Marked for Sergio Canales
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Match4 Nov 2026
Villarreal go through and Racing Santander go home, 1‑1 the scoreline that did it. The dressing room will call the league the priority now, because that is what dressing rooms say.
Match7 Nov 2026
2 in front and in complete control, and it finished with Gijón the happier side. There is no version of this afternoon that Racing Santander will enjoy reviewing.
Match7 Nov 2026
The unbeaten run reaches 12. Some of them were wins and some were escapes, but a side that refuses to lose is a side other dressing rooms talk about.
Squad9 Nov 2026
1 kept out in the shoot-out, and a stadium that will still be describing them in twenty years. A goalkeeper only needs one of these to be remembered forever.
Squad9 Nov 2026
Pablo Ramón in a row with a teammate
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Racing Santander this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad9 Nov 2026
Footballers are asked about their boyhood club so often that nobody listens to the answer. Alexander Fernández has just signed for Racing Santander, and for once the answer mattered.
Player ratings9 Nov 2026
Successful dribbles: 21. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
Squad9 Nov 2026
Andrés Martín falls out with a teammate over standards
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.
Player ratings9 Nov 2026
There is a version of this player everybody suspected was in there, and on this evidence it is. 8.63, and no argument anywhere in the ground.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Steady
Match24 Oct 2026
9 games unbeaten now. Some were earned and some were survived, but a habit is forming — and habits are the hardest thing in football to play against.
Player ratings26 Oct 2026
Successful dribbles: 21. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
Squad26 Oct 2026
Íñigo Vicente 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.
Squad26 Oct 2026
Words at Racing Santander training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Marco Sangalli 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.
Squad26 Oct 2026
“Nobody here is above being told.” It was not said with a name attached, but the dressing room can count, and so can everybody who was listening.
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Match16 Sep 2026
A 3‑2 win over Huesca, a place in the next round, and the quiet arithmetic every supporter does on the walk home: how many more until a final?
Match16 Sep 2026
Some goals win a match and some take one off somebody else. Sergio Canales scored in the 86th minute, Huesca had already begun thinking about the journey home, and Racing Santander took the lot.
Player ratings21 Sep 2026
Age has not caught Sergio Canales yet — 8.33
At 35 he is supposed to be managing his minutes. Instead he was marked 8.33 and looked, for ninety minutes, exactly like the player everybody remembers.
Player ratings21 Sep 2026
Successful dribbles: 25. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
Squad21 Sep 2026
Gustavo Puerta 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.
Squad21 Sep 2026
Words at Racing Santander training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Kevin Salazar 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.
Player ratings21 Sep 2026
Ninety minutes of Suleiman Camara at his very best
Marked 8.01. Players have careers without a single afternoon like this in them, and he has just had one in front of everybody at Racing Santander.
Squad21 Sep 2026
“Nobody here is above being told.” It was not said with a name attached, but the dressing room can count, and so can everybody who was listening.
Squad21 Sep 2026
Sergio Canales has become a man the manager trusts
Nobody at Racing Santander 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
Steady
Market3 Aug 2026
The bid was some way short and Racing Santander did not need long over it. Nobody in the game reads a first refusal as the end of anything.
Squad3 Aug 2026
475 appearances across 8 seasons in these colours. Careers like that are not built any more, and Racing Santander know what they have.
Squad3 Aug 2026
“The easiest signature of my career.” Sergio Canales and Racing Santander agree another 2 years, and the manager can plan around him rather than about him.
Squad3 Aug 2026
Gustavo Puerta 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.
Squad3 Aug 2026
Marco Sangalli falls out with a teammate over standards
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.
Market3 Aug 2026
“We keep meeting, and we keep leaving the room with the same numbers we walked in with.” Another round of talks at Racing Santander, another week without a signature from Marco Sangalli.