Marked for Ignacio Vázquez
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad6 Aug 2035
“The easiest signature of my career.” Julen Agirrezabala and Sevilla agree another 2 years, and the manager can plan around him rather than about him.
Squad6 Aug 2035
Rubén Vargas 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.
Squad6 Aug 2035
Words at Sevilla training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Julen Agirrezabala 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.
Squad6 Aug 2035
Ignacio Vázquez is a better footballer than he was
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 20 he is doing things at this level he could not do at the start of the season, and the coaching staff will tell you exactly which of them.
Market6 Aug 2035
“I want to be playing for trophies while my legs still let me.” Nothing in that sentence is a transfer request, and nobody at Sevilla heard it as anything else.
Boardroom6 Aug 2035
Nothing happens for months and then he simply arrives, at no cost, having signed a pre-contract while still turning out for somebody else. It is the least dramatic way to sign a footballer and frequently the shrewdest.
Market6 Aug 2035
Nobody at the club will say out loud who this signing is for, which is how you know exactly who it is for. Jake Drewett has been brought in to take a shirt somebody is still wearing.
Market6 Aug 2035
The list is a quiet document with a loud meaning. Tomás Martínez may talk to anybody who asks, and everybody at the club understands what that means.
Market6 Aug 2035
Contract settled, hands shaken, no fee changing hands. Alonso Coello leaves Sevilla the quiet way, and the wage bill breathes a little easier.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad9 Jul 2035
“I was told what my role would be, and I signed on that basis. It has not happened.” A grievance with a date attached is the hardest kind to settle.
Squad9 Jul 2035
Rubén Vargas 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.
Market9 Jul 2035
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Sevilla is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
Market9 Jul 2035
The deal that would have taken Mohamed Ben Fredj to Racing Santander has collapsed at the last stage, and he reports back to Sevilla with a summer to forget and a season still to play. Nobody is saying which side walked away.
Squad9 Jul 2035
Words at Sevilla training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Julen Agirrezabala 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.
Squad9 Jul 2035
Ignacio Vázquez is a better footballer than he was
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 20 he is doing things at this level he could not do at the start of the season, and the coaching staff will tell you exactly which of them.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad15 Jan 2035
There were 11 saves in it, and at least three that had no business being saves at all. The ten outfield players owe him a drink and they know it.
Squad15 Jan 2035
James Justin breaks a bone — 74 days out
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 74 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
Market15 Jan 2035
Sevilla say no — this time
The offer from Zaragoza for Brian Retamoso 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.
Squad15 Jan 2035
Boris Radunović: that is not what I was promised
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Sevilla have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Squad15 Jan 2035
Rubén Vargas in a row with a teammate
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Sevilla this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Match13 Jan 2035
4 matches without a win for Sevilla
The run now stands at 4, and the questions being asked around Sevilla are no longer polite ones.
Player ratings15 Jan 2035
Successful dribbles: 23. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
Boardroom15 Jan 2035
The paperwork is done long before the player is. Yann Lienard has agreed terms to come here when his current deal runs out, which means Sevilla have spent a summer's transfer budget on a phone call.
Player ratings15 Jan 2035
19 times he got in the way of something. Centre-halves get written about when they make mistakes and ignored when they do not, so an afternoon like this needs saying out loud: he is the reason the scoreline reads as it does.