“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 The request is on a desk at Getafe, and it is not being withdrawn.
Nemanja Gudelj 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 Arda Güler was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Getafe asked and Barcelona 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 am grateful for the games, but I did not become a footballer to be somebody else's spare part.” He wants to be at Getafe, and 0 appearances in 5 say he has earned the hearing.
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Ramón Terrats signs something — a contract at Getafe or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
Nobody at Getafe 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.
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.
9 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.
Nemanja Gudelj and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Squad24 May 2027
Words at Getafe training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Arda Güler 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.
Marked 6.77 on 9 actions at both ends of the pitch. Midfielders like this get described as unspectacular by people who have never tried to play against one.
The dugout24 May 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 0‑1 defeat, delivered by Daniel Campos to a room that had heard them before.
Every touch is being weighed now, in print and everywhere else. Some players grow into that and some are quietly ruined by it, and nobody knows which in advance.
It is the most legitimate ambition in the sport and the hardest for most clubs to satisfy. Arda Güler wants continental football; whether Getafe can provide it is a question about the next two seasons, not about him.
3 matches, no goals, and a training ground that has tried everything. It will end — droughts always do — but nobody at Getafe can tell you which week it ends in.
“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.
Squad19 Apr 2027
Words at Getafe training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Orel Mangala 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 not much of a headline and it is the reason players believe the next promise. Getafe told Arda Güler something would happen and then it happened, which in this industry passes for remarkable.
In brief
The dugoutDavid Soria is still being punished for one mistake
It is not a grievance and it is not a demand: he wants to play continental football, and he has stopped hiding it. Whether Getafe can give him that is a question about the club, not about him.
Abdelkabir Abqar and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Squad30 Nov 2026
Orel Mangala 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.
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.
The dugout30 Nov 2026
The manager’s verdict
“I am frustrated, honestly. We did enough to win and we did not win.” Daniel Campos was not hiding it after 0‑0, and nobody in the Getafe dressing room was either.
13 defensive actions and a clean sheet at the end of them. A defender's afternoon can only be told by what did not happen, which is why nobody makes a highlights package out of one and every manager in the division would take it.
At 33 he is supposed to be managing his minutes. Instead he was marked 7.84 and looked, for ninety minutes, exactly like the player everybody remembers.
7.94, 1 on the scoresheet, and the specific comedy of a back-four player celebrating like somebody who does this every week. He does not, and that is exactly why the ground reacted the way it did.
It is not a grievance and it is not a demand: he wants to play continental football, and he has stopped hiding it. Whether Getafe can give him that is a question about the club, not about 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 Getafe this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
“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 Getafe, and it is not being withdrawn.
7.96, 1 on the scoresheet, and the specific comedy of a back-four player celebrating like somebody who does this every week. He does not, and that is exactly why the ground reacted the way it did.
Terms were offered and declined. Whether it was the wages, the role or the town, nobody at Real Madrid is saying, and nobody at Getafe is enjoying the guessing.
Nemanja Gudelj 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.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Real Madrid have kept their man, and Getafe go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
At 22 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.
Rayo Vallecano made Getafe work for it, but the scoreboard read 2‑0 at the end and the table does not ask how.
Squad31 Aug 2026
Words at Getafe training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Orel Mangala 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.