132 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Deportivo La Coruña lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 114 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Deportivo La Coruña have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Eduardo Blanco will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Deportivo La Coruña the goodbyes have quietly begun.
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 21 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.
Pablo Torres damages knee ligaments — 107 days out
The words a physio says slowly. 107 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.
At 39 he is supposed to be managing his minutes. Instead he was marked 8.04 and looked, for ninety minutes, exactly like the player everybody remembers.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Deportivo La Coruña have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Fabio Chiarodia 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 Deportivo La Coruña they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
The goal that put Huesca ahead was still being replayed on the concourse when Deportivo La Coruña equalised, 2 minutes later. Leads are only worth what you do with them.
There is an age at which every good afternoon gets described as a throwback, which is unfair and also accurate. 7.82 at 34, and nobody on the pitch was better.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Deportivo La Coruña is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
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.
Francisco Torres 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.
18 home matches unbeaten. Visiting sides arrive already talking about the atmosphere, which is usually the sign that they have half-lost before kickoff.
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Thibault David provided it, and the 8.22 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
At 34 he is supposed to be managing his minutes. Instead he was marked 7.94 and looked, for ninety minutes, exactly like the player everybody remembers.
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 7.85 for the rest of it.
Fabio Chiarodia 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.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Álvaro Muñoz will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Deportivo La Coruña the goodbyes have quietly begun.
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.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 64 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
There are footballers who have a good season and footballers a season is remembered for, and the second kind get their names read out in a hall in the summer. Deportivo La Coruña will be quietly delighted and privately nervous.
The name of Gabriel Delgado has come up in conversations Deportivo La Coruña were not part of. Nothing formal, nothing signed — but nothing about it accidental either.
“I want to be playing for trophies while my legs still let me.” Nothing in that sentence is a transfer request, and nobody at Deportivo La Coruña heard it as anything else.
Tommaso Barbieri 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.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Álvaro Muñoz will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Deportivo La Coruña the goodbyes have quietly begun.
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.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Deportivo La Coruña will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Deportivo La Coruña can pretend not to have heard.
Leo Román 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 clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Deportivo La Coruña is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
Day 12 of the vacancy. Candidates have been priced, sounded out and quietly ruled out — and the caretaker’s win ratio is becoming an argument all by itself.
At 24 the improving is meant to be over. It is not: 3 points better than the mark taken at the start of the year, which is the sort of thing that happens to players who take the boring parts of the job seriously.