dressing room knows their training ground better than his own. The reception will tell him what they thought of him.
4 months left, and both sides know what that means: every week without a signature, the fee Juventud Torremolinos could ask drops and the wages Fran Vélez can ask rise.
Nobody at Juventud Torremolinos 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.
“I did not sign to watch. Nobody does.” The oldest complaint in the game, and Juventud Torremolinos will have to answer it with minutes or with a move.
In brief
SquadQuestions about Cristóbal on the training pitch
2 goals to the good, and then a slow surrender of everything that had been earned. Bozada will not be the one blamed for it, but nobody at Juventud Torremolinos escapes the conversation that follows a collapse like this.
“I remember the meeting. I remember exactly what was promised in it.” Juventud Torremolinos may remember it differently, which is precisely the problem.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Dylan Duran 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.
Marked 8.06. Players have careers without a single afternoon like this in them, and he has just had one in front of everybody at Juventud Torremolinos.
Terms were offered and declined. Whether it was the wages, the role or the town, nobody at Getafe is saying, and nobody at Juventud Torremolinos is enjoying the guessing.
Asier Osambela 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.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Albacete have kept their man, and Juventud Torremolinos go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Dylan Duran 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.
His past walked in ahead of him. Players who have been where he has been get a hearing in a dressing room before they have earned one, and he has it for as long as his form does.
“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 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 watch every Juventud Torremolinos game from here. That says everything about where my head is.” The loan at Mirandés runs its course, but his heart never made the trip.
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 has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Ibán Ribeiro signs something — a contract at Juventud Torremolinos or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
“I did not sign to watch. Nobody does.” The oldest complaint in the game, and Juventud Torremolinos will have to answer it with minutes or with a move.