Curro 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.
Squad28 Dec 2026
Words at Burgos training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Oier Luengo 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.” Felipe Ortega after 0‑4, in the tone of a man who knows the next question and does not intend to answer it.
There is a figure at which a wage bill stops being ambitious and becomes the reason nothing else is possible, and this club has reached it. Nothing is left over for a transfer, a stand or a rainy afternoon.
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.
5 saves does not settle the argument about whose fault it was, and the argument will run all week. Goalkeepers carry these scorelines whoever caused them.
In brief
The dugoutJosé Gragera asks for a word with the manager
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Burgos 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.
Clubs spend fortunes looking for players and occasionally find one down the corridor. Pedro Esteban is that, and the reception he gets on his first appearance will be different in kind from the one any signing receives.
Clubs spend fortunes looking for players and occasionally find one down the corridor. Gabriel Peña is that, and the reception he gets on his first appearance will be different in kind from the one any signing receives.
Somebody else has been better, the manager has said so with a team sheet, and there is no argument to be had. He will get the shirt back the only way it can be got back.
Successful dribbles: 24. 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.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Burgos this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
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.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Ignasi Vilarrasa was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
1 for Unai Vencedor, marked 7.68, and a centre-half's name in the part of the report he normally only reaches by mistake. He will not be allowed to forget it in the dressing room for a month.
The deadline has passed and the squad is the squad. 22 arrived, 1 left, and everything else printed about this club last month was a rumour that stayed one.
Successful dribbles: 24. 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.
He is 22 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.
2 goals inside twenty minutes with Unai Vencedor in the middle of it, and Huesca unable to get near the ball long enough to change anything. Some matches are won before the first drink.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and José Gragera was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Fee agreed, wages agreed, and Las Palmas waiting with a shirt. Nobody at Burgos is pretending otherwise, and the supporters have stopped asking whether and started asking when.
Burgos asked and Girona said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
Add another name to the list: Zaragoza have asked the question everybody in the game has been asking about Saúl Del Cerro. The answer from Burgos has not changed — yet.
Clubs spend fortunes looking for players and occasionally find one down the corridor. Pol Prieto is that, and the reception he gets on his first appearance will be different in kind from the one any signing receives.
There is no fee, no unveiling and no agent on the steps. Roberto Parra has been at this club since he was a boy and is now, formally, one of the first-team squad — which for a local readership beats any signing of any size.
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 shape has positions in it and this one does not have his. Burgos will either change the shape, change his job, or change his club, and he is waiting to hear which.