Marked for Gabriel Costa
From our football correspondent
Steady
Boardroom7 Sep 2026
Deadline passes with 23 signed and 1 gone
That is the business done at Lugo 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.
Transfer targets7 Sep 2026
The deal with Cremonese is done in every sense but the one that puts him on the pitch. Nothing goes wrong at this stage, except on the occasions when it does.
Transfer targets7 Sep 2026
Lugo had done everything except persuade the man himself. He stays at Boca Juniors, and the manager goes back to the drawing board with the money still in the bank.
Squad7 Sep 2026
A falling-out at Lugo
Iñaki Rupérez and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Transfer targets7 Sep 2026
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Valencia have kept their man, and Lugo go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
Squad7 Sep 2026
The manager has re-ordered his thinking and Gabriel Costa has come out of it lower. He will be told it is temporary, and the players who have heard that before will avoid his eye.
Market7 Sep 2026
Teruel are about to pick up the phone
A conversation is coming this week. Lugo will put a number on him, and from there it stops being football and becomes arithmetic.
Squad7 Sep 2026
Words at Lugo training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Iago López 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.
Squad7 Sep 2026
Not a new contract, not a new number: a new place in the manager’s thinking, which is the only promotion in football that actually matters. Iñaki Rupérez has moved up it.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Steady
Market31 Aug 2026
“I listened, I thought about it, and I am staying. That is the whole story.” The clubs had agreed a fee. Yanis Senhadji had not agreed to go, which turned out to be the part that mattered.
Market31 Aug 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.
Market31 Aug 2026
Lugo say no — this time
The offer from Marbella for Txus Alba was heard out and sent back the same day. First bids are rarely meant to succeed; they are meant to find out how loudly the door closes.
Transfer targets31 Aug 2026
No thanks: Adolfo Gaich rejects the move
Lugo had done everything except persuade the man himself. He stays at Estudiantes, and the manager goes back to the drawing board with the money still in the bank.
Transfer targets31 Aug 2026
$470.0K was the most the club would pay and Gijón were asking for more. Deals like this are revived in the last week of a window roughly half the time, and everybody involved knows it.
Squad31 Aug 2026
Tempers go at Lugo
Gabriel Costa 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.
Transfer targets31 Aug 2026
Lugo asked and Betis said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
Squad31 Aug 2026
Too much change too quickly at Lugo
15 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.
Transfer targets31 Aug 2026
Estudiantes have been asked whether they would lend him. Loans are agreed quickly or not at all, and this one will be one or the other by the weekend.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Market24 Aug 2026
Lugo get their man
The chase for Yanis Senhadji ended with $2.5M changing hands and Betis out of reasons to say no. The supporters will judge the fee the only way that matters: on Saturdays.
Market24 Aug 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.
Transfer targets24 Aug 2026
Lugo offered $2.2M; Betis said it was not close. The manager will be told the money is still there for the right player, which is what managers are told.
Market24 Aug 2026
The bid was some way short and Lugo did not need long over it. Nobody in the game reads a first refusal as the end of anything.
Boardroom24 Aug 2026
The number the board signed off was not enough. It has been asked again and raised its own offer to $489.5K — a club that wants Mamadou Loum enough to be asked twice.
Transfer targets24 Aug 2026
The deal with Boca Juniors is done in every sense but the one that puts him on the pitch. Nothing goes wrong at this stage, except on the occasions when it does.
Squad24 Aug 2026
Words exchanged at Lugo
Gabriel Costa 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.
The terraces24 Aug 2026
The town asked, and Lugo paid $2.5M
Yanis Senhadji was the name on every phone-in, and the club has gone and signed him for $2.5M. For one week the board can do no wrong, which is a week most boards never get.
Market24 Aug 2026
The phone has started ringing about Txus Alba again, and this time the name on the line is Marbella. Lugo are listening politely and promising nothing.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Transfer targets17 Aug 2026
$2.5M settles it between the clubs for Yanis Senhadji
Betis have accepted the money. What Lugo do not yet have is the man, and between here and the photograph is a conversation about wages that both sides are dreading.
Transfer targets17 Aug 2026
No deal for Isi Palazón at that price
Lugo offered $7.6M; Rayo Vallecano said it was not close. The manager will be told the money is still there for the right player, which is what managers are told.
Transfer targets17 Aug 2026
The offer went to Betis this week and it is theirs to answer. First bids are rarely meant to succeed; they are meant to find out how loud the door closes.
Boardroom17 Aug 2026
The number the board signed off was not enough. It has been asked again and raised its own offer to $10.8M — a club that wants Isi Palazón enough to be asked twice.
Squad17 Aug 2026
A falling-out at Lugo
Gabriel Costa and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Squad17 Aug 2026
The system has changed and his position has not. A footballer can improve his form; he cannot improve the manager’s formation, and that is the whole of the problem.
Squad17 Aug 2026
Kevin Presa 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.
Boardroom17 Aug 2026
No investment in the facilities at Lugo
Nothing about this will be in a press release. A plan went upstairs, came back rejected, and the version of the club that would have existed in three years' time just quietly stopped being possible.
Squad17 Aug 2026
A year in and the city has not opened up, the language has not come, and lunch is eaten alone more often than anybody at Lugo would admit. It shows on Saturdays.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Transfer targets10 Aug 2026
$7.6M on the table at Rayo Vallecano. The manager wanted him, the board agreed a number, and the only voices still to be heard are the ones at the other club.
Squad10 Aug 2026
Gaspar Iñíguez arrives at the club he grew up with
Every footballer has an answer to the question about his boyhood club, and most of them never get to act on it. Gaspar Iñíguez has, at Lugo, and the first month will show what that does to a man.
Squad10 Aug 2026
“The easiest signature of my career.” Gabriel Costa and Lugo agree another 4 years, and the manager can plan around him rather than about him.
Transfer targets10 Aug 2026
The offer went to Vélez this week and it is theirs to answer. First bids are rarely meant to succeed; they are meant to find out how loud the door closes.
Squad10 Aug 2026
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Lugo this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Transfer targets10 Aug 2026
Lugo asked and Valencia said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
Market10 Aug 2026
One of our own: Ismael Bravo joins the Lugo first team
Clubs spend fortunes looking for players and occasionally find one down the corridor. Ismael Bravo is that, and the reception he gets on his first appearance will be different in kind from the one any signing receives.
Market10 Aug 2026
Clubs spend fortunes looking for players and occasionally find one down the corridor. Martí Rodríguez is that, and the reception he gets on his first appearance will be different in kind from the one any signing receives.
Market10 Aug 2026
There is no fee, no unveiling and no agent on the steps. Oihan Méndez has been at this club since he was a boy and is now, formally, one of the first-team squad — which for a local readership beats any signing of any size.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad3 Aug 2026
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Álex Gallar and Lugo agree another 2 years.
Squad3 Aug 2026
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Lugo this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Transfer targets3 Aug 2026
Lugo asked and Betis said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
Squad3 Aug 2026
A row about effort at Lugo
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Iago López was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Squad3 Aug 2026
7 new faces, and Lugo are still learning each other
A squad rebuilt inside one window pays for it in a currency nobody budgets for. The football is not worse than the sum of the players; it is worse than the sum of the players who have played together before.
Transfer targets3 Aug 2026
A loan enquiry to Real Sociedad: cover, or a look at somebody the club cannot afford to buy yet. Either way the answer will come back inside the week.
Transfer targets3 Aug 2026
A loan move for Mahamadou Baldé is in the works
Lugo have made the call to Tenerife. No fee, a share of the wages, and a spare shirt in the position where the squad has been thinnest all season.
Market3 Aug 2026
Lugo and Josep Gayà are talking past each other
“There is a gap, and pretending there is not helps nobody.” Neither side has moved, and the calendar is working for exactly one of them.
The dugout3 Aug 2026
Gabriel Costa asks for a word with the manager
“I would rather say it to his face than read about it.” The meeting was requested by the player, which tells you most of what you need to know.