Real Madrid Castilla next, and one man in the Celta Fortuna dressing room knows their training ground better than his own. The reception will tell him what they thought of him.
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Celta Fortuna, and both men came out saying it was fine.
A conversation in the manager’s office, and a commitment that came out of it. Promises like that are cheap to make and expensive to break, and Kike Ribes has written the date down.
Next up on the road: Real Madrid Castilla, position 2. The supporters who go will talk about it all week and the ones who do not will check their phones at ten to five.
“Judge me on him.” Managers do not say that kind of thing by accident — it moves the pressure from Pablo Gavián’s shoulders onto his own, and both of them know it.
33 points in position 15: too many to go down, too few to go anywhere. The honest description of a season like this is a shrug, and the supporters have already given it.
Kike Ribes 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.
Squad22 Mar 2027
Pablo Meixús 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.
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.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Celta Fortuna this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad22 Feb 2027
Words at Celta Fortuna training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Pablo Meixús 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.
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Adrià Capdevila and Celta Fortuna agree another 4 years.
1‑1, and both dressing rooms will call it two points lost. A draw that asked plenty of questions and answered none of them.
The dugout22 Feb 2027
The manager has not finished forgetting Anthony Khayat's mistake
Publicly it is behind everybody. It is not behind the man who picks the team, and the only place that shows is a team sheet. He will get another chance; he will get it in a match that matters less.
“A point is a point and I will take it, but we should have had all three.” Manuel Parra after the 1‑1 draw, and the sentence every manager in the country said at some stage this weekend.
Successful dribbles: 19. 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.
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Martín Vera. 1‑0 against Osasuna Promesas, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Pablo Meixús was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
A month is long enough that nobody gets in by accident. Pablo Gavián is in the division's best eleven for it, which is a quieter compliment than an award and a more reliable one.
The dugout8 Feb 2027
The view from the dugout
“We controlled it. There were spells I did not like and we will look at them, but the group showed me something.” Manuel Parra, on a 1‑0 win that he was already picking apart on the walk to the press room.
The bid was some way short and Celta Fortuna did not need long over it. Nobody in the game reads a first refusal as the end of anything.
Player ratings18 Jan 2027
A brace, and Martín Vera takes the afternoon — 8.08
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Martín Vera provided it, and the 8.08 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
Hugo Burcio 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.
He is 23 and the ground already sings his name, which is a thing that happens to local boys and almost never to signings. Everything from here is measured against an affection he did nothing to earn except be from here.