Wages have outrun income and the accountants have started attending meetings they used to send apologies to. Ambition comes second in a season like this.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Alejandro Díaz was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
The system has changed and his position has not. A footballer can improve his form; he cannot improve the manager’s formation, and that is the whole of the problem.
Levante next, and one man in the Eibar dressing room knows their training ground better than his own. The reception will tell him what they thought of him.
Centre-halves are allowed forward twice a season and are judged on what they do when they get there. Pape Guèye scored, was marked 7.77, and got back before anybody noticed he had gone.
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.
Eibar asked and Bournemouth said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
A point taken on 90 minutes is worth exactly one point and considerably more than that to a dressing room. This side does not stop, which is a reputation worth more than the result.
“We keep meeting, and we keep leaving the room with the same numbers we walked in with.” Another round of talks at Eibar, another week without a signature from Imanol.
The board had gone up, the arguing had started, and then the ball was in the net in the 90th minute. Málaga will replay every second of the added time for a week.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Eibar this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
He is 22 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.
Headers, blocks, tackles, interceptions — 16 of them, and not one goal behind him. The sort of performance that never makes a highlight reel and wins football matches.
Imanol 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.
Wages have outrun income and the accountants have started attending meetings they used to send apologies to. Ambition comes second in a season like this.
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 Arvin Appiah is on it.
A year in and the city has not opened up, the language has not come, and lunch is eaten alone more often than anybody at Eibar would admit. It shows on Saturdays.
He asked about his future and was given an answer with minutes in it. The manager has now made a promise in a building where promises are remembered, and the clock on it has started.
3 kept out from twelve yards, and a stadium that will describe each of them for twenty years. A goalkeeper needs one night like this in a career, and this was it.
A 1‑1 win over Valencia, and the draw for the next round can be watched with some interest for once.
Player ratings8 Nov 2027
Alejandro Díaz, 17, plays like he has been here for years — 7.69
A mark of 7.69 means one thing beside a twenty-nine-year-old's name and something else entirely beside a 17-year-old's. Nobody at the ground needed telling which this was.
He is 22 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.
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Ramiro Bornia. 2‑0 against Levante, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
Successful dribbles: 18. 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.
A defender on the scoresheet, which happens rarely enough that everybody in the ground remembers who took the corner. 1 for him, and a mark of 7.89 for the rest of it.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Eibar this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Real Sociedad B made Eibar work for it, but the scoreboard read 2‑1 at the end and the table does not ask how.
Player ratings1 Nov 2027
Diego López was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.49. 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.
200 games in this shirt, through managers and relegations and everything else. Service like it is disappearing from the game and the crowd knows what it is watching.
Minute 88, against Valladolid, and a goal that felt like a win to everybody who had stayed. It was a draw. Nobody leaving the ground will describe it as one.
“I watch every Eibar game from here. That says everything about where my head is.” The loan at Auckland City runs its course, but his heart never made the trip.
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.
Diego López 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.
“We were not good enough today and I am not going to dress it up.” Eduardo Iglesias after 1‑2, in the tone of a man who knows the next question and does not intend to answer it.
He has had enough of the noise. Whether Eibar can be a quieter place for him, or whether the only cure is a move somewhere the phone-ins are gentler, is a question for the next few months.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Alejandro Díaz was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
“I was told straight, and I would rather have it straight.” The manager at Eibar has been clear about where Nahuel Suárez stands, which is more than many ever get.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Eibar this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Clubs make promises constantly and the page usually only hears about them when they are broken. This one was honoured, and the dressing room noticed that faster than any supporter did.
The dugout18 Oct 2027
The manager has not finished forgetting Jon Magunazelaia'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.
Marked 4.09. Nothing he attempted worked and by the hour mark he had stopped attempting much, which is the part a manager notices rather than the mistakes.
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.
Albacete next, and one man in the Eibar dressing room knows their training ground better than his own. The reception will tell him what they thought of him.
In brief
Player ratingsThe afternoon ran through Ramiro Bornia
It is not a grievance and it is not a demand: he wants to play continental football, and he has stopped hiding it. Whether Eibar can give him that is a question about the club, not about him.
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.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Alejandro Díaz was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.