Marked for Matteo Larrosa
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Squad25 Sep 2028
Tempers go at Albion
Santiago 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.
Squad25 Sep 2028
“I never wanted to be anywhere else. There is unfinished business here.” Matteo Larrosa commits to Albion for another 4 years.
Loan watch25 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 7 appearances in 37 say he has earned the hearing.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad27 Sep 2027
Matteo Larrosa: 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.” Albion have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Market27 Sep 2027
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Albion is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
Squad27 Sep 2027
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.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad21 Jun 2027
A one-man rearguard from Lucas Cuffia
There were 6 saves in it, and at least three that had no business being saves at all. The ten outfield players owe him a drink and they know it.
Squad21 Jun 2027
“I was told what my role would be, and I signed on that basis. It has not happened.” A grievance with a date attached is the hardest kind to settle.
Market21 Jun 2027
Andrés Romero 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 Albion can pretend not to have heard.
Match19 Jun 2027
The wait goes on for Albion
5 without a win now, and the ground has developed the special quiet of a crowd that expects the worst. One scrappy 1-0 would cure most of it; that is the maddening part.
Squad21 Jun 2027
Tempers go at Albion
Francisco Ginella 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 ratings21 Jun 2027
There is a version of this player everybody suspected was in there, and on this evidence it is. 8.98, and no argument anywhere in the ground.
Squad21 Jun 2027
José Álvarez gets it from the manager
“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.
Player ratings21 Jun 2027
Marked 8.29 — the sort of number a correspondent writes down twice to be sure. Everything he tried came off, and what he did not try was not worth trying.
Match19 Jun 2027
A 2‑2 draw with Plaza Colonia leaves the dressing room somewhere between relief and regret.