95 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Zaragoza lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
2 kept out in the shoot-out, and a stadium that will still be describing them in twenty years. A goalkeeper only needs one of these to be remembered forever.
“The easiest signature of my career.” Raúl Guti and Zaragoza agree another 4 years, and the manager can plan around him rather than about him.
Squad9 Nov 2026
Raúl Guti 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.
At 18 he is doing things this season that he could not do last season, and doing them every week. Form comes and goes; this has stayed long enough to be called something else.
Squad12 Oct 2026
Carles Soria 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.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Valladolid this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Valladolid, and both men came out saying it was fine.
Burgos next, and one man in the Valladolid dressing room knows their training ground better than his own. The reception will tell him what they thought of him.
Nothing in writing and nothing in public: a word about playing time, given face to face at Valladolid. The team sheets over the next month will show whether it was worth having.
“I have done everything asked of me in training and it has not changed a thing on a Saturday.” The most familiar complaint in football, and one Valladolid will have to answer with minutes or with a transfer.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Thiaguinho was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
De Lucca 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.
“I watch every Zaragoza game from here. That says everything about where my head is.” The loan at Valladolid runs its course, but his heart never made the trip.
Every squad has one of these fixtures for somebody every season. This one is Jokin Gabilondo’s: the club that knew him first, the supporters who will decide in the first minute whether to applaud, and Zaragoza needing him to play as if none of it matters.
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Yussif Saidu signs something — a contract at Zaragoza or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
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 Zaragoza would admit. It shows on Saturdays.
A deal that was a phone call from completion at lunchtime was dead by midnight. Valladolid will try again when the window opens; Deportivo La Coruña may not be selling by then.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Albirex Niigata have kept their man, and Valladolid go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Valladolid this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Juanmi Latasa scored, and precious little else went right: 1‑3 to Córdoba, and a quiet walk to the dressing room.
Squad14 Sep 2026
Guille Bueno 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.
“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 dugout14 Sep 2026
The manager has not finished forgetting Fernando Tapia's mistake
Publicly it is behind everybody. It is not behind the man who picks the team, and the only place that shows is a team sheet. He will get another chance; he will get it in a match that matters less.
Goalkeepers do not get to make mistakes; they get to make goals. He made one, he knew it instantly, and there was nobody behind him to make it anything else.
Words at Zaragoza training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Sergio Escudero 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.
“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 Zaragoza, and 1 appearances in 5 say he has earned the hearing.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Zaragoza this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
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.
Pablo Insua 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.
Squad3 Aug 2026
Paul Akouokou 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.