Marked for Diego Blanco
From our football correspondent
Steady
Market30 Aug 2027
The last thing about a transfer that is still about the player is his signature on his own terms, and it is there. Granada have lost him in all but the paperwork.
Player ratings30 Aug 2027
A brace, and Jefferson Mejia takes the afternoon — 8.96
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Jefferson Mejia provided it, and the 8.96 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
Match28 Aug 2027
Ninety minutes of very little, and then everything at once. The winner arrived in the 85th, and Rayo Vallecano spent what remained of the match appealing to the referee rather than chasing the ball.
Market30 Aug 2027
Tachi puts it in writing
“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 The request is on a desk at Granada, and it is not being withdrawn.
Squad30 Aug 2027
A falling-out at Granada
David Alaba and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Squad30 Aug 2027
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Diego Blanco is 20, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
Squad30 Aug 2027
Óscar De Marcos 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.
Squad30 Aug 2027
At 27 the improving is meant to be over. It is not: 3 points better than the mark taken at the start of the year, which is the sort of thing that happens to players who take the boring parts of the job seriously.
Player ratings30 Aug 2027
Successful dribbles: 20. There was always a defender in front of him and there was never a defender in front of him for long.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad12 Apr 2027
Defences have started doubling up on Jefferson Mejia
33 goals and a season average of 7.73 will do that. The space he used to find has gone; he keeps scoring anyway, which is the mark of the real thing.
Match10 Apr 2027
4‑0, and Jefferson Mejia took the headlines on an afternoon when everything Granada tried came off. Days like this are retold all winter.
Squad12 Apr 2027
3 goals in one afternoon from one man. The other players were also present, a witness confirmed.
Player ratings12 Apr 2027
David Alaba, 34, rolls back the years — 7.89
There is an age at which every good afternoon gets described as a throwback, which is unfair and also accurate. 7.89 at 34, and nobody on the pitch was better.
Market12 Apr 2027
“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 Granada, and it is not being withdrawn.
Player ratings12 Apr 2027
Successful dribbles: 24. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Squad12 Apr 2027
David Alaba in a row with a teammate
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Granada this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Player ratings12 Apr 2027
A performance of 9.99 does not come along often, and when it does the rest of the team becomes scenery. He was magnificent.
Loan watch12 Apr 2027
29 appearances away from home and 16 goals to show for them. Every one of them makes next summer's conversation a little more expensive.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad15 Mar 2027
30 goals and a season average of 7.69. Form like that gets noticed well beyond this town.
Squad15 Mar 2027
A knee injury of the worst kind for Gonzalo Gómez
29 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Granada lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
The dugout15 Mar 2027
“I remember the meeting. I remember exactly what was promised in it.” Granada may remember it differently, which is precisely the problem.
Player ratings15 Mar 2027
Age has not caught Manu Trigueros yet — 8.06
At 35 he is supposed to be managing his minutes. Instead he was marked 8.06 and looked, for ninety minutes, exactly like the player everybody remembers.
Market15 Mar 2027
Diego Blanco hands in a written request
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Granada can pretend not to have heard.
Squad15 Mar 2027
David Alaba in a row with a teammate
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Granada this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Match13 Mar 2027
Three points for Granada, 3‑2 the final word against Burgos in a contest settled by the finer margins.
Squad15 Mar 2027
Words at Granada training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Gabriel Silva 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 dugout15 Mar 2027
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Cristian Rivero, and the manager let it.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad8 Feb 2027
67 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Granada lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
Squad8 Feb 2027
26 goals and a season average of 7.66. Form like that gets noticed well beyond this town.
Market8 Feb 2027
Diego Blanco hands in a written request
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Granada can pretend not to have heard.
Match6 Feb 2027
4 matches without a win for Granada
The run now stands at 4, and the questions being asked around Granada are no longer polite ones.
Squad8 Feb 2027
A falling-out at Granada
David Alaba and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Squad8 Feb 2027
A move Diego Blanco would have made for nothing
There is a version of every career where the player ends up somewhere he chose rather than somewhere that chose him. Diego Blanco is living that version at Granada, and it tends to show in the first month.
Match6 Feb 2027
Granada are shipping goals every week
Two or more conceded in each of the last 4 matches. It is not one mistake repeating itself, which would be the easier thing to fix; it is a different one every week.
The dugout8 Feb 2027
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Cristian Rivero, and the manager let it.
Market8 Feb 2027
The academy exists for exactly this morning. Àlex Herrero has come through every age group the club runs and has now been handed a senior number, and the people who coached him at twelve will be the proudest in the building.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Squad30 Nov 2026
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the team. 14 saves, several of them the sort nobody expects to see stopped, and a scoreline that flatters everybody in front of him.
Squad30 Nov 2026
Facundo Batista damages knee ligaments — 31 days out
The words a physio says slowly. 31 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.
Match27 Nov 2026
0‑4. There is a level at which football is played every single week by clubs that have been doing it for fifty years, and an evening like this is what it feels like to arrive there without having done it.
Squad30 Nov 2026
Diego Polenta breaks a bone — 93 days out
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 93 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
Market30 Nov 2026
“I have given everything here and I need a new challenge.” The request is formal, and the relationship will never be quite the same again.
Squad30 Nov 2026
Abel Hernández 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.
Market30 Nov 2026
The general version of this complaint is that a player wants more. The specific version names the thing: he wants to walk out under floodlights against clubs from other countries, and he has stopped pretending otherwise.
The dugout30 Nov 2026
“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.
Loan watch30 Nov 2026
The goals keep arriving from Matías Arezo’s exile
11 goals in 15 games at Dijon — numbers that travel home faster than he does. Somebody at Penarol updates a spreadsheet every Monday, and it makes better reading each week.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad16 Nov 2026
111 days out for Diego Polenta after a fracture
A bone, which is the one injury with a calendar attached. Penarol will name a return date and, unusually for this business, will probably be right about it.
The dugout16 Nov 2026
Facundo Batista: 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.” Penarol have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Market16 Nov 2026
Only the photograph left for Diego Blanco
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Diego Blanco will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Penarol the goodbyes have quietly begun.
Squad16 Nov 2026
A falling-out at Penarol
Abel Hernández and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Squad16 Nov 2026
Words at Penarol training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Nahuel Herrera 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 dugout16 Nov 2026
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.
The dugout16 Nov 2026
“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.
The dugout16 Nov 2026
Diego Polenta knocks on the manager's door
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Penarol, and both men came out saying it was fine.
Loan watch16 Nov 2026
The goals keep arriving from Pablo Nongoy’s exile
3 goals in 6 games at Cerro — numbers that travel home faster than he does. Somebody at Penarol updates a spreadsheet every Monday, and it makes better reading each week.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad2 Nov 2026
A fracture rules Diego Polenta out for 127 days
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Penarol will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
Market2 Nov 2026
“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 Penarol, and it is not being withdrawn.
Squad2 Nov 2026
Words at Penarol training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Abel Hernández 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.
Squad2 Nov 2026
Mauricio Lemos 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.
Loan watch2 Nov 2026
11 appearances at Dijon and the goals keep coming. Penarol are watching this more closely than the borrowing club would like.
The dugout2 Nov 2026
The manager makes an example of Junior Arias
“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.
The dugout2 Nov 2026
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.
Squad2 Nov 2026
Nothing is announced when this happens and everybody knows. He is a bigger part of the plan at Penarol than he was a month ago, and the training ground worked that out before the team sheet said so.
Market2 Nov 2026
“We keep meeting, and we keep leaving the room with the same numbers we walked in with.” Another round of talks at Penarol, another week without a signature from Matías González.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
The dugout19 Oct 2026
“I remember the meeting. I remember exactly what was promised in it.” Penarol may remember it differently, which is precisely the problem.
Market19 Oct 2026
Only the photograph left for Diego Blanco
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Diego Blanco will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Penarol the goodbyes have quietly begun.
Market19 Oct 2026
The general version of this complaint is that a player wants more. The specific version names the thing: he wants to walk out under floodlights against clubs from other countries, and he has stopped pretending otherwise.
Squad19 Oct 2026
A falling-out at Penarol
Luis Miguel Ángulo and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Squad19 Oct 2026
Nicolás Fernández 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.
The dugout19 Oct 2026
“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
Crisis
Match2 Oct 2026
Penarol come up short in Europe
0‑1 away to the standard of Carabobo. Nobody will pretend this was a scandal; the gap is real, it is measurable, and closing it is a project rather than a team talk.
Market5 Oct 2026
Diego Blanco hands in a written request
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Penarol can pretend not to have heard.
Squad5 Oct 2026
Abel Hernández 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.
Player ratings5 Oct 2026
Successful dribbles: 19. He went past people as if he had been told there was a prize for it, and by the end the full-back had stopped pretending to try.
Market5 Oct 2026
It is the most legitimate ambition in the sport and the hardest for most clubs to satisfy. Leonardo Fernández wants continental football; whether Penarol can provide it is a question about the next two seasons, not about him.
Squad5 Oct 2026
Nicolás Fernández 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.
Boardroom5 Oct 2026
Nobody left the Penarol dressing room in a hurry
The door stayed shut a long time after the final whistle. What was said in there is between them; whether it worked is between them and Saturday.
The dugout5 Oct 2026
The view from the dugout
“We will look at it, we will learn from it, and we go again.” The three sentences every manager keeps for a 0‑1 defeat, delivered by Andres Santos to a room that had heard them before.
The dugout5 Oct 2026
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.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Squad21 Sep 2026
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the whole of the defence. 17 saves, several of them the kind nobody expects to see made, and ten outfield players who owe him a drink.
Match18 Sep 2026
0‑5. There is a level at which football is played every single week by clubs that have been doing it for fifty years, and an evening like this is what it feels like to arrive there without having done it.
Market21 Sep 2026
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Penarol is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
Squad21 Sep 2026
A row about effort at Penarol
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Abel Hernández was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Squad21 Sep 2026
A falling-out at Penarol
Luis Miguel Ángulo and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Market21 Sep 2026
“I want to be playing for trophies while my legs still let me.” Nothing in that sentence is a transfer request, and nobody at Penarol heard it as anything else.
Squad21 Sep 2026
14 days, the medical staff say, and medical staff are optimists by profession. The team sheet will look wrong without him.
Boardroom21 Sep 2026
Nobody left the Penarol dressing room in a hurry
The door stayed shut a long time after the final whistle. What was said in there is between them; whether it worked is between them and Saturday.
The dugout21 Sep 2026
Abel Hernández is still being punished for one mistake
Nobody will confirm it and the team sheets confirm it every week. One error has bought him a spell as second choice that is already longer than the error deserved.
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Squad24 Aug 2026
A knee injury of the worst kind for Facundo Álvez
44 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Penarol lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Squad24 Aug 2026
9 saves, and a scoreline the ten men in front of him had no right to. Goalkeepers only get noticed on the bad days; this was one of the other ones.
Match19 Aug 2026
The small margins put Penarol out
Out, 2‑3 to Albion, and the long argument about which of the small moments decided it. The league is all there is now, and everybody knows it.
Player ratings24 Aug 2026
A brace, and Junior Arias takes the afternoon — 8.69
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Junior Arias provided it, and the 8.69 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
Player ratings24 Aug 2026
Successful dribbles: 26. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
Market24 Aug 2026
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Penarol is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
Boardroom24 Aug 2026
The rules permit it and it stings anyway. Diego Blanco has agreed terms with Rampla Juniors for the summer, and until then he pulls on this shirt as a player who has already chosen his next one.
Squad24 Aug 2026
A falling-out at Penarol
Abel Hernández and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Squad24 Aug 2026
A muscle injury sidelines Facundo Batista for 16 days
Nobody makes a documentary about a hamstring and everybody in the game fears one. Penarol will be careful with the return date, because the second one is always worse than the first.