5 games without scoring. Strikers stop looking up, midfielders take the extra touch, and every shot that clears the bar is followed by a groan that has been building since the last goal.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at FC Dallas 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 FC Dallas this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Position 15 and 15 points, and the table gets read bottom-up in this part of town. The calendar has stopped being a schedule and started being a countdown.
Daniel 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.
It has stopped being a mood in the stands and started being something organised. Boards can ignore a bad atmosphere for a long time; they cannot ignore this stage of it for very long at all.
23 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. FC Dallas lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
What was said behind closed doors has now been said in front of a microphone. Everybody at FC Dallas can do the arithmetic, including the man it is aimed at.
Daniel 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.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” FC Dallas have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at FC Dallas this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.