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 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 Deportivo La Coruña know it.
Lucas Noubi 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.
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.
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.
“I want to be playing for trophies while my legs still let me.” Nothing in that sentence is a transfer request, and nobody at Deportivo La Coruña heard it as anything else.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Deportivo La Coruña this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
At 26 the improving is meant to be over. It is not: 3 points better than the mark taken at the start of the year, which is the sort of thing that happens to players who take the boring parts of the job seriously.
4 wins on the spin now, and the question has changed from whether the run ends to who ends it. Confidence like this cannot be bought; it has to be earned exactly this way.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Deportivo La Coruña this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
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.
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.
5 attempts, none of them in. He got into the right places all afternoon, which is the hard part, and did the easy part badly — and that is the version of a bad day a manager can live with.
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.
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.
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Briajan Gjyla is 19, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
Squad28 Sep 2026
Words at Sassuolo training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Berat Djimsiti 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.
Tarik Muharemović 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.
8.65. 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.
Shots: 6. Goals: none. The chances were there and they were good ones, and they went into the stand, the goalkeeper's arms and the side netting in roughly that order.
A 3‑2 win over Ceuta, a place in the next round, and the quiet arithmetic every supporter does on the walk home: how many more until a final?
Match19 Sep 2026
Luca Moro wins it after the whistle should have gone
90 minutes played. Luca Moro found the finish in time that only existed because of earlier delays, and Andorra went from a point to nothing inside one movement.
Match16 Sep 2026
Jamal Thiaré wins it after the whistle should have gone
98 minutes played. Jamal Thiaré found the finish in time that only existed because of earlier delays, and Ceuta went from a point to nothing inside one movement.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Deportivo La Coruña this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
At 23 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.
Tarik Muharemović 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.
Both sides expect a conversation in the coming days. Sassuolo will name a price, and everything after that is arithmetic.
Squad17 Aug 2026
Words at Sassuolo training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Mario David 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 was told straight, and I would rather have it straight.” The manager at Sassuolo has been clear about where Giovanni Chiricallo stands, which is more than many ever get.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Sassuolo this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
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.
49 months left and silence from upstairs — no offer, no talks, nothing for his people to answer. Clubs that let a calendar do their negotiating usually end up negotiating with the calendar.
“We keep meeting, and we keep leaving the room with the same numbers we walked in with.” Another round of talks at Sassuolo, another week without a signature from Samuele Mulattieri.