Marked for David Blanco
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad6 Sep 2038
A one-man rearguard from Victor Aznar
There were 10 saves in it, and at least three that had no business being saves at all. The ten outfield players owe him a drink and they know it.
Squad6 Sep 2038
273 appearances across 14 seasons in these colours. Careers like that are not built any more, and Cádiz know what they have.
Player ratings6 Sep 2038
Age has not caught Iuri Tabatadze yet — 8.78
At 38 he is supposed to be managing his minutes. Instead he was marked 8.78 and looked, for ninety minutes, exactly like the player everybody remembers.
Squad6 Sep 2038
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Bojan Kovačević and Cádiz agree another 2 years.
Squad6 Sep 2038
Tempers go at Cádiz
Bojan Kovačević 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.
Market6 Sep 2038
Only the photograph left for David Blanco
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. David Blanco will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Cádiz the goodbyes have quietly begun.
Match4 Sep 2038
Cádiz leaking at the back
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.
Match4 Sep 2038
Bakary Diawara scored, and precious little else went right: 2‑3 to Eibar, and a quiet walk to the dressing room.
Player ratings6 Sep 2038
There is a version of this player everybody suspected was in there, and on this evidence it is. 8.44, and no argument anywhere in the ground.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad30 Aug 2038
A one-man rearguard from Victor Aznar
There were 10 saves in it, and at least three that had no business being saves at all. The ten outfield players owe him a drink and they know it.
Match28 Aug 2038
A 2-goal lead gone for Cádiz
It is a specific kind of quiet, a ground watching a winning position dissolve. Cultural Leonesa kept coming because nothing stopped them, and Cádiz will be asked about the last half hour all week.
Player ratings30 Aug 2038
Two goals and a mark of 8.48 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
Boardroom30 Aug 2038
Cádiz counting the cost
The accounts make uncomfortable reading. Wages first and ambition second is the order of business at Cádiz now.
Player ratings30 Aug 2038
At 36 he is supposed to be managing his minutes. Instead he was marked 8.24 and looked, for ninety minutes, exactly like the player everybody remembers.
Squad30 Aug 2038
Azzedine Ounahi 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.
Match28 Aug 2038
Cádiz leaking at the back
4 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 ratings30 Aug 2038
Bakary Diawara was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.64. 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.
Squad30 Aug 2038
Tempers go at Cádiz
Iker Recio 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.
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Boardroom10 May 2038
The numbers do not look good at Cádiz
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.
Player ratings10 May 2038
García Pascual, 35, rolls back the years — 8.00
There is an age at which every good afternoon gets described as a throwback, which is unfair and also accurate. 8.00 at 35, and nobody on the pitch was better.
Squad10 May 2038
Tempers go at Cádiz
Bojan Kovačević 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 May 2038
11 goals and a season average of 7.54. Form like that gets noticed well beyond this town.
Squad10 May 2038
Iuri Tabatadze 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.
Player ratings10 May 2038
Ninety minutes of Jacques Faure at his very best
Marked 8.82. Players have careers without a single afternoon like this in them, and he has just had one in front of everybody at Cádiz.
Squad10 May 2038
The manager has not finished forgetting Victor Aznar'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.
Match8 May 2038
A 2‑2 draw with Córdoba leaves the dressing room somewhere between relief and regret.
Market10 May 2038
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Bojan Kovačević signs something — a contract at Cádiz or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Market8 Jun 2037
Add another name to the list: Trabzonspor have asked the question everybody in the game has been asking about García Pascual. The answer from Cádiz has not changed — yet.
Market8 Jun 2037
“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 Cádiz, and it is not being withdrawn.
Squad8 Jun 2037
411 appearances across 11 seasons in these colours. Careers like that are not built any more, and Cádiz know what they have.
Boardroom8 Jun 2037
There is no worse way to lose a footballer. David Blanco 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.
Squad8 Jun 2037
Words at Cádiz training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Iuri Tabatadze 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.
Boardroom8 Jun 2037
Cádiz counting the cost
The accounts make uncomfortable reading. Wages first and ambition second is the order of business at Cádiz now.
Squad8 Jun 2037
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Cádiz this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad8 Jun 2037
“I never wanted to be anywhere else. There is unfinished business here.” Jacques Faure commits to Cádiz for another 5 years.