Marked for Konstantinos Vrontis
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Market24 Jul 2034
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Cacereño can pretend not to have heard.
Transfer targets24 Jul 2034
The deal with Barcelona 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 targets24 Jul 2034
Terms were offered and declined. Whether it was the wages, the role or the town, nobody at Barcelona is saying, and nobody at Cacereño is enjoying the guessing.
Transfer targets24 Jul 2034
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Valencia have kept their man, and Cacereño go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
Squad24 Jul 2034
Words exchanged at Cacereño
Konstantinos Vrontis 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 dugout24 Jul 2034
Enzo Navarro 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.
Squad24 Jul 2034
Cacereño are still strangers to each other
8 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.
Transfer targets24 Jul 2034
A loan enquiry to Ponferradina: cover, or a look at somebody the club cannot afford to buy yet. Either way the answer will come back inside the week.
The dugout24 Jul 2034
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Alberto Sánchez trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Boardroom17 Jul 2034
The scrutiny sharpens at Cacereño
Nobody upstairs has said anything, which is the loudest thing they could do. Results buy silence in this game; the account at Cacereño is running low.
Market17 Jul 2034
“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 The request is on a desk at Cacereño, and it is not being withdrawn.
Squad17 Jul 2034
A row about effort at Cacereño
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Emi was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Transfer targets17 Jul 2034
Cacereño asked and Barcelona said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
Squad17 Jul 2034
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Cacereño this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
The dugout17 Jul 2034
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Cacereño, and both men came out saying it was fine.
The dugout17 Jul 2034
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Irakli Kvaratskhelia, and the manager let it.
Market17 Jul 2034
The Emi question follows Cacereño around
Every press conference now starts and ends the same way: with Emi’s future. The manager has run out of new ways to say nothing.
The dugout17 Jul 2034
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 Irakli Kvaratskhelia is on it.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Market10 Jul 2034
“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 Cacereño, and it is not being withdrawn.
Market10 Jul 2034
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Cacereño is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
Squad10 Jul 2034
Bilal El Bakkali 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.
Squad10 Jul 2034
Words at Cacereño training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Emi 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.
Transfer targets10 Jul 2034
The approach was made and the answer came back in a sentence. There is no number on the table because there was no number that would have been enough.
The dugout10 Jul 2034
The manager makes an example of Stefan Sorloth
“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.
Boardroom10 Jul 2034
Wages eat 90% of everything Cacereño earn
There is a figure at which a wage bill stops being ambitious and becomes the reason nothing else is possible, and this club has reached it. Nothing is left over for a transfer, a stand or a rainy afternoon.
Transfer targets10 Jul 2034
A loan enquiry to Mirandés: cover, or a look at somebody the club cannot afford to buy yet. Either way the answer will come back inside the week.
Squad10 Jul 2034
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Bjorn Henriksen and Cacereño agree another 3 years.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
The dugout26 Jun 2034
“I remember the meeting. I remember exactly what was promised in it.” Cacereño may remember it differently, which is precisely the problem.
Transfer targets26 Jun 2034
A medical, a signature, a shirt held up in front of a sponsor’s board. Cacereño have done the hard part with Villarreal, and the part that remains is the part supporters actually see.
Squad26 Jun 2034
A falling-out at Cacereño
Bilal El Bakkali and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Squad26 Jun 2034
Words at Cacereño training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Emi 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.
Transfer targets26 Jun 2034
The approach was made and the answer came back in a sentence. There is no number on the table because there was no number that would have been enough.
Squad26 Jun 2034
“I have tried. I have really tried, and every day I wake up in the wrong place.” Nobody at Cacereño can coach that out of a man, and nobody there is pretending to.
Transfer targets26 Jun 2034
A loan move for Manuel Duran is in the works
Cacereño have made the call to Deportivo La Coruña. No fee, a share of the wages, and a spare shirt in the position where the squad has been thinnest all season.
Squad26 Jun 2034
Cacereño are still strangers to each other
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.
The dugout26 Jun 2034
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
Uneasy
Squad12 Dec 2033
117 days out for Firuz Əhmədov after a fracture
A bone, which is the one injury with a calendar attached. Cacereño will name a return date and, unusually for this business, will probably be right about it.
Player ratings12 Dec 2033
At 33 every good afternoon gets called a throwback, and this one was: 7.93, and nobody on the pitch better.
Match10 Dec 2033
It had gone 9 games. The players did not celebrate like men who had won a match; they celebrated like men who had been let out of something.
Squad12 Dec 2033
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Cacereño this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad12 Dec 2033
Emi 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.
Match10 Dec 2033
Real Avilés made Cacereño work for it, but the scoreboard read 1‑0 at the end and the table does not ask how.
Player ratings12 Dec 2033
Ninety minutes of Lamine Sidibe at his very best
Marked 8.25. Players have careers without a single afternoon like this in them, and he has just had one in front of everybody at Cacereño.
Squad12 Dec 2033
100 games in these colours. Service of that kind gets rarer every season, and the crowd knows it.
The dugout12 Dec 2033
Josele dropped after a run of poor form
The one version of being left out a player cannot argue with, and the one he takes worst. Somebody else has been better and the team sheet says so, in public, every week until it changes.