The last thing about a transfer that is still about the player is his signature on his own terms, and it is there. Alavés have lost him in all but the paperwork.
The offer from Gijón for Toni Martínez was heard out and sent back the same day. First bids are rarely meant to succeed; they are meant to find out how loudly the door closes.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Alavés they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
There is no worse way to lose a footballer. Francisco Vaz 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.
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Soudais El Hadj Dani is 19, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
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.
Squad23 Jul 2029
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Careers are supposed to plateau and then decline, and the players who ignore that are always the ones who were listening on the training ground. 3 points of it, over months, at an age where the direction normally only goes one way.
The last league game has been played and the table has stopped moving: 73 points. The summer begins on Monday, and so does the argument about what it all meant.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Alavés can pretend not to have heard.
Two goals and a mark of 8.47 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
The name of Carles Aleñá has come up in conversations Alavés were not part of. Nothing formal, nothing signed — but nothing about it accidental either.
“I want to be playing for trophies while my legs still let me.” Nothing in that sentence is a transfer request, and nobody at Alavés heard it as anything else.
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.
The last thing about a transfer that is still about the player is his signature on his own terms, and it is there. Alavés have lost him in all but the paperwork.
It is the most legitimate ambition in the sport and the hardest for most clubs to satisfy. Cristian Zabala wants continental football; whether Alavés can provide it is a question about the next two seasons, not about him.
Terms were offered and declined. Whether it was the wages, the role or the town, nobody at Albacete is saying, and nobody at Alavés is enjoying the guessing.
Yusi 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.
In brief
SquadWords at Alavés training over how hard people work
“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.
The clubs have settled the fee and he has settled his wages. What remains is a medical and a photograph, and around Alavés people have started saying his name in the past tense.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Lucas Boyé was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Nicolás Valentini 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.
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.