Marcos Moreno 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 else has been better, the manager has said so with a team sheet, and there is no argument to be had. He will get the shirt back the only way it can be got back.
“That is what I want every week. Not the result, the way they went about it.” The manager, after 1‑0, already talking about the next one.
Squad25 Dec 2028
Joel Martin 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.
21 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Albacete lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Albacete have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Successful dribbles: 26. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
Player ratings30 Oct 2028
Up for the corner, and Ramiro Luján delivers — 7.51
Centre-halves are allowed forward twice a season and are judged on what they do when they get there. Ramiro Luján scored, was marked 7.51, and got back before anybody noticed he had gone.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Lorenzo was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
28 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Albacete lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
A defender on the scoresheet, which happens rarely enough that everybody in the ground remembers who took the corner. 1 for him, and a mark of 7.72 for the rest of it.
Antonio Puertas and a teammate said things this week that will take longer than a week to unsay. It was not about football, and both of them play on Saturday.
200 games in this shirt, through managers and relegations and everything else. Service like it is disappearing from the game and the crowd knows what it is watching.
“I have tried. I have really tried, and every day I wake up in the wrong place.” Nobody at Albacete can coach that out of a man, and nobody there is pretending to.
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.
In brief
The dugoutThe view from the dugout
The dugoutLorenzo asks for a word with the manager
The words a physio says slowly. 36 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.
Antonio Puertas 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.
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.
Up for the corner, and Javi Villar delivers — 7.94
Centre-halves are allowed forward twice a season and are judged on what they do when they get there. Javi Villar scored, was marked 7.94, and got back before anybody noticed he had gone.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Lorenzo was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
9 home matches unbeaten. Visiting sides arrive already talking about the atmosphere, which is usually the sign that they have half-lost before kickoff.
Albacete ran out of time with Alavés. The paperwork was open when the deadline passed, and a transfer that was almost done is now a transfer that never happened.
A midfielder is measured on whether the team functions when he is on the pitch, which is nearly impossible to see and completely obvious in retrospect. 9 actions, 7.59, and a manager who will not be substituting him again in a hurry.
“The players deserve the credit. My job was easy today.” It was not, and everybody in the room knew it; after 1‑0, Iván López could afford to be generous.
The last thing about a transfer that is still about the player is his signature on his own terms, and it is there. Albacete have lost him in all but the paperwork.
Boardroom6 Sep 2027
Albacete close the window on a squad of their own making
22 in and 15 out, and no more changes for months. The manager has what he has, the supporters have their opinion of it, and the table will have the last word.
The number the board signed off was not enough. It has been asked again and raised its own offer to $422.8K — a club that wants Jari Vlak enough to be asked twice.
The offer went to Castellón this week and it is theirs to answer. First bids are rarely meant to succeed; they are meant to find out how loud the door closes.
Antonio Puertas 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.
$370.0K was the most the club would pay and Antequera were asking for more. Deals like this are revived in the last week of a window roughly half the time, and everybody involved knows it.
“I want to be playing for trophies while my legs still let me.” Nothing in that sentence is a transfer request, and nobody at Albacete heard it as anything else.
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.