Marked for Rasmus Dolberg
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad12 Jul 2032
Álex Domínguez damages knee ligaments — 142 days out
The words a physio says slowly. 142 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.
Market12 Jul 2032
“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 The request is on a desk at Real Sociedad, and it is not being withdrawn.
Market12 Jul 2032
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Real Sociedad is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
Squad12 Jul 2032
Raúl Moro 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.
Squad12 Jul 2032
Words at Real Sociedad training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Jon Aramburu 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.
Squad12 Jul 2032
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Rasmus Dolberg is 19, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Market13 Oct 2031
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Real Sociedad is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
Market13 Oct 2031
“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 The request is on a desk at Real Sociedad, and it is not being withdrawn.
Match11 Oct 2031
No end in sight to Real Sociedad's wait for a win
5 matches now without a victory, and the excuses have worn thinner than the patience. Somebody at Real Sociedad has to find a result from somewhere.
Player ratings13 Oct 2031
Nobody could get near Raúl Moro
Successful dribbles: 25. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Match11 Oct 2031
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.
Squad13 Oct 2031
Raúl Moro 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.
Squad13 Oct 2031
The medical room confirms 16 days on the sidelines for Gonçalo Guedes, and a plan built around him now has to be rebuilt.
Squad13 Oct 2031
Takefusa Kubo 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.
Squad13 Oct 2031
A move Fabián Palomino would have made for nothing
There is a version of every career where the player ends up somewhere he chose rather than somewhere that chose him. Fabián Palomino is living that version at Real Sociedad, and it tends to show in the first month.