The words a physio says slowly. 20 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.
“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 The request is on a desk at Leon, and it is not being withdrawn.
The most common injury in the game and the most rushed back from. Leon will quote 14 days and will be careful with it, because the second one is always worse than the first.
The deal with Club America 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.
Terms were offered and declined. Whether it was the wages, the role or the town, nobody at Club America is saying, and nobody at Leon is enjoying the guessing.
28 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Leon lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
The offer went to Monterrey this week and it is theirs to answer. First bids are rarely meant to succeed; they are meant to find out how loud the door closes.
Everything agreed with Club America, everything agreed with the player; a doctor is the only person left to persuade. The photograph is a day or two away.
Leon have gone to Queretaro with a bid, and the supporters have gone to the internet with an opinion about it. Whether either changes anything is up to the selling club.
Leon asked and Guadalajara said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
Both sides expect a conversation in the coming days. Leon will name a price, and everything after that is arithmetic.
Squad24 Jun 2030
Youssef Ortiz 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.
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 Juan Pablo Domínguez is on it.
The words a physio says slowly. 36 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.
A medical, a signature, a shirt held up in front of a sponsor’s board. Leon have done the hard part with Guadalajara, and the part that remains is the part supporters actually see.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Queretaro have kept their man, and Leon go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
Álvaro Marín 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 Edgar López was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Every shape has positions in it and this one does not have his. Leon will either change the shape, change his job, or change his club, and he is waiting to hear which.
45 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Leon lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
The offer from Cruz Azul for Ryan Mmaee was heard out and sent back the same day. First bids are rarely meant to succeed; they are meant to find out how loudly the door closes.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Leon 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.
The shirt still fits. Youssef Ortiz is back at Leon, and half the ground remembers him in these colours already. Some signings need selling to the town; this one sold itself.
Leon have gone to Queretaro with a bid, and the supporters have gone to the internet with an opinion about it. Whether either changes anything is up to the selling club.
Leon asked and Guadalajara said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
Álvaro Marín 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 Jun 2030
Youssef Ortiz 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.