Marked for Kevin Bitancourt
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad27 Nov 2028
A knee injury of the worst kind for Joaquín Pereyra
143 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Albion lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Market27 Nov 2028
Mateo Alcoba has one foot out of the door
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Albion they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
Squad27 Nov 2028
Federico Puente 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.
Squad27 Nov 2028
15 days, the medical staff say, and medical staff are optimists by profession. The team sheet will look wrong without him.
The dugout27 Nov 2028
It is not much of a headline and it is the reason players believe the next promise. Albion told Carlos Airala something would happen and then it happened, which in this industry passes for remarkable.
Loan watch27 Nov 2028
“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 Albion, and 12 appearances in 48 say he has earned the hearing.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad9 Oct 2028
Francisco Alarcón damages knee ligaments — 32 days out
The words a physio says slowly. 32 days is what the club will announce and everybody who has heard this diagnosis before knows the number is the least of it: the knee comes back before the player does.
Match9 Oct 2028
Albion refuse to drop out of the race
Position 3, 44 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.
Squad9 Oct 2028
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” José Álvarez and Albion agree another 2 years.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad2 Oct 2028
A knee injury of the worst kind for Francisco Alarcón
39 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Albion lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Market2 Oct 2028
Only the photograph left for Mateo Alcoba
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Mateo Alcoba will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Albion the goodbyes have quietly begun.
Squad2 Oct 2028
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” José Álvarez and Albion agree another 2 years.
Squad2 Oct 2028
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Albion this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Loan watch2 Oct 2028
“I watch every Albion game from here. That says everything about where my head is.” The loan at Mar de Fondo runs its course, but his heart never made the trip.
The dugout2 Oct 2028
“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
Market4 Sep 2028
“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 Albion, and it is not being withdrawn.
Market4 Sep 2028
Mateo Alcoba has one foot out of the door
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Albion they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
Squad4 Sep 2028
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Albion this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad4 Sep 2028
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Bautista Pérez del Castillo and Albion agree another 4 years.
Loan watch4 Sep 2028
“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 Albion, and 12 appearances in 36 say he has earned the hearing.
Squad4 Sep 2028
Carlos Airala named in the team of the month
A month is long enough that nobody gets in by accident. Carlos Airala is in the division's best eleven for it, which is a quieter compliment than an award and a more reliable one.
The dugout4 Sep 2028
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Felipe Agosto, and the manager let it.
The dugout4 Sep 2028
Felipe Agosto gets picked when it counts
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 Felipe Agosto is on it.
The dugout4 Sep 2028
Nothing in writing and nothing in public: a word about playing time, given face to face at Albion. The team sheets over the next month will show whether it was worth having.