Bernabé 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 had been thinking. Edu 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.
“I have tried. I have really tried, and every day I wake up in the wrong place.” Nobody at Juventud Torremolinos can coach that out of a man, and nobody there is pretending to.
Every manager keeps a short list in his head of the men he wants on the pitch when the stakes rise, and it is never published. The team sheets for the big afternoons say Gori is on it.
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Juventud Torremolinos, and both men came out saying it was fine.
Juventud Torremolinos spent the window trying to move Francisco Gallego on and nobody came. He trains with a squad that has already told him he is not part of it, and both sides now wait for the next one.
“I respect the manager and I am not going to sit here and pretend I am happy.” It is the most common sentence in football and it has never once been the end of a story.
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.
The clubs had agreed and the player had not. A snub, and a public one: Mallorca keep him, and the supporters here are left wondering what he had heard about the place.
Involvement in 2 goals, from a player who spent the ninety minutes doing the thing a manager actually wants: being where the ball was going to end up. 7.97 beside his name.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Juventud Torremolinos this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Defending was optional and nobody took up the option. 7 goals between Juventud Torremolinos and Villarreal B, and not one of the people who paid to be there will ask for the money back.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Zaragoza have kept their man, and Juventud Torremolinos go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
At 22 he is being sung about by people twice his age, which is an affection a signing has to earn over years and a local kid gets for turning up. It is also the hardest thing in football to live up to.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the team. 11 saves, several of them the sort nobody expects to see stopped, and a scoreline that flatters everybody in front of him.
Two goals and a mark of 8.83 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
5 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 deal with Real Sociedad is done in every sense but the one that puts him on the pitch. Nothing goes wrong at this stage, except on the occasions when it does.
The clubs had agreed and the player had not. A snub, and a public one: Zaragoza keep him, and the supporters here are left wondering what he had heard about the place.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Juventud Torremolinos this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Edu was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Juventud Torremolinos have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
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.
“I have tried. I have really tried, and every day I wake up in the wrong place.” Nobody at Juventud Torremolinos can coach that out of a man, and nobody there is pretending to.
Successful dribbles: 17. He went past people as if he had been told there was a prize for it, and by the end the full-back had stopped pretending to try.
Marked 7.98 on an afternoon he ran from the first whistle to the last. Whatever else went wrong, Juventud Torremolinos had the best player on the pitch.
It is not much of a headline and it is the reason players believe the next promise. Juventud Torremolinos told Francisco Gallego something would happen and then it happened, which in this industry passes for remarkable.
“There are things I liked and things we will be doing on Tuesday until they are right.” 1‑1, and a manager who had already decided what Tuesday looked like.
In brief
The dugoutUsse Diao asks for a word with the manager
At 35 he is supposed to be managing his minutes. Instead he was marked 8.24 and looked, for ninety minutes, exactly like the player everybody remembers.
6 without a win is the sort of run that changes how a town talks about its club, and Sevilla Atlético were the afternoon it stopped. Nothing is fixed by one result and everything feels different by one.
Successful dribbles: 20. He went past people as if he had been told there was a prize for it, and by the end the full-back had stopped pretending to try.
A 2‑0 win over Sevilla Atlético, earned rather than given, and the sort of afternoon that sends everyone home talking about next week instead of this one.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Edu was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
“The players deserve the credit. My job was easy today.” It was not, and everybody in the room knew it; after 2‑0, Marcos Aguilar could afford to be generous.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Edu was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
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.
He trains hard, says the right things and goes home to an empty flat. Nobody at Juventud Torremolinos has done anything wrong, which is exactly what makes it so difficult to fix.
“I did not sign to watch. Nobody does.” The oldest complaint in the game, and Juventud Torremolinos will have to answer it with minutes or with a move.
The words a physio says slowly. 35 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.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Juventud Torremolinos 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.
Position 15 on 40 points. Every season is a story and this is the last line of it, and now the club has three months to decide what the next one is about.
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Charlie Patiño provided it, and the 8.30 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
The hardest thing about being 21 in a senior side is that nobody makes allowances. Usse Diao did not need any: 7.68, and he looked the most comfortable man on the pitch.
Charlie Patiño 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.
Every club pays most of what it earns to its players. Paying nearly all of it is a different arrangement, and it has ended the same way every time it has been tried.
There is a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 23-year-old it feels ownership of. Charlie Patiño has it now, and everything he does for the rest of his time here will be measured against the goodwill he was handed for free.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Edu 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.
4 matches now without a victory, and the excuses have worn thinner than the patience. Somebody at Juventud Torremolinos has to find a result from somewhere.
Charlie Patiño 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.
3 matches, no goals, and a training ground that has tried everything. It will end — droughts always do — but nobody at Juventud Torremolinos can tell you which week it ends in.
Everybody at Juventud Torremolinos saw it before anybody said it, which is how this always goes. At 37 the decline is real and measurable — 3 points — and the only question left is how the club handles somebody it owes a great deal to.
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 club in football pays most of what it earns to its players. Paying nearly all of it is a different arrangement, and it has ended the same way every time somebody has tried it.
“We were not good enough today and I am not going to dress it up.” Marcos Aguilar after 0‑1, in the tone of a man who knows the next question and does not intend to answer it.
0‑3 to Cartagena, and it was every bit as bad as the number suggests. There are defeats you argue about and defeats you apologise for; this was the second kind.
“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 Juventud Torremolinos, and it is not being withdrawn.
“The easiest signature of my career.” Fran García and Juventud Torremolinos agree another 2 years, and the manager can plan around him rather than about him.
“I have given this everything, but my family is not here and neither am I, not really.” A footballer can be coached out of bad form. Nobody has ever been coached out of this, and Juventud Torremolinos know it.
A squad rebuilt inside one window pays for it in a currency nobody budgets for. The football is not worse than the sum of the players; it is worse than the sum of the players who have played together before.
“The supporters are entitled to be angry. So am I. We will put it right.” 0‑3, a manager saying the necessary things, and a dressing room that heard a different version of them.
“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 Juventud Torremolinos, and it is not being withdrawn.
Boardroom1 Feb 2027
Deadline passes with 1 signed and 1 gone
That is the business done at Juventud Torremolinos until the window opens again. Whether it was enough will be answered on Saturdays rather than in a column, and the first Saturday is close.
Charlie Patiño 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.
Juventud Torremolinos asked and Penarol said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
“I am grateful for the games, but I did not become a footballer to be somebody else's spare part.” He wants to be at Juventud Torremolinos, and 0 appearances in 25 say he has earned the hearing.
“The supporters are entitled to be angry. So am I. We will put it right.” 0‑1, a manager saying the necessary things, and a dressing room that heard a different version of them.
Juventud Torremolinos have made the call to Atlanta. No fee, a share of the wages, and a spare shirt in the position where the squad has been thinnest all season.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Juventud Torremolinos this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Minute 94, against Atlético Madrileño, and a goal that felt like a win to everybody who had stayed. It was a draw. Nobody leaving the ground will describe it as one.
Successful dribbles: 16. He went past people as if he had been told there was a prize for it, and by the end the full-back had stopped pretending to try.
“I did not go to Mirandés to sit and watch. I want to come back to Juventud Torremolinos and fight for my place.” 2 appearances in 19 matches say the rest.
It finished 1‑1, and it somehow always looked like it would. One of those afternoons where the table moves less than the tempers.
The dugout21 Dec 2026
The view from the dugout
“We did not lose. Some weeks that is all you get, and I would rather have the point than not.” Marcos Aguilar chose the glass-half-full version of 1‑1; the supporters left with the other one.
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.
Ninety specific minutes wanted a different sort of player, and the manager picked one. He is not out of form and he is not in the side, and both are true.
In brief
Player ratingsOff the bench and decisive: Ivan Laća
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Juventud Torremolinos this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
“I watch every Juventud Torremolinos game from here. That says everything about where my head is.” The loan at Sevilla runs its course, but his heart never made the trip.
Marked 7.45 on an afternoon he ran from the first whistle to the last. Whatever else went wrong, Juventud Torremolinos had the best player on the pitch.
“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.
The dugout14 Dec 2026
The manager’s verdict
“I am frustrated, honestly. We did enough to win and we did not win.” Marcos Aguilar was not hiding it after 0‑0, and nobody in the Juventud Torremolinos dressing room was either.
Every squad has one of these fixtures for somebody every season. This one is Bernabé’s: the club that knew him first, the supporters who will decide in the first minute whether to applaud, and Juventud Torremolinos needing him to play as if none of it matters.
“I did not sign to watch. Nobody does.” The oldest complaint in the game, and Juventud Torremolinos will have to answer it with minutes or with a move.