78 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Unionistas lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Every footballer has an answer to the question about his boyhood club, and most of them never get to act on it. Lorenzo Gori has, at Unionistas, and the first month will show what that does to a man.
Manuel Fernández 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.
Marked 6.64 on 11 actions at both ends of the pitch. Midfielders like this get described as unspectacular by people who have never tried to play against one.
Squad9 Nov 2026
Víctor Olmedo 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 supporters are entitled to be angry. So am I. We will put it right.” 1‑3, a manager saying the necessary things, and a dressing room that heard a different version of them.
In brief
Player ratingsVíctor Olmedo beats them one at a time
97 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Unionistas lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
11 new signings in one window. Every one may be an upgrade and the side can still be worse for a while, which is the part of a rebuild the verdicts never mention.
“A point is a point and I will take it, but we should have had all three.” Nicolás Morales after the 0‑0 draw, and the sentence every manager in the country said at some stage this weekend.
Nobody will confirm this and nothing else explains the last month of selections. A costly error buys a player a period of being second choice that is always longer than the error was.
The crowd waited for a goal that never came. Real Madrid Castilla defended in numbers and left with what they came for, and the two sides could be playing still without troubling a scorer.
11 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.
120 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Unionistas lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Unionistas this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Four or five weekends of consistency, judged against everybody in the division doing his job. Marcos Landaburu has come out of that comparison in the side, and Unionistas have had the benefit of every one of those afternoons.
“A point is a point and I will take it, but we should have had all three.” Nicolás Morales after the 0‑0 draw, and the sentence every manager in the country said at some stage this weekend.
The team sheet says it in public every week until it changes. The only version of being dropped a footballer cannot argue with, and the one he takes hardest.
The words a physio says slowly. 128 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.
There is no crueller way to lose a football match. Unionistas scored in the 90th minute, the restart barely happened, and the away end was still standing when the whistle went.
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Marcos Landaburu provided it, and the 8.98 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
It is not a grievance and it is not a demand: he wants to play continental football, and he has stopped hiding it. Whether Unionistas 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 Unionistas this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
The dugout28 Sep 2026
The view from the dugout
“We controlled it. There were spells I did not like and we will look at them, but the group showed me something.” Nicolás Morales, on a 2‑1 win that he was already picking apart on the walk to the press room.
Squad28 Sep 2026
Víctor Olmedo 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.
Squad28 Sep 2026
The division's best last weekend was a Unionistas man
It is a small honour and it is not nothing: somebody watched every match in the division and decided that Marcos Landaburu was the best thing in any of them.