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 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 Jhohan Romaña is on it.
Another week, another link, another denial nobody quite believes. Leon know the market decides these things, not the back pages — but the back pages are louder.
He asked about his future and was given an answer with minutes in it. The manager has now made a promise in a building where promises are remembered, and the clock on it has started.
33 graduates, from a department now rated 9 out of 20. Nothing about the academy appears in a result, and nothing about the club’s future exists without it.
The standards have slipped, and in a building where everybody watches everybody it has not gone unremarked. This is how a player loses a place before he loses one.
Ismael Díaz 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.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Jordi Cortizo trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
Another week, another link, another denial nobody quite believes. Leon know the market decides these things, not the back pages — but the back pages are louder.
18 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Leon lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
“I want to win things, and I would like to do it here.” Nothing has been demanded and nothing has been threatened — but a boardroom at Leon hears a sentence like that exactly as it was built.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Leon this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Santiago Colombatto 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.
6 new signings in one window. Every one may be an upgrade and the side can still be worse for a while, which is the part of a rebuild the verdicts never mention.
34 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Leon lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
“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 Leon, and it is not being withdrawn.
Ismael Díaz 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.
Every footballer has an answer to the question about his boyhood club, and most of them never get to act on it. Misael Sandoval has, at Leon, and the first month will show what that does to a man.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Jordi Cortizo trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
“I was told straight, and I would rather have it straight.” The manager at Leon has been clear about where Ramón Pasquel stands, which is more than many ever get.
A window away with the national side, and a shirt at Leon that briefly doubles as an advertisement. A call-up flatters the player and the club that built him in the same breath.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Monterrey have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
At 36 he is supposed to be managing his minutes. Instead he was marked 8.27 and looked, for ninety minutes, exactly like the player everybody remembers.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Monterrey is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
The rules permit it and it stings anyway. Misael Sandoval has agreed terms with Atlas for the summer, and until then he pulls on this shirt as a player who has already chosen his next one.
Orbelín Pineda 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.
Successful dribbles: 22. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Player ratings22 Nov 2027
Hugo Cuypers was on a different afternoon to everybody else
9.66. There are performances a supporter describes to somebody who was not there and cannot quite convey; this was one, and the number does not help either.