At 35 he is supposed to be managing his minutes. Instead he was marked 8.26 and looked, for ninety minutes, exactly like the player everybody remembers.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Getafe this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad13 Sep 2038
Words at Getafe training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Mario Martín 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.
159 appearances across 12 seasons in one shirt. Nobody builds a career like that on purpose any more; it happens to a certain kind of footballer at a certain kind of club.
At 36 he is supposed to be managing his minutes. Instead he was marked 8.35 and looked, for ninety minutes, exactly like the player everybody remembers.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Getafe 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 Getafe this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
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 phone has started ringing about David Solís again, and this time the name on the line is Gijón. Getafe are listening politely and promising nothing.
Two or more conceded in each of the last 4 matches. It is not one mistake repeating itself, which would be the easier thing to fix; it is a different one every week.
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.
10 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.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the team. 9 saves, several of them the sort nobody expects to see stopped, and a scoreline that flatters everybody in front of him.
Abdelkabir Abqar 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.
Squad30 Aug 2038
Words at Getafe training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Christantus Uche 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.
Everyone has stopped pretending: Racing Santander will make the call about Jon Ramírez this week. Getafe have a number in mind, and the number is not shy.
Coba 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.
Abdelkabir Abqar 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.
Squad28 Jun 2038
Words at Getafe training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Christantus Uche 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.
The words a physio says slowly. 86 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.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Getafe this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
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.
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.
Shots: 12. Goals: none. The chances were there and they were good ones, and they went into the stand, the goalkeeper's arms and the side netting in roughly that order.
19 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Getafe lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Getafe will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Coba provided it, and the 8.98 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
At 34 he is supposed to be managing his minutes. Instead he was marked 8.40 and looked, for ninety minutes, exactly like the player everybody remembers.
Coba 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.
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Coba. 3‑1 against Racing Santander, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the team. 16 saves, several of them the sort nobody expects to see stopped, and a scoreline that flatters everybody in front of him.
33 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Getafe lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Getafe will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
Player ratings9 Nov 2037
A brace, and Nil Campos takes the afternoon — 9.29
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Nil Campos provided it, and the 9.29 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Getafe this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
5 matches, two or more conceded in every one of them. Sides that create as much as this can live with it for a while. Nobody lives with it forever.
Player ratings9 Nov 2037
Alexandru Ghiţă was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.95. There are performances a supporter describes to somebody who was not there and cannot quite convey; this was one, and the number does not help either.
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.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Getafe this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
There is no worse way to lose a footballer. Nikita Gloidman has pre-agreed a move away, which means every appearance between now and June is made by a man the club can no longer sell, and somebody upstairs will be asked why the contract was allowed to get here.
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.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Nikita Gloidman will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Getafe the goodbyes have quietly begun.
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Franck Oyongo is 21, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
Abdelkabir Abqar 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.
Squad6 Jul 2037
Words at Getafe training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Christantus Uche 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.
None of them will be seen by anybody outside the training ground for three years, most of them will never play a senior match, and one of them might change the club. That is the whole proposition, and it is why academies exist.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 68 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Getafe this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Getafe is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
In brief
SquadWords at Getafe training over how hard people work
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 103 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
There is an age at which every good afternoon gets described as a throwback, which is unfair and also accurate. 8.15 at 33, and nobody on the pitch was better.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Getafe this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
36 days since the seat came open, a list of names doing the rounds, and nobody has signed anything. Every week this drags on the shortlist gets shorter.