“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 The request is on a desk at Oviedo, and it is not being withdrawn.
Terms were offered and declined. Whether it was the wages, the role or the town, nobody at Braga is saying, and nobody at Oviedo is enjoying the guessing.
Brahim Díaz 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.
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Sebastián Flores is 21, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Juventus have kept their man, and Oviedo go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Jacobo was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
28 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Oviedo lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
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.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Mauro Bazán trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
Successful dribbles: 23. 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.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and David Carmo was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
“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.
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.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the team. 18 saves, several of them the sort nobody expects to see stopped, and a scoreline that flatters everybody in front of him.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Oviedo have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Brahim Díaz 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.
Squad19 Apr 2027
Santi Cazorla 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.
The music was off and the showers ran late. What was said in that dressing room stays there, but Saturday will publish the minutes.
The dugout19 Apr 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 0‑4 Andrés Rubio left the room before anybody could ask which.
He found out with everybody else, an hour before kick-off, from a sheet of paper on a wall. Nobody at Oviedo pretended it was anything other than a decision about him.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the whole of the defence. 9 saves, several of them the kind nobody expects to see made, and ten outfield players who owe him a drink.
Brahim Díaz 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 David Carmo was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
3 matches, no goals, and a training ground that has tried everything. It will end — droughts always do — but nobody at Oviedo can tell you which week it ends in.
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.
The dugout22 Mar 2027
The view from the dugout
“We did not lose. Some weeks that is all you get, and I would rather have the point than not.” Andrés Rubio chose the glass-half-full version of 0‑0; the supporters left with the other one.
0‑4 to Barcelona, 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 team. 9 saves, several of them the sort nobody expects to see stopped, and a scoreline that flatters everybody in front of him.
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.
Santi Cazorla 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.
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 dugout4 Jan 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 0‑4 defeat, delivered by Andrés Rubio to a room that had heard them before.
10 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.
10 matches, no goals, and a training ground that has tried everything. It will end — droughts always do — but nobody at Oviedo can tell you which week it ends in.
Santi Cazorla 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 Santiago Colombatto 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.
The dugout30 Nov 2026
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 Andrés Rubio left the room before anybody could ask which.
The one version of being left out a player cannot argue with, and the one he takes worst. Somebody else has been better and the team sheet says so, in public, every week until it changes.