69 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Zaragoza lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Zaragoza will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
The offer from Betis for Jon Karrikaburu 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.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Mateo Lizondo will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Zaragoza the goodbyes have quietly begun.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 77 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
The words a physio says slowly. 112 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.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Zaragoza have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Samed Baždar 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.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Zaragoza they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Zaragoza will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
73 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Zaragoza lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Mateo Lizondo will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Zaragoza the goodbyes have quietly begun.
“I have ambitions, and I would like the club to share them.” Nobody has asked to leave and nobody has been shown the door — but a player chooses that sentence carefully, and a boardroom hears it exactly as it was meant.
Samed Baždar 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.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 128 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
The words a physio says slowly. 111 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.
The offer from Girona for Jon Karrikaburu 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.
There is a version of every career where the player ends up somewhere he chose rather than somewhere that chose him. António Vital is living that version at Zaragoza, and it tends to show in the first month.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Zaragoza is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
The fee is $110.0K, the contract is signed, and the argument about whether he is worth it can begin. Andorra drove a hard bargain; time will say who won it.
The phone has started ringing about Mario Carrasco again, and this time the name on the line is Elche. Zaragoza are listening politely and promising nothing.
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.
36 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Zaragoza lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the team. 6 saves, several of them the sort nobody expects to see stopped, and a scoreline that flatters everybody in front of him.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Zaragoza they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
6 goals. Both benches spent the second half looking at each other rather than at the pitch. Purists will complain about Zaragoza and Barcelona in equal measure; everybody else had a wonderful time.
Two or more conceded in each of the last 4 matches. It is not one mistake repeating itself, which would be the easier thing to fix; it is a different one every week.
65 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Zaragoza lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the team. 8 saves, several of them the sort nobody expects to see stopped, and a scoreline that flatters everybody in front of him.
At 34 he is supposed to be managing his minutes. Instead he was marked 8.10 and looked, for ninety minutes, exactly like the player everybody remembers.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Zaragoza can pretend not to have heard.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Zaragoza 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 Zaragoza this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Zaragoza is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
The words a physio says slowly. 94 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.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the team. 10 saves, several of them the sort nobody expects to see stopped, and a scoreline that flatters everybody in front of him.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Zaragoza this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Alejandro Castillo will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Zaragoza the goodbyes have quietly begun.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the team. 14 saves, several of them the sort nobody expects to see stopped, and a scoreline that flatters everybody in front of him.
53 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Zaragoza lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Some goals win a match and some take one off somebody else. Samed Baždar scored in the 88th minute, Elche had already begun thinking about the journey home, and Zaragoza took the lot.
At 38 he is supposed to be managing his minutes. Instead he was marked 8.91 and looked, for ninety minutes, exactly like the player everybody remembers.
It is the most legitimate ambition in the sport and the hardest for most clubs to satisfy. Adrián Liso wants continental football; whether Zaragoza can provide it is a question about the next two seasons, not about him.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Zaragoza they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
There is no worse way to lose a footballer. Davide Stabile has pre-agreed a move away, which means every appearance between now and June is made by a man the club can no longer sell, and somebody upstairs will be asked why the contract was allowed to get here.
Patrizio Masini 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.
In brief
SquadSamed Baždar falls out with a teammate over standards