Lipão

Striker - Rayo Vallecano
16 Oct 2027
Saturday
Process
Overview Personal Contract News 4 Transfers Relations Events 61 Awards 1 Matches History

Marked for Lipão

35 Edition

The Rayo Vallecano Chronicle

29 Mar 2027
From our football correspondent Uneasy

Market29 Mar 2027

Pedro Díaz 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 Rayo Vallecano can pretend not to have heard.

Squad29 Mar 2027

Álvaro García 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.

Squad29 Mar 2027

A falling-out at Rayo Vallecano

Federico Nicosia and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.

Player ratings29 Mar 2027

One of those days for Isi Palazón

There is a version of this player everybody suspected was in there, and on this evidence it is. 8.19, and no argument anywhere in the ground.

The dugout29 Mar 2027

The manager makes an example of Mariano Bareiro

“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.

Squad29 Mar 2027

Lipão wants to go home

“I have tried. I have really tried, and every day I wake up in the wrong place.” Nobody at Rayo Vallecano can coach that out of a man, and nobody there is pretending to.

Match27 Mar 2027

Rayo Vallecano and Alavés take a point apiece

It finished 1‑1, and it somehow always looked like it would. One of those afternoons where the table moves less than the tempers.

Player ratings29 Mar 2027

Nobody could get near Pedro Díaz

Successful dribbles: 14. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.

The dugout29 Mar 2027

The view from the dugout

“We did not lose. Some weeks that is all you get, and I would rather have the point than not.” Héctor Santiago chose the glass-half-full version of 1‑1; the supporters left with the other one.

In brief

Back issues
28 Edition

The Rayo Vallecano Chronicle

8 Feb 2027
From our football correspondent Uneasy

Match6 Feb 2027

At last: Rayo Vallecano win one

18 matches without a win, and then this, against Valencia. Relief is a strange noise in a football ground and it was the only noise at the end.

The dugout8 Feb 2027

Óscar Trejo keeps the receipts

“I remember the meeting. I remember exactly what was promised in it.” Rayo Vallecano may remember it differently, which is precisely the problem.

Market8 Feb 2027

Lipão 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 Rayo Vallecano can pretend not to have heard.

Market8 Feb 2027

Florian Lejeune wants more than Rayo Vallecano are offering

“I have ambitions, and I would like the club to share them.” Nobody has asked to leave and nobody has been shown the door — but a player chooses that sentence carefully, and a boardroom hears it exactly as it was meant.

Market8 Feb 2027

Bournemouth come back empty-handed

The bid was some way short and Rayo Vallecano did not need long over it. Nobody in the game reads a first refusal as the end of anything.

Squad8 Feb 2027

Randy Nteka signs on for more

“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Randy Nteka and Rayo Vallecano agree another 4 years.

Squad8 Feb 2027

Pathé Ciss in a row with a teammate

It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Rayo Vallecano this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.

Transfer targets8 Feb 2027

Rayo Vallecano rebuffed over Alexis Cuello

Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. San Lorenzo have kept their man, and Rayo Vallecano go back to a list with one name crossed off it.

Match6 Feb 2027

Rayo Vallecano see off Valencia

Three points for Rayo Vallecano, 2‑1 the final word against Valencia in a contest settled by the finer margins.

In brief

27 Edition

The Rayo Vallecano Chronicle

1 Feb 2027
From our football correspondent Uneasy

Match30 Jan 2027

The wait goes on for Rayo Vallecano

18 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.

Market1 Feb 2027

Terms done: Óscar Valentín is going

Fee agreed, wages agreed, and Groningen waiting with a shirt. Nobody at Rayo Vallecano is pretending otherwise, and the supporters have stopped asking whether and started asking when.

Market1 Feb 2027

Pedro Díaz 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 Rayo Vallecano can pretend not to have heard.

Market1 Feb 2027

Business is business: Dani Cárdenas goes

Villarreal paid $7.4M and Rayo Vallecano took it, which is the whole story in one sentence. The longer version involves a wage budget and will be told all season.

Boardroom1 Feb 2027

Deadline passes with 2 signed and 2 gone

That is the business done at Rayo Vallecano 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.

Market1 Feb 2027

Elche come back empty-handed

The bid was some way short and Rayo Vallecano did not need long over it. Nobody in the game reads a first refusal as the end of anything.

Squad1 Feb 2027

Sergio Camello in a row with a teammate

It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Rayo Vallecano this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.

Match30 Jan 2027

Rayo Vallecano cannot find the net

4 games without scoring. Strikers stop looking up, midfielders take the extra touch, and every shot that clears the bar is followed by a groan that has been building since the last goal.

Squad1 Feb 2027

A move Lipão would have made for nothing

There is a version of every career where the player ends up somewhere he chose rather than somewhere that chose him. Lipão is living that version at Rayo Vallecano, and it tends to show in the first month.

In brief

8 Edition

The São Paulo Sentinel

21 Sep 2026
From our football correspondent Uneasy

Squad21 Sep 2026

59 days out for Jaílson after a fracture

A bone, which is the one injury with a calendar attached. São Paulo will name a return date and, unusually for this business, will probably be right about it.

Match19 Sep 2026

No end in sight to São Paulo's wait for a win

8 matches now without a victory, and the excuses have worn thinner than the patience. Somebody at São Paulo has to find a result from somewhere.

Boardroom21 Sep 2026

Lipão has agreed to leave São Paulo for nothing

He will play here until the summer and then walk out of the door for free, having already signed elsewhere. Supporters will manage the first part of that sentence; it is the second they will struggle with.

Market21 Sep 2026

Only the photograph left for Orlando Neto

Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Orlando Neto will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around São Paulo the goodbyes have quietly begun.

Squad21 Sep 2026

A falling-out at São Paulo

Domingos Duarte and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.

Player ratings21 Sep 2026

Chrystian Barletta was unplayable

Successful dribbles: 20. He went past people as if he had been told there was a prize for it, and by the end the full-back had stopped pretending to try.

Squad21 Sep 2026

Words at São Paulo training over how hard people work

Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Newton 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.

Player ratings21 Sep 2026

Ninety minutes of Victor Sá at his very best

Marked 8.26. Players have careers without a single afternoon like this in them, and he has just had one in front of everybody at São Paulo.

The dugout21 Sep 2026

No hiding place for Thiago Couto

“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Thiago Couto, and the manager let it.

In brief