Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 99 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Didier Philippe will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Stade Rennais the goodbyes have quietly begun.
There is a version of every career where the player ends up somewhere he chose rather than somewhere that chose him. Davide Bertolini is living that version at Stade Rennais, and it tends to show in the first month.
8.29. There are performances a supporter describes to somebody who was not there and cannot quite convey; this was one, and the number does not help either.
Squad17 Sep 2046
Words at Stade Rennais training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Olivier Nicolas 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. 59 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.
12 without a win now, and the ground has developed the special quiet of a crowd that expects the worst. One scrappy 1-0 would cure most of it; that is the maddening part.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Real Sociedad B is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Real Sociedad B this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad25 Sep 2045
Ola Visted 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.
35 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Real Sociedad lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Real Sociedad they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Real Sociedad this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Nobody at Real Sociedad will say this on the record and the team sheets have been saying it for weeks. There is a small group in every squad who get picked when the fixture is difficult, and he has joined it.
The best deals are the ones the accountants never notice. Erik Ekdal arrives at Real Sociedad with his wages the only cost and something to prove the only clause.
6 without a win now, and the ground has developed the special quiet of a crowd that expects the worst. One scrappy 1-0 would cure most of it; that is the maddening part.
“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 Real Sociedad B, and it is not being withdrawn.
756 appearances across 10 seasons in one shirt. Nobody builds a career like that on purpose any more; it happens to a certain kind of footballer at a certain kind of club.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Real Sociedad B is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
Guido Hinteregger 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.
Defending was optional and nobody took up the option. 7 goals between Real Sociedad B and Andorra, and not one of the people who paid to be there will ask for the money back.
In brief
SquadWords at Real Sociedad B training over how hard people work