The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Ponferradina is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
The rules permit it and it stings anyway. Villads Westh has agreed terms with Getafe for the summer, and until then he pulls on this shirt as a player who has already chosen his next one.
Aarón Ochoa 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.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Slavy was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
A goalkeeper's career is counted in the games nobody scored in, and Eric Puerto now has 102 of them across 332 appearances. Nothing about that number was luck.
“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 The request is on a desk at Ponferradina, and it is not being withdrawn.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Ponferradina they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Ponferradina this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Eneko Ortiz was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
A midfielder is measured on whether the team functions when he is on the pitch, which is nearly impossible to see and completely obvious in retrospect. 9 actions, 6.66, and a manager who will not be substituting him again in a hurry.
The dugout10 Dec 2035
The view from the dugout
“We will look at it, we will learn from it, and we go again.” The three sentences every manager keeps for a 1‑3 defeat, delivered by Interim Coach to a room that had heard them before.
The words a physio says slowly. 21 days is what the club will announce and everybody who has heard this diagnosis before knows the number is the least of it: the knee comes back before the player does.
Two goals and a mark of 8.55 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
“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 Ponferradina, and it is not being withdrawn.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Ponferradina they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
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.
Aarón Ochoa 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 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.
28 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Ponferradina lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
“I want to be playing for trophies while my legs still let me.” Nothing in that sentence is a transfer request, and nobody at Ponferradina heard it as anything else.
4 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.
Slavy and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Squad5 Nov 2035
Words at Ponferradina training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Lisandro Morales 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 watch every Ponferradina game from here. That says everything about where my head is.” The loan at Celta runs its course, but his heart never made the trip.
“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 Ponferradina, and it is not being withdrawn.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Ponferradina is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Ponferradina this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad15 Oct 2035
Words at Ponferradina training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Justin Clarke 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.
Another week, another link, another denial nobody quite believes. Ponferradina know the market decides these things, not the back pages — but the back pages are louder.
Every squad has one of these fixtures for somebody every season. This one is Iván Martín’s: the club that knew him first, the supporters who will decide in the first minute whether to applaud, and Ponferradina needing him to play as if none of it matters.
He trains hard, says the right things and goes home to an empty flat. Nobody at Ponferradina has done anything wrong, which is exactly what makes it so difficult to fix.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Ponferradina can pretend not to have heard.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Ponferradina they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Real Madrid have kept their man, and Ponferradina go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
Slavy and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Squad17 Sep 2035
Words at Ponferradina training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Lisandro Morales 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.
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Aarón Ochoa. 2‑0 against Las Palmas, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
Marked 8.01 — 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.
“We earned that. I asked them for a reaction and I got one, and now I want the same again on Saturday.” Interim Coach on a 2‑0 afternoon that pleased him more than he was prepared to show.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Ponferradina this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Lisandro Morales was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Barcelona have kept their man, and Ponferradina go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
Squad10 Sep 2035
8 new faces, and Ponferradina are still learning each other
A squad rebuilt inside one window pays for it in a currency nobody budgets for. The football is not worse than the sum of the players; it is worse than the sum of the players who have played together before.
“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 Ponferradina, and 0 appearances in 10 say he has earned the hearing.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Slavy trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
Four paragraphs on the club website, none of them about football. The board thanked him, wished him well, and had the search under way before the page went up.
Not an interim appointment — an institution with an empty coaching office. Somebody unfamiliar will run the sessions this week, and the question of how a club gets into this state is one the board will be asked and will not answer.
The clubs have settled the fee and he has settled his wages. What remains is a medical and a photograph, and around Ponferradina people have started saying his name in the past tense.
“I am not thinking past Saturday, and I would advise nobody else to.” The caretaker’s first rule is to pretend the job is small; Interim Coach recited it perfectly.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Enzo Cabrera will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Ponferradina the goodbyes have quietly begun.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Real Madrid have kept their man, and Ponferradina go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
Terms were offered and declined. Whether it was the wages, the role or the town, nobody at Las Palmas is saying, and nobody at Ponferradina is enjoying the guessing.
The clubs have settled the fee and he has settled his wages. What remains is a medical and a photograph, and around Ponferradina people have started saying his name in the past tense.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Zaragoza have kept their man, and Ponferradina 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 Ponferradina this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad13 Aug 2035
Words at Ponferradina training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Hugo López 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.
“We keep meeting, and we keep leaving the room with the same numbers we walked in with.” Another round of talks at Ponferradina, another week without a signature from Trilli.
“Some mornings you wake up and you are still a long way from everything you know.” It is not the football and it never was; Ponferradina are dealing with a man who wants a different country.
He is not being dropped. There is simply nowhere in the formation Ponferradina are playing to put a man who does what he does, which is a harder thing to be told than any team sheet.
A bone, which is the one injury with a calendar attached. Ponferradina will name a return date and, unusually for this business, will probably be right about it.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Ponferradina can pretend not to have heard.
Fee agreed, wages agreed, and Las Palmas waiting with a shirt. Nobody at Ponferradina is pretending otherwise, and the supporters have stopped asking whether and started asking when.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Antonio Alonso will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Ponferradina the goodbyes have quietly begun.
It is not a grievance and it is not a demand: he wants to play continental football, and he has stopped hiding it. Whether Ponferradina can give him that is a question about the club, not about him.
Ponferradina asked and Valencia said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
Squad25 Jun 2035
Words at Ponferradina training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Hugo López 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.
In brief
SquadPonferradina are still strangers to each other
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Ponferradina they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
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.
The demotion a club never announces and a dressing room always notices. Òscar Masqué is further from the side than he was, and the reason will not be given until he asks.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Eric Puerto trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
Nobody at Ponferradina will say this on the record and the team sheets have been saying it for weeks. There is a small group in every squad who get picked when the fixture is difficult, and he has joined it.
Nothing is announced when this happens and everybody knows. He is a bigger part of the plan at Ponferradina than he was a month ago, and the training ground worked that out before the team sheet said so.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Noel López will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Ponferradina the goodbyes have quietly begun.
Two goals and a mark of 8.19 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
Slavy 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.
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.
Nothing happens for months and then he simply arrives, at no cost, having signed a pre-contract while still turning out for somebody else. It is the least dramatic way to sign a footballer and frequently the shrewdest.
There is a version of this player everybody suspected was in there, and on this evidence it is. 8.09, and no argument anywhere in the ground.
Squad19 Mar 2035
8 new faces, and Ponferradina are still learning each other
A squad rebuilt inside one window pays for it in a currency nobody budgets for. The football is not worse than the sum of the players; it is worse than the sum of the players who have played together before.
The clubs have settled the fee and he has settled his wages. What remains is a medical and a photograph, and around Ponferradina people have started saying his name in the past tense.
The offer was not close and it was refused without much discussion. Whether the second one is refused as quickly is another matter.
Boardroom5 Feb 2035
Deadline passes with 6 signed and 5 gone
That is the business done at Ponferradina 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.
Footballers are asked about their boyhood club so often that nobody listens to the answer. Enzo Cabrera has just signed for Ponferradina, and for once the answer mattered.
The shirt still fits. Matías Espíndola is back at Ponferradina, and half the ground remembers him in these colours already. Some signings need selling to the town; this one sold itself.
Squad5 Feb 2035
Words at Ponferradina training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Thiago Fernández 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.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Espanyol have kept their man, and Ponferradina go back to a list with one name crossed off it.