42 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Mérida lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
Fee agreed, wages agreed, and Hércules waiting with a shirt. Nobody at Mérida is pretending otherwise, and the supporters have stopped asking whether and started asking when.
$2.7M on the table at Rayo Vallecano. The manager wanted him, the board agreed a number, and the only voices still to be heard are the ones at the other club.
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.
Real Sociedad have been asked whether they would lend him. Loans are agreed quickly or not at all, and this one will be one or the other by the weekend.
5 new signings in one window. Every one may be an upgrade and the side can still be worse for a while, which is the part of a rebuild the verdicts never mention.
109 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Mérida lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
He is 19, he is averaging 7.25, and older professionals have started passing to him in the difficult minutes. That last part is the real scouting report.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Alejandro Avallay will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Mérida the goodbyes have quietly begun.
He will play here until the summer and then walk out of the door for free, having already signed elsewhere. Supporters will manage the first part of that sentence; it is the second they will struggle with.
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.
123 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Mérida lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a 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 Mérida this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad27 Mar 2028
Words at Mérida training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Ignacio Figueroa 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.
6 new signings in one window. Every one may be an upgrade and the side can still be worse for a while, which is the part of a rebuild the verdicts never mention.
Another week, another link, another denial nobody quite believes. Mérida know the market decides these things, not the back pages — but the back pages are louder.
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 Dylan Ugarte is on it.
In brief
The dugoutJavi Domínguez asks for a word with the manager
The hardest thing about being 18 in a senior side is that nobody makes allowances. Benjamín Borowik did not need any: 8.84, and he looked the most comfortable man on the pitch.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Mérida have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
The deadline has passed and the squad is the squad. 4 arrived, 2 left, and everything else printed about this club last month was a rumour that stayed one.
The deal that would have taken Pablo Cacharrón to Cacereño has collapsed at the last stage, and he reports back to Mérida with a summer to forget and a season still to play. Nobody is saying which side walked away.
Arkaitz Mariezkurrena 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 Ignacio Figueroa was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
29 points, and the rest of the division looking up. Every side that finishes first spends the season pretending it is not thinking about it, and this one has started pretending.
Player ratings6 Dec 2027
Benjamín Borowik, 18, plays like he has been here for years — 8.22
A mark of 8.22 means one thing beside a twenty-nine-year-old's name and something else entirely beside a 18-year-old's. Nobody at the ground needed telling which this was.
Arkaitz Mariezkurrena 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.
Squad6 Dec 2027
Words at Mérida training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Ignacio Figueroa 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 am grateful for the games, but I did not become a footballer to be somebody else's spare part.” He wants to be at Mérida, and 5 appearances in 22 say he has earned the hearing.
A 1‑0 win over Osasuna Promesas, earned rather than given, and the sort of afternoon that sends everyone home talking about next week instead of this one.
Successful dribbles: 18. 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.
The words a physio says slowly. 18 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.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Mérida 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 Ignacio Figueroa was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
“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.
Something was said to Jacobo Martí and then it happened. In this industry that passes for remarkable, and the dressing room noticed faster than any supporter could.
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 Raúl Dacosta is on it.
Every squad has one of these fixtures for somebody every season. This one is Pol Fortuny’s: the club that knew him first, the supporters who will decide in the first minute whether to applaud, and Mérida needing him to play as if none of it matters.
The offer from CE Europa for Pablo Cacharrón 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.
Mérida have gone to Betis with a bid, and the supporters have gone to the internet with an opinion about it. Whether either changes anything is up to the selling club.
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 22 he is doing things at this level he could not do at the start of the season, and the coaching staff will tell you exactly which of them.
Mérida offered $260.0K; Espanyol said it was not close. The manager will be told the money is still there for the right player, which is what managers are told.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Atlético Madrid have kept their man, and Mérida go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
Squad21 Jun 2027
Words at Mérida training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Imanol Varela 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 offer from Gimnàstic for Rodrigo Pereira 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.
“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 Mérida, and it is not being withdrawn.
Rodrigo Pereira 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.
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.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Sabadell have kept their man, and Mérida go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Nicolás Chaves was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
“I was told straight, and I would rather have it straight.” The manager at Mérida has been clear about where Eudald Vergés stands, which is more than many ever get.
Something was said to Jacobo Martí and then it happened. In this industry that passes for remarkable, and the dressing room noticed faster than any supporter could.
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Rodrigo Pereira signs something — a contract at Mérida or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
The list is a quiet document with a loud meaning. Sofiane El Ftouhi may talk to anybody who asks, and everybody at the club understands what that means.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Mérida have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Nicolás Chaves was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
He is 23 and the ground already sings his name, which is a thing that happens to local boys and almost never to signings. Everything from here is measured against an affection he did nothing to earn except be from here.
“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 Mérida, and it is not being withdrawn.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Mérida have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
“I have tried. I have really tried, and every day I wake up in the wrong place.” Nobody at Mérida can coach that out of a man, and nobody there is pretending to.
The dugout19 Apr 2027
The manager’s verdict
“That is on me. I pick the team and I picked wrong.” Managers say that when they mean it and when they need to be seen to, and after 2‑3 Alejandro Márquez left the room before anybody could ask which.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Mérida can pretend not to have heard.
Sergio Arribas 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.
Clubs make promises constantly and the page usually only hears about them when they are broken. This one was honoured, and the dressing room noticed that faster than any supporter did.
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Mérida, and both men came out saying it was fine.
A conversation in the manager’s office, and a commitment that came out of it. Promises like that are cheap to make and expensive to break, and Facundo Coelli has written the date down.
The shrug has gone, the language is coming, and he now argues in training like somebody who expects to be here next year. Half a signing's value is this and none of it appears on a fee.
Rodrigo Pereira 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.
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Mirko Ladrón de Guevara and Mérida agree another 4 years.
Warm-up bib, ninety minutes of watching, and a handshake at the end that fooled nobody. Big matches tell you who a manager trusts; this one told Facundo Coelli.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Mérida 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 Mérida this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
“Some mornings you wake up and you are still a long way from everything you know.” It is not the football and it never was; Mérida are dealing with a man who wants a different country.
Squad1 Mar 2027
Words at Mérida training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Nicolás Chaves 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.
“We were not good enough today and I am not going to dress it up.” Alejandro Márquez after 1‑2, in the tone of a man who knows the next question and does not intend to answer it.
The one version of being left out a player cannot argue with, and the one he takes worst. Somebody else has been better and the team sheet says so, in public, every week until it changes.
In brief
The dugoutLucas Beltrán knocks on the manager’s door
Almería have accepted the money. What Mérida do not yet have is the man, and between here and the photograph is a conversation about wages that both sides are dreading.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Mérida have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
A medical, a signature, a shirt held up in front of a sponsor’s board. Mérida have done the hard part with Unionistas, and the part that remains is the part supporters actually see.
Mérida have gone to Espanyol with a bid, and the supporters have gone to the internet with an opinion about it. Whether either changes anything is up to the selling club.
95 minutes played. Sofiane El Ftouhi found the finish in time that only existed because of earlier delays, and Zamora went from a point to nothing inside one movement.
Successful dribbles: 30. 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.
Centre-halves are allowed forward twice a season and are judged on what they do when they get there. Ignacio Figueroa scored, was marked 7.88, and got back before anybody noticed he had gone.
Rodrigo Pereira and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Squad28 Dec 2026
Words at Mérida training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Nicolás Chaves 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.
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Sofiane El Ftouhi. 2‑1 against Zamora, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
He is 23 and the ground already sings his name, which is a thing that happens to local boys and almost never to signings. Everything from here is measured against an affection he did nothing to earn except be from here.