Marked for Izei Ramírez
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad16 Aug 2038
Tempers go at Alavés
Álvaro Djaló 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.
Market16 Aug 2038
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Alavés is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
Boardroom16 Aug 2038
He will play here until the summer and then walk out of the door for free, having already signed elsewhere. Supporters will manage the first part of that sentence; it is the second they will struggle with.
Squad16 Aug 2038
Vladyslav Ostrovskyi 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.
Boardroom16 Aug 2038
103% of the income goes out in wages at Alavés
Every club in football pays most of what it earns to its players. Paying nearly all of it is a different arrangement, and it has ended the same way every time somebody has tried it.
Squad16 Aug 2038
Too much change too quickly at Alavés
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.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Boardroom7 Jun 2038
The scrutiny sharpens at Alavés
Nobody upstairs has said anything, which is the loudest thing they could do. Results buy silence in this game; the account at Alavés is running low.
Boardroom7 Jun 2038
Interim Coach has until the next board meeting
What was said behind closed doors has now been said in front of a microphone. Everybody at Alavés can do the arithmetic, including the man it is aimed at.
Squad7 Jun 2038
A fracture rules Ilja Vinnikov out for 45 days
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Alavés will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
Squad7 Jun 2038
Jesús Owono has been here 13 seasons
449 appearances across 13 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.
Market7 Jun 2038
“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 Alavés, and it is not being withdrawn.
Squad7 Jun 2038
Álvaro Djaló in a row with a teammate
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Alavés this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad7 Jun 2038
“I never wanted to be anywhere else. There is unfinished business here.” Adrián Pica commits to Alavés for another 2 years.
Boardroom7 Jun 2038
$2.5M of the owner's money at Alavés
The shortfall was covered from upstairs again. Supporters are entitled to be relieved and entitled to ask what happens the month it is not, and both feelings usually arrive together.
Player ratings7 Jun 2038
A performance of 9.15 does not come along often, and when it does the rest of the team becomes scenery. He was magnificent.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Market15 Mar 2038
“I have given everything here and I need a new challenge.” The request is formal, and the relationship will never be quite the same again.
Squad15 Mar 2038
Álvaro Djaló in a row with a teammate
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Alavés this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad15 Mar 2038
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.
Boardroom15 Mar 2038
No signings allowed at Alavés
The manager may talk to whoever he likes and may pay nobody. A squad survives a window like this by borrowing, by promoting, and by hoping the injuries land somewhere else.
Boardroom15 Mar 2038
The Alavés debt reaches $112.6M
Football clubs borrow; that is not the story. Borrowing more than the facility allows is, because from here it is the owner's money or somebody else's decision, and neither of those belongs to the board.
Squad15 Mar 2038
“I have given this everything, but my family is not here and neither am I, not really.” A footballer can be coached out of bad form. Nobody has ever been coached out of this, and Alavés know it.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
The terraces23 Feb 2037
The mood at Alavés has turned into something else
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.
Squad23 Feb 2037
Toni Martínez breaks a bone — 52 days out
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 52 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
Player ratings23 Feb 2037
Two goals and a mark of 8.50 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
Squad23 Feb 2037
A one-man rearguard from Jesús Owono
There were 7 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.
Player ratings23 Feb 2037
Álvaro Djaló, 37, rolls back the years — 8.38
There is an age at which every good afternoon gets described as a throwback, which is unfair and also accurate. 8.38 at 37, and nobody on the pitch was better.
Squad23 Feb 2037
“I remember the meeting. I remember exactly what was promised in it.” Alavés may remember it differently, which is precisely the problem.
Squad23 Feb 2037
Álvaro Djaló in a row with a teammate
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Alavés this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Match21 Feb 2037
4 matches without a win for Alavés
The run now stands at 4, and the questions being asked around Alavés are no longer polite ones.
Match21 Feb 2037
8 goals. Both benches spent the second half looking at each other rather than at the pitch. Purists will complain about Alavés and Andorra in equal measure; everybody else had a wonderful time.
In brief
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Match
Whatever happens, Alavés do not lose
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Match
Alavés are shipping goals every week
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Match
Alavés share the spoils with Andorra