Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 129 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
David Soria 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.
Squad26 Jun 2028
Pau Cubarsí 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.
There is a version of every career where the player ends up somewhere he chose rather than somewhere that chose him. Simon De Bruyne is living that version at Getafe, and it tends to show in the first month.
It is the most legitimate ambition in the sport and the hardest for most clubs to satisfy. Sebastián Boselli wants continental football; whether Getafe can provide it is a question about the next two seasons, not about him.
59 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Ceuta lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
What was said behind closed doors has now been said in front of a microphone. Everybody at Ceuta can do the arithmetic, including the man it is aimed at.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Ceuta this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad5 Jul 2027
Marc Domènech 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.
5 signings in three months. Every one of them may be an upgrade and the team can still be worse for a while, which is the part of a rebuild that never appears in the transfer-window verdicts.
5 arrivals, an average age nobody would call a squad, and a set of parents being shown around a building their sons will spend more time in than at home. The scouting has already happened; today is only the paperwork.
Supporters who sing when it goes badly are supporters. Supporters who gather afterwards are a problem, and everybody inside the building knows which of the two this now is.
The words a physio says slowly. 81 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.
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Finlay Herrick is 21, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Ceuta can pretend not to have heard.
José Campaña 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.
Jonathan Meza is 20, and Ceuta have signed him for the player he will be rather than the one he is. The first team can wait; the point of a deal like this is the years it buys.
The words a physio says slowly. 88 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.
Ceuta interviewed the field and appointed the corridor: Tomás Campos keeps the job he had been doing in all but title. Sometimes the safest pair of hands is the one already holding the wheel.
The offer was not close and it was refused without much discussion. Whether the second one is refused as quickly is another matter.
Player ratings7 Jun 2027
A brace, and Marc Domènech takes the afternoon — 8.25
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Marc Domènech provided it, and the 8.25 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
“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 Ceuta, and it is not being withdrawn.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Ceuta this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 22 he is doing things at this level he could not do at the start of the season, and the coaching staff will tell you exactly which of them.
There is a version of every career where the player ends up somewhere he chose rather than somewhere that chose him. Agustín Fernández is living that version at Ceuta, and it tends to show in the first month.
19 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.
It has stopped being a mood in the stands and started being something organised. Boards can ignore a bad atmosphere for a long time; they cannot ignore this stage of it for very long at all.
Position 20 and 25 points, and the table gets read bottom-up in this part of town. The calendar has stopped being a schedule and started being a countdown.
5 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.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Ceuta this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 22 he is doing things at this level he could not do at the start of the season, and the coaching staff will tell you exactly which of them.
There is no complaint available here and everybody involved knows it, which does not make the walk to the bench any shorter. Form is the only currency in football that cannot be borrowed against.
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.
“Somebody picks the team on Saturday. This week it is me, and that is as far as I have thought.” No promises were made in either direction, which is how these usually begin.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Ceuta this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Nothing resets a career like somebody arriving who did not pick the side last season. Sergi Roberto has taken the hint, and Ceuta are getting a version of him the previous regime had stopped seeing.
Francisco Rey is 14, and Ceuta have signed him for the player he will be rather than the one he is. The first team can wait; the point of a deal like this is the years it buys.
A month is long enough that nobody gets in by accident. Marc Domènech is in the division's best eleven for it, which is a quieter compliment than an award and a more reliable one.
The board have said in public what they had been saying in private. Results between now and the next meeting decide it, and everybody in the building knows the arithmetic.
8 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.
At 35 he is supposed to be managing his minutes. Instead he was marked 8.16 and looked, for ninety minutes, exactly like the player everybody remembers.
José Campaña 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.
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Simon De Bruyne is 22, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.