Marked for David Ramirez
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad13 Jan 2048
“If you cannot run for the shirt, somebody else will wear it.” No name was used and none was needed; every player in that room knew who it was for.
Squad13 Jan 2048
Tobias Schuster has become a man the manager trusts
Nobody at Deportivo La Guaira 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.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad6 Jan 2048
An individual honour is a strange thing in a team game, and the best of them are never argued with. He has had the sort of year that ends with his name being read out, and Deportivo La Guaira have had the benefit of it.
Squad6 Jan 2048
“I remember the meeting. I remember exactly what was promised in it.” Deportivo La Guaira may remember it differently, which is precisely the problem.
Squad6 Jan 2048
“I never wanted to be anywhere else. There is unfinished business here.” Recep Akgun commits to Deportivo La Guaira for another 4 years.
Boardroom6 Jan 2048
The board have answered with money instead of encouragement, which is the only answer a manager ever wants. Spending it well is now entirely his problem.
Squad6 Jan 2048
Omer Natcho has become a man the manager trusts
Nobody at Deportivo La Guaira 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.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Market23 Dec 2047
The offer from Llaneros for Tobias Schuster 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.
Squad23 Dec 2047
It is never announced and it is entirely visible: the biggest afternoons of the season keep containing him. A press box works this out long before anybody at the club confirms a word of it.
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Squad7 Oct 2047
Christian Doku damages knee ligaments — 14 days out
The words a physio says slowly. 14 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.
Match2 Oct 2047
3‑1 against Universidad de Chile, under lights, against people who do not speak the same language as the crowd. These are the evenings a club measures its decade in, and there are never as many of them as anybody expects.
Match7 Oct 2047
Position 1 and 65 points on the board. Nobody at the ground will say the word out loud yet, and everybody at the ground is thinking it.
Squad7 Oct 2047
There were 6 saves in it, and at least three that had no business being saves at all. The ten outfield players owe him a drink and they know it.
Squad7 Oct 2047
David Ramirez: that is not what I was promised
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Deportivo La Guaira have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Player ratings7 Oct 2047
Successful dribbles: 19. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Player ratings7 Oct 2047
Marked 8.14 — the sort of number a correspondent writes down twice to be sure. Everything he tried came off, and what he did not try was not worth trying.
Boardroom7 Oct 2047
The board have put money on the table rather than an encouraging word. What happens to it now is somebody else's problem, and somebody else's job.
Squad7 Oct 2047
There is no complaint available here and everybody involved knows it, which does not make the walk to the bench any shorter. Form is the only currency in football that cannot be borrowed against.