Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Aingeru Olabarrieta is 20, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Andorra this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad12 Oct 2026
Paul Nardi 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.
Brian Oliván 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.
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Vladyslav Krapyvtsov is 21, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
Squad5 Oct 2026
Words at Andorra training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Paul Nardi 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.
Every club in football pays most of what it earns to its players. Paying nearly all of it is a different arrangement, and it has ended the same way every time somebody has tried it.
Four or five weekends of consistency, judged against everybody in the division doing his job. Paul Nardi has come out of that comparison in the side, and Andorra have had the benefit of every one of those afternoons.
32 times he got in the way of something. Centre-halves get written about when they make mistakes and ignored when they do not, so an afternoon like this needs saying out loud: he is the reason the scoreline reads as it does.
Headers, blocks, tackles, interceptions — 29 of them, and not one goal behind him. The sort of performance that never makes a highlight reel and wins football matches.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the team. 6 saves, several of them the sort nobody expects to see stopped, and a scoreline that flatters everybody in front of him.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Andorra this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Three points for Andorra, 2‑0 the final word against Castellón in a contest settled by the finer margins.
Squad28 Sep 2026
Words at Andorra training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Javi Díaz 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 ratings28 Sep 2026
Imanol was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.03. 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.
18 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Andorra lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
A mark of 8.90 means one thing beside a twenty-nine-year-old's name and something else entirely beside a 20-year-old's. Nobody at the ground needed telling which this was.
A 5‑3 win over Real Sociedad B, earned rather than given, and the sort of afternoon that sends everyone home talking about next week instead of this one.
8 goals. Both benches spent the second half looking at each other rather than at the pitch. Purists will complain about Andorra and Real Sociedad B in equal measure; everybody else had a wonderful time.
Every club in football pays most of what it earns to its players. Paying nearly all of it is a different arrangement, and it has ended the same way every time somebody has tried it.
34 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Andorra lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
32 times he got in the way of something. Centre-halves get written about when they make mistakes and ignored when they do not, so an afternoon like this needs saying out loud: he is the reason the scoreline reads as it does.
Footballers are asked about their boyhood club so often that nobody listens to the answer. Joan Sastre has just signed for Andorra, and for once the answer mattered.
Brian Oliván 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.
Defensive actions: 23, and a clean sheet at the end of it. A centre-half's best afternoons look like nothing happening, which is precisely the point.
Squad24 Aug 2026
Words at Andorra training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Paul Nardi 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 is the least glamorous business a club does and the reason seasons do not collapse in February. Brian Fernández is here for the weeks when three men are injured and somebody still has to play.
41 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Andorra lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Andorra this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Boardroom17 Aug 2026
5 academy players handed senior numbers at Andorra
The morning the pathway stops being a brochure and becomes a team sheet. Most of them will not be here in three years; all of them have already done the hard part, which was getting to today.
Clubs spend fortunes looking for players and occasionally find one down the corridor. Martí Sierra is that, and the reception he gets on his first appearance will be different in kind from the one any signing receives.
The academy exists for exactly this morning. Enzo Álvarez 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. Nil Iglesias 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.
Clubs spend fortunes looking for players and occasionally find one down the corridor. Marcos Cano is that, and the reception he gets on his first appearance will be different in kind from the one any signing receives.
Squad17 Aug 2026
Words at Andorra training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Javi Díaz 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.
Football clubs borrow; that is not the story. Borrowing more than the facility allows is, because from here it is the owner's money or somebody else's decision, and neither of those belongs to the board.
In brief
Squad5 new faces, and Andorra are still learning each other