There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Rafa Mir provided it, and the 8.74 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
The deal that would have taken Lior Kasa to Cacereño has collapsed at the last stage, and he reports back to Las Palmas with a summer to forget and a season still to play. Nobody is saying which side walked away.
The offer from Real Avilés for Mateo Aćimović 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.
Rafa Mir 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.
Las Palmas asked and Benfica 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 watch every Las Palmas game from here. That says everything about where my head is.” The loan at Racing Santander runs its course, but his heart never made the trip.
In brief
The dugoutThe manager makes an example of Enzo Loiodice
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Las Palmas they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
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.
Carlos Espí 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.
45 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Las Palmas lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 26 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Las Palmas have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Rafa Mir 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.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Pep Biel was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
“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 Las Palmas, and 4 appearances in 18 say he has earned the hearing.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Las Palmas will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
“I want to win things, and I would like to do it here.” Nothing has been demanded and nothing has been threatened — but a boardroom at Las Palmas hears a sentence like that exactly as it was built.
Rafa Mir 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.
One scored and one made, which is a different afternoon from scoring twice and an easier one to overlook. Marked 7.65, and involved in 2 of his side's goals.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Manu Fuster was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Rafa Mir 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.
Zaragoza made Las Palmas work for it, but the scoreboard read 1‑0 at the end and the table does not ask how.
Squad25 Sep 2028
Words at Las Palmas training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Manu Fuster 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 ratings25 Sep 2028
Marvin Park was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.34. There are performances a supporter describes to somebody who was not there and cannot quite convey; this was one, and the number does not help either.
“I watch every Las Palmas game from here. That says everything about where my head is.” The loan at Racing Santander runs its course, but his heart never made the trip.
Las Palmas ran out of time with Cartagena. The paperwork was open when the deadline passed, and a transfer that was almost done is now a transfer that never happened.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Las Palmas 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 Manu Fuster was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
“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.
Squad11 Sep 2028
13 new faces, and Las Palmas 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.
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 Enzo Loiodice is on it.
Every shape has positions in it and this one does not have his. Las Palmas will either change the shape, change his job, or change his club, and he is waiting to hear which.
The offer went to Colón 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.
The general version of this complaint is that a player wants more. The specific version names the thing: he wants to walk out under floodlights against clubs from other countries, and he has stopped pretending otherwise.
Everything agreed with Real Madrid, everything agreed with the player; a doctor is the only person left to persuade. The photograph is a day or two away.
“I have tried. I have really tried, and every day I wake up in the wrong place.” Nobody at Las Palmas can coach that out of a man, and nobody there is pretending to.
Something was said to Nicholas Opoku and then it happened. In this industry that passes for remarkable, and the dressing room noticed faster than any supporter could.
“I did not go to Racing Santander to sit and watch. I want to come back to Las Palmas and fight for my place.” 1 appearances in 6 matches say the rest.
In brief
The dugoutSomebody else is better right now than Viti Rozada
31 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Las Palmas lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
The offer went to Mallorca 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.
Rafa Mir 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.
Las Palmas asked and Estudiantes said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Manu Fuster was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Las Palmas have made the call to Real Sociedad. No fee, a share of the wages, and a spare shirt in the position where the squad has been thinnest all season.
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 Pep Biel is on it.
The words a physio says slowly. 41 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.
“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 Las Palmas, and it is not being withdrawn.
Las Palmas asked and Cádiz said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
Squad24 Jul 2028
Manu Fuster 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.
Kai Andrews 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.
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.
It is never announced and it is entirely visible: the biggest afternoons of the season keep containing him. A press box works this out long before anybody at the club confirms a word of it.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Nicholas Opoku trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
The words a physio says slowly. 66 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.
The fee is $3.5M, the contract is signed, and the argument about whether he is worth it can begin. Almería drove a hard bargain; time will say who won it.
The name of Enrique Clemente has come up in conversations Las Palmas were not part of. Nothing formal, nothing signed — but nothing about it accidental either.
“I have ambitions, and I would like the club to share them.” Nobody has asked to leave and nobody has been shown the door — but a player chooses that sentence carefully, and a boardroom hears it exactly as it was meant.
The number the board signed off was not enough. It has been asked again and raised its own offer to $13.6M — a club that wants Ezequiel Ponce enough to be asked twice.
Rafa Mir 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.
29 games, 6 goals, and a squad option that has arrived without a fee attached. The interesting question at Las Palmas now is not whether he plays but who he displaces.
89 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Las Palmas lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
The last thing about a transfer that is still about the player is his signature on his own terms, and it is there. Las Palmas have lost him in all but the paperwork.
The offer from Andorra for Ale García 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.
Some transfers need a press campaign. This one needed a shirt with the old number on it. Rafa Mir is a Las Palmas player again, and the town has its story of the summer.
“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 Las Palmas, and it is not being withdrawn.
Las Palmas have gone to Real Sociedad 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.
105 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Las Palmas 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.” Las Palmas have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Las Palmas this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
At 21 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.
It happens to all of them and it is still the hardest paragraph a local paper has to write. 35 years old, 3 points down on where he was, and a body that has started charging interest on a career.
Chances created: 14. Nothing on the scoresheet and everything in the match: the pass before the pass, over and over, until the defence stopped guessing right.
Player ratings29 May 2028
Enzo Loiodice was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.26. There are performances a supporter describes to somebody who was not there and cannot quite convey; this was one, and the number does not help either.
It is not much of a headline and it is the reason players believe the next promise. Las Palmas told Ryan Hardie something would happen and then it happened, which in this industry passes for remarkable.
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 Viti Rozada is on it.
Numbers do not stay secret in a dressing room and never have. He is not asking for more than he is worth; he is asking why somebody beside him is worth more, and at Las Palmas that is a harder question to answer.
“I have done everything asked of me in training and it has not changed a thing on a Saturday.” The most familiar complaint in football, and one Las Palmas will have to answer with minutes or with a transfer.
In brief
The terracesSupporters make their feelings known about Kai Andrews
Kai Andrews 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.
“We keep meeting, and we keep leaving the room with the same numbers we walked in with.” Another round of talks at Las Palmas, another week without a signature from Kai Andrews.
“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.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 25 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Las Palmas can pretend not to have heard.
3 matches, no goals, and a training ground that has tried everything. It will end — droughts always do — but nobody at Las Palmas can tell you which week it ends in.
Las Palmas asked and Alavés said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
It is never announced and it is entirely visible: the biggest afternoons of the season keep containing him. A press box works this out long before anybody at the club confirms a word of it.
A bone, which is the one injury with a calendar attached. Las Palmas will name a return date and, unusually for this business, will probably be right about it.
Barcelona will keep picking him until June and will get nothing for him after it. Aníbal Chalá has pre-agreed a move to Las Palmas, and the only people who lose in that arrangement are the ones who let the contract run down.
Marked 8.04 — the sort of number a correspondent writes down twice to be sure. Everything he tried came off, and what he did not try was not worth trying.
Jesé 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.
The dugout20 Dec 2027
The manager’s verdict
“I am not going to get carried away and I will not let them either. It was a good day. There will be harder ones.” Juan Rubio kept it short after the 2‑0 win, which is what managers do when they are happy.
It is never announced and it is entirely visible: the biggest afternoons of the season keep containing him. A press box works this out long before anybody at the club confirms a word of it.
In brief
The dugoutAle García asks for a word with the manager
Kai Andrews 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.
The dugout6 Dec 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 0‑1 Juan Rubio left the room before anybody could ask which.
A month is long enough that nobody gets in by accident. Kai Andrews is in the division's best eleven for it, which is a quieter compliment than an award and a more reliable one.
Nobody at Las Palmas 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.
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. Marvin Park has moved up it.
Something was said to Jesé and then it happened. In this industry that passes for remarkable, and the dressing room noticed faster than any supporter could.
The manager has re-ordered his thinking and Álex Padilla has come out of it lower. He will be told it is temporary, and the players who have heard that before will avoid his eye.
The dugout1 Nov 2027
The manager’s verdict
“I am not going to get carried away and I will not let them either. It was a good day. There will be harder ones.” Juan Rubio kept it short after the 2‑0 win, which is what managers do when they are happy.
Nobody at Las Palmas 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.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Las Palmas this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
It is never announced and it is entirely visible: the biggest afternoons of the season keep containing him. A press box works this out long before anybody at the club confirms a word of it.
Every squad has one of these fixtures for somebody every season. This one is Jefté Betancor’s: the club that knew him first, the supporters who will decide in the first minute whether to applaud, and Las Palmas needing him to play as if none of it matters.
Numbers do not stay secret in a dressing room and never have. He is not asking for more than he is worth; he is asking why somebody beside him is worth more, and at Las Palmas that is a harder question to answer.
Another week, another link, another denial nobody quite believes. Las Palmas know the market decides these things, not the back pages — but the back pages are louder.
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Las Palmas, and both men came out saying it was fine.
He trains hard, says the right things and goes home to an empty flat. Nobody at Las Palmas has done anything wrong, which is exactly what makes it so difficult to fix.
He asked about his future and was given an answer with minutes in it. The manager has now made a promise in a building where promises are remembered, and the clock on it has started.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Las Palmas can pretend not to have heard.
$10.0M was the most the club would pay and Atlético Tucumán were asking for more. Deals like this are revived in the last week of a window roughly half the time, and everybody involved knows it.
The offer was not close and it was refused without much discussion. Whether the second one is refused as quickly is another matter.
Squad13 Sep 2027
Words at Las Palmas training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Ale García 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.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Las Palmas this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Tenerife held the lead for 1 minutes, which is not long enough to enjoy it. Las Palmas answered before the celebration had properly finished, and the shape of the afternoon changed with it.
$10.0M on the table at Atlético Tucumán. 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 deadline has passed and the squad is the squad. 10 arrived, 5 left, and everything else printed about this club last month was a rumour that stayed one.
The clubs had agreed and the player had not. A snub, and a public one: Osasuna keep him, and the supporters here are left wondering what he had heard about the place.
Add another name to the list: Leganés have asked the question everybody in the game has been asking about Jesé. The answer from Las Palmas has not changed — yet.
Squad6 Sep 2027
Ale García 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.
Kai Andrews 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.
Las Palmas have made the call to Real Sociedad. No fee, a share of the wages, and a spare shirt in the position where the squad has been thinnest all season.