5 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.
Jon Pacheco 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 chances are being made and something is happening between the making and the finishing. 3 matches now, and the anxiety in the ground arrives a little earlier every week.
It is the most legitimate ambition in the sport and the hardest for most clubs to satisfy. Facundo Garcés wants continental football; whether Alavés can provide it is a question about the next two seasons, not about him.
The injury that keeps coming back, keeps being rushed back from, and quietly costs more careers than the dramatic ones. 14 days is the estimate; the honest figure depends on whether anybody is patient.
Jon Pacheco 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.
Alavés asked and Patronato said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
Successful dribbles: 14. 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.
“There are things I liked and things we will be doing on Tuesday until they are right.” 1‑1, and a manager who had already decided what Tuesday looked like.
In brief
The dugoutThe manager has not finished forgetting Nicolás Valentini's mistake
Alavés asked and Godoy Cruz said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
“I was told straight, and I would rather have it straight.” The manager at Alavés has been clear about where Carles Aleñá stands, which is more than many ever get.
Facundo Garcés 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.
Position 16, 14 points, and every result so far reduced to one line. The second half of the season starts with the same squad and a different set of expectations.
Alavés have made the call to Alianza Lima. No fee, a share of the wages, and a spare shirt in the position where the squad has been thinnest all season.
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Raúl Fernández, and the manager let it.
The dugout11 Jan 2027
The manager has not finished forgetting Pablo Ibañez'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.
14 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Alavés lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
8 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.
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.
Jon Pacheco 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.
Beaten 0‑1, and beaten fairly. The manager kept his words short afterwards, which was probably wise.
Squad21 Dec 2026
Pablo Ibañez 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.
3 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.
22 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Alavés lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Jon Pacheco 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.
3 games without scoring. Strikers stop looking up, midfielders take the extra touch, and every shot that clears the bar is followed by a groan that has been building since the last goal.
There is a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 23-year-old it feels ownership of. Hugo Novoa has it now, and everything he does for the rest of his time here will be measured against the goodwill he was handed for free.
31 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Alavés lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Alavés have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
The offer from Gimnasia La Plata for Bautista Arricau 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.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Alavés this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
It is not a grievance and it is not a demand: he wants to play continental football, and he has stopped hiding it. Whether Alavés can give him that is a question about the club, not about him.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Pablo Ibañez was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Alavés this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Every squad has one of these fixtures for somebody every season. This one is Lucas Boyé’s: the club that knew him first, the supporters who will decide in the first minute whether to applaud, and Alavés needing him to play as if none of it matters.
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Alavés, and both men came out saying it was fine.
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.
A defender on the scoresheet, which happens rarely enough that everybody in the ground remembers who took the corner. 1 for him, and a mark of 7.87 for the rest of it.
A midfielder is measured on whether the team functions when he is on the pitch, which is nearly impossible to see and completely obvious in retrospect. 13 actions, 7.79, and a manager who will not be substituting him again in a hurry.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Pablo Ibañez was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Squad5 Oct 2026
15 new faces, and Alavés are still learning each other
A squad rebuilt inside one window pays for it in a currency nobody budgets for. The football is not worse than the sum of the players; it is worse than the sum of the players who have played together before.
The ambition story running backwards, and the one nobody tells: a footballer who wants a smaller ground, fewer cameras and a crowd that does not turn. It is not weakness and it is rarely reported as anything else.
“The manager did not use many words, and he did not need to.” Facundo Garcés has his answer from Alavés; what he does with it is the next window’s story.
Antonio Blanco 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 supporters are entitled to be angry. So am I. We will put it right.” 0‑2, a manager saying the necessary things, and a dressing room that heard a different version of them.
He has had enough of the noise. Whether Alavés can be a quieter place for him, or whether the only cure is a move somewhere the phone-ins are gentler, is a question for the next few months.
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.
He used to wear the other shirt. On Saturday he plays against Celta in this one, and whatever he says this week about it being just another game will be untrue.
Ninety specific minutes wanted a different sort of player, and the manager picked one. He is not out of form and he is not in the side, and both are true.
In brief
SquadDenis Suárez has seen what the next man earns
Player ratingsToni Martínez beats them one at a time
The fee is $12.7M, the contract is signed, and the argument about whether he is worth it can begin. San Martín drove a hard bargain; time will say who won it.
Deportivo La Coruña pay $4.1M, and the deal is done. The number reads well on a balance sheet; whether it reads well on the pitch is next season's question.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Alavés 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 Pablo Ibañez was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Nothing about this will be in a press release. A plan went upstairs, came back rejected, and the version of the club that would have existed in three years' time just quietly stopped being possible.
The system has changed and his position has not. A footballer can improve his form; he cannot improve the manager’s formation, and that is the whole of the problem.