21 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Mirandés lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
The clubs have settled the fee and he has settled his wages. What remains is a medical and a photograph, and around Mirandés people have started saying his name in the past tense.
Terms were offered and declined. Whether it was the wages, the role or the town, nobody at River Plate is saying, and nobody at Mirandés is enjoying the guessing.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Mirandés this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Mirandés have made the call to River Plate. No fee, a share of the wages, and a spare shirt in the position where the squad has been thinnest all season.
19 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Mirandés lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
The clubs have settled the fee and he has settled his wages. What remains is a medical and a photograph, and around Mirandés people have started saying his name in the past tense.
Mirandés asked and Andorra said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
There is no fee, no unveiling and no agent on the steps. Marcos Camacho 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 academy exists for exactly this morning. Fernando Gallardo has come through every age group the club runs and has now been handed a senior number, and the people who coached him at twelve will be the proudest in the building.
There is no fee, no unveiling and no agent on the steps. Pol Santana 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.
8 signings in three months. Every one of them may be an upgrade and the team can still be worse for a while, which is the part of a rebuild that never appears in the transfer-window verdicts.
Athletic Bilbao 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.
34 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Mirandés lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
The offer went to Barcelona this week and it is theirs to answer. First bids are rarely meant to succeed; they are meant to find out how loud the door closes.
At 36, 3 points below where he was, and a body that has started charging interest. It happens to all of them and it is still the hardest paragraph on this page.
Sergio Postigo 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.
Mirandés asked and Espanyol said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
Mirandés have made the call to Athletic Bilbao. No fee, a share of the wages, and a spare shirt in the position where the squad has been thinnest all season.
The loan was meant to give him football. 4 games and 0 goals later he is back at Mirandés no further forward, and everybody involved will explain why it was not their doing.
In brief
The dugoutMiguel Baeza knocks on the manager’s door
Position 20 and 23 points, and the table gets read bottom-up in this part of town. The calendar has stopped being a schedule and started being a countdown.
A bone, which is the one injury with a calendar attached. Mirandés will name a return date and, unusually for this business, will probably be right about it.
“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 Mirandés, and it is not being withdrawn.
Luis Fariña 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.
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 Martín Pascual.
Nobody will confirm it and the team sheets confirm it every week. One error has bought him a spell as second choice that is already longer than the error deserved.
It needed Carlos Fernández to find the net to bring anything home at all: 1‑1 against Real Sociedad B, and half the dressing room will call it a point won.
“It is not the end of the world and it is not good enough. Both of those are true.” The manager, after a 1‑1 draw, said the honest thing and then went to say it again inside.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Mirandés have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Etienne Eto'o 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.
“We were not good enough today and I am not going to dress it up.” Izei Ortiz after 0‑3, in the tone of a man who knows the next question and does not intend to answer it.
1‑4 against Las Palmas, and no complaints that would survive the replay. The manager spoke about character afterwards; the terraces used shorter words.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Mirandés this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Mirandés asked and Mallorca said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
The manager kept them in and said what needed saying. A response is expected on Saturday, and if it does not come the questions move upstairs.
The dugout15 Feb 2027
The view from the dugout
“We will look at it, we will learn from it, and we go again.” The three sentences every manager keeps for a 1‑4 defeat, delivered by Izei Ortiz to a room that had heard them before.
Beaten 4 times, with 4 saves for company. Goalkeepers carry these scorelines on their record whoever actually caused them, which is the quiet injustice of the job.
Ali Houary 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.
Two or more conceded in each of the last 4 matches. It is not one mistake repeating itself, which would be the easier thing to fix; it is a different one every week.
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.
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.
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Salim El Jebari is 22, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
“I have tried. I have really tried, and every day I wake up in the wrong place.” Nobody at Mirandés can coach that out of a man, and nobody there is pretending to.
Miguel Baeza 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.
Mirandés asked and Juventud Torremolinos said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
The name of Jesús Ruiz has come up in conversations Mirandés were not part of. Nothing formal, nothing signed — but nothing about it accidental either.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Mirandés have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Ali Houary 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.
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Luis Fariña, and the manager let it.
The dugout7 Dec 2026
The view from the dugout
“We will look at it, we will learn from it, and we go again.” The three sentences every manager keeps for a 0‑1 defeat, delivered by Izei Ortiz to a room that had heard them before.
A month is long enough that nobody gets in by accident. Ali Houary is in the division's best eleven for it, which is a quieter compliment than an award and a more reliable one.
Squad7 Dec 2026
Words at Mirandés training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Jesús Ruiz 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.
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.
Not a new contract, not a new number: a new place in the manager’s thinking, which is the only promotion in football that actually matters. Sergio Postigo has moved up it.
“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.
Squad16 Nov 2026
Jesús Ruiz 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.
Almería next, and one man in the Mirandés dressing room knows their training ground better than his own. The reception will tell him what they thought of him.
A year in and the language has not come, the city has not opened up, and he eats alone more often than anybody at Mirandés would like to admit. It is showing on Saturdays.
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 Jesús Ruiz has written the date down.
The language has come, the shrug has gone, and he argues in training like a man who expects to be here next year. None of it shows up on a fee and all of it shows up on the pitch.
Two or more conceded in each of the last 4 matches. It is not one mistake repeating itself, which would be the easier thing to fix; it is a different one every week.
The door stayed shut a long time after the final whistle. What was said in there is between them; whether it worked is between them and Saturday.
The dugout19 Oct 2026
The view from the dugout
“We will look at it, we will learn from it, and we go again.” The three sentences every manager keeps for a 0‑3 defeat, delivered by Izei Ortiz to a room that had heard them before.
The dugout19 Oct 2026
The manager has not finished forgetting Sergio Postigo's mistake
Publicly it is behind everybody. It is not behind the man who picks the team, and the only place that shows is a team sheet. He will get another chance; he will get it in a match that matters less.
0‑3 to Málaga, 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.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the whole of the defence. 6 saves, several of them the kind nobody expects to see made, and ten outfield players who owe him a drink.
Mirandés asked and Feirense said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
“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.
The dugout21 Sep 2026
The manager has not finished forgetting Sergio Postigo's mistake
Publicly it is behind everybody. It is not behind the man who picks the team, and the only place that shows is a team sheet. He will get another chance; he will get it in a match that matters less.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the whole of the defence. 10 saves, several of them the kind nobody expects to see made, and ten outfield players who owe him a drink.
The offer from Levante for Mickaël Malsa 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.
The clubs had agreed and the player had not. A snub, and a public one: another club keep him, and the supporters here are left wondering what he had heard about the place.
The most common injury in the game and the most rushed back from. Mirandés will quote 14 days and will be careful with it, because the second one is always worse than the first.
“The supporters are entitled to be angry. So am I. We will put it right.” 1‑3, a manager saying the necessary things, and a dressing room that heard a different version of them.
Nobody will confirm it and the team sheets confirm it every week. One error has bought him a spell as second choice that is already longer than the error deserved.