Marked for Alejandro Ferrer
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad8 Apr 2030
Alejandro Ferrer damages knee ligaments — 18 days out
The words a physio says slowly. 18 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.
Squad8 Apr 2030
Defences have started doubling up on Maroan Sannadi
25 goals and a season average of 7.55 will do that. The space he used to find has gone; he keeps scoring anyway, which is the mark of the real thing.
Player ratings8 Apr 2030
Ez Abde was unplayable
Successful dribbles: 33. 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.
Player ratings8 Apr 2030
A brace, and Maroan Sannadi takes the afternoon — 9.10
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Maroan Sannadi provided it, and the 9.10 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
Market8 Apr 2030
Nahuel Soria hands in a written request
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Espanyol can pretend not to have heard.
Squad8 Apr 2030
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the whole of the defence. 6 saves, several of them the kind nobody expects to see made, and ten outfield players who owe him a drink.
The dugout8 Apr 2030
“I was told what my role would be, and I signed on that basis. It has not happened.” A grievance with a date attached is the hardest kind to settle.
Squad8 Apr 2030
10 seasons and 579 appearances, all of them here. Careers like this are not designed; they happen to a certain kind of man at a certain kind of club, and this town has one.
Market8 Apr 2030
Antonio Leal has one foot out of the door
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Espanyol they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Squad1 Apr 2030
25 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Espanyol lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
Squad1 Apr 2030
578 appearances across 10 seasons in these colours. Careers like that are not built any more, and Espanyol know what they have.
Market1 Apr 2030
“I have ambitions, and I would like the club to share them.” Nobody has asked to leave and nobody has been shown the door — but a player chooses that sentence carefully, and a boardroom hears it exactly as it was meant.
Squad1 Apr 2030
Words exchanged at Espanyol
Bremer 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.
Market1 Apr 2030
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Espanyol is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
Squad1 Apr 2030
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Nicolás Caro Torres and Espanyol agree another 2 years.
The dugout1 Apr 2030
It is never announced and it is entirely visible: the biggest afternoons of the season keep containing him. A press box works this out long before anybody at the club confirms a word of it.
The dugout1 Apr 2030
The manager makes an example of Antonio Leal
“If you cannot run for the shirt, somebody else will wear it.” No name was used and none was needed; every player in that room knew who it was for.
Market1 Apr 2030
Another week, another link, another denial nobody quite believes. Espanyol know the market decides these things, not the back pages — but the back pages are louder.
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Squad25 Mar 2030
A knee injury of the worst kind for Alejandro Ferrer
34 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Espanyol lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Squad25 Mar 2030
Defences have started doubling up on Maroan Sannadi
23 goals and a season average of 7.52 will do that. The space he used to find has gone; he keeps scoring anyway, which is the mark of the real thing.
Player ratings25 Mar 2030
2 goals, and the second was the one that settled it. Marked 8.90, and he could have had a third with better luck at the near post.
Market25 Mar 2030
“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 Espanyol, and it is not being withdrawn.
Market25 Mar 2030
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Andrej Petrović will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Espanyol the goodbyes have quietly begun.
Squad25 Mar 2030
Words exchanged at Espanyol
Rodrigo Alonso 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.
Match23 Mar 2030
Real Madrid left with the points after a 3‑4 defeat that will take some explaining on the terraces.
Match23 Mar 2030
Defending was optional and nobody took up the option. 7 goals between Espanyol and Real Madrid, and not one of the people who paid to be there will ask for the money back.
Squad25 Mar 2030
Destin Banzouzi arrives at the club he grew up with
Every footballer has an answer to the question about his boyhood club, and most of them never get to act on it. Destin Banzouzi has, at Espanyol, and the first month will show what that does to a man.
From our football correspondent
Triumph
Squad18 Mar 2030
A knee injury of the worst kind for Alejandro Ferrer
41 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Espanyol lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Market18 Mar 2030
Uriel Ramos hands in a written request
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Espanyol can pretend not to have heard.
Squad18 Mar 2030
A season average of 7.48 with 21 goals behind it. Opponents have started planning around him, which is the sincerest compliment football pays.
The dugout18 Mar 2030
“I was told what my role would be, and I signed on that basis. It has not happened.” A grievance with a date attached is the hardest kind to settle.
Market18 Mar 2030
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Espanyol is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
Boardroom18 Mar 2030
There is no worse way to lose a footballer. Álex Suárez 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.
Squad18 Mar 2030
A falling-out at Espanyol
Clemens Riedel and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Match16 Mar 2030
A 2‑1 win over Gijón, earned rather than given, and the sort of afternoon that sends everyone home talking about next week instead of this one.
Player ratings18 Mar 2030
Maroan Sannadi was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.54. 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.