Add another name to the list: Cruzeiro have asked the question everybody in the game has been asking about Jon Castillo. The answer from Getafe has not changed — yet.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Getafe have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Sebastian Rodriguez 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.
Squad22 Dec 2042
Mario Martín 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.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the team. 7 saves, several of them the sort nobody expects to see stopped, and a scoreline that flatters everybody in front of him.
Sebastian Rodriguez 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.
Squad24 Nov 2042
Mario Martín 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.
Every touch is being weighed now, in print and everywhere else. Some players grow into that and some are quietly ruined by it, and nobody knows which in advance.
It needed Daniel Cop to find the net to bring anything home at all: 1‑1 against Deportivo La Coruña, and half the dressing room will call it a point won.
The words a physio says slowly. 21 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.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Getafe this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Getafe they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
Squad20 Oct 2042
Words at Getafe training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Mario Martín 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.
The words a physio says slowly. 42 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.
Supporters who sing when it goes badly are supporters. Supporters who gather afterwards are a problem, and everybody inside the building knows which of the two this now is.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Getafe have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Sebastian Rodriguez 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.
Squad29 Sep 2042
Mario Martín 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.
3 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.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Getafe will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
There is an age at which every good afternoon gets described as a throwback, which is unfair and also accurate. 7.85 at 35, and nobody on the pitch was better.
Sebastian Rodriguez 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.
Squad27 Jan 2042
Mario Martín 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.
Headers, blocks, tackles, interceptions — 17 of them, and not one goal behind him. The sort of performance that never makes a highlight reel and wins football matches.
16 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Getafe 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. 46 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
Sebastian Rodriguez 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 Jan 2042
Mario Martín 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.
93 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Getafe 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. 123 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.” Getafe have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
107 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Getafe lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Getafe will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
There is an age at which every good afternoon gets described as a throwback, which is unfair and also accurate. 8.12 at 35, and nobody on the pitch was better.
1 for Sam Cuntapay, marked 7.89, and a centre-half's name in the part of the report he normally only reaches by mistake. He will not be allowed to forget it in the dressing room for a month.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Getafe this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad7 Oct 2041
Words at Getafe training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Mario Martín 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.
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Sam Cuntapay. 3‑1 against Málaga, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.