A bone, which is the one injury with a calendar attached. Pontevedra will name a return date and, unusually for this business, will probably be right about it.
Joaquín Rivas 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.
Pontevedra asked and Gijón said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
Squad25 Aug 2036
Bruno Valdez 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.
Another week, another link, another denial nobody quite believes. Pontevedra know the market decides these things, not the back pages — but the back pages are louder.
“I was told straight, and I would rather have it straight.” The manager at Pontevedra has been clear about where Luka Camacho stands, which is more than many ever get.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Pontevedra can pretend not to have heard.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Pontevedra this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
The approach was made and the answer came back in a sentence. There is no number on the table because there was no number that would have been enough.
Squad21 Jul 2036
Words at Pontevedra training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Bruno Valdez 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.
67 points from position 4. The title is somebody else’s business and the drop is somebody else’s problem; what is left is the argument about passports.
He asked about his future and was given an answer with minutes in it. The manager has now made a promise in a building where promises are remembered, and the clock on it has started.
16 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Pontevedra lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
Pontevedra and Deportivo La Coruña have settled on $550.0K. The rest belongs to the player and his agent, and a supporter who has watched one of these before knows not to buy the shirt yet.
“This is not anger. I have thought about it for months, and nothing that has happened lately changed my mind.” The request is on a desk at Pontevedra, and it is not being withdrawn.
Pontevedra had done everything except persuade the man himself. He stays at Barcelona, and the manager goes back to the drawing board with the money still in the bank.
Joaquín Rivas 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 said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Bruno Valdez was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Another week, another link, another denial nobody quite believes. Pontevedra know the market decides these things, not the back pages — but the back pages are louder.
19 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Pontevedra lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Pontevedra can pretend not to have heard.
Leo Moya 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.
Squad14 Apr 2036
Bruno Valdez 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.
“There are things I liked and things we will be doing on Tuesday until they are right.” 0‑0, and a manager who had already decided what Tuesday looked like.
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.