15 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Gijón lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Gijón this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad22 May 2034
Jérémie Boga 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.
22 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Gijón lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
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.
There is an age at which every good afternoon gets described as a throwback, which is unfair and also accurate. 8.11 at 37, and nobody on the pitch was better.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Gijón is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Gijón this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
It is the most legitimate ambition in the sport and the hardest for most clubs to satisfy. Fidel Tourn wants continental football; whether Gijón can provide it is a question about the next two seasons, not about him.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Jérémie Boga 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.
29 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Gijón lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Gijón this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
It is the most legitimate ambition in the sport and the hardest for most clubs to satisfy. Lautaro Garzón wants continental football; whether Gijón can provide it is a question about the next two seasons, not about him.
Squad8 May 2034
Jérémie Boga 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.
36 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Gijón lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Gaspar 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.
“I want to be playing for trophies while my legs still let me.” Nothing in that sentence is a transfer request, and nobody at Gijón heard it as anything else.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Jérémie Boga 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.
There is a figure at which a wage bill stops being ambitious and becomes the reason nothing else is possible, and this club has reached it. Nothing is left over for a transfer, a stand or a rainy afternoon.
The words a physio says slowly. 43 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.
Gaspar 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.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Jérémie Boga 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.
Warm-up bib, ninety minutes of watching, and a handshake at the end that fooled nobody. Big matches tell you who a manager trusts; this one told Ezequiel Ávila.
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Maxim Buekers signs something — a contract at Gijón or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.