“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Racing Santander can pretend not to have heard.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Aritz Aldasoro 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.
Publicly it is behind everybody. It is not behind the man who picks the team, and the only place that shows is a team sheet. He will get another chance; he will get it in a match that matters less.
Luan Freire 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.
A goalkeeper’s error has no defender behind it to tidy it away. He knew before the ball crossed the line, the crowd knew a second later, and there is nothing anybody can say tonight.
The dugout1 Nov 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 0‑3 defeat, delivered by Roberto Álvarez to a room that had heard them before.
“I was told straight, and I would rather have it straight.” The manager at Racing Santander has been clear about where Giorgi Guliashvili stands, which is more than many ever get.
7 without a win is the sort of run that changes how a town talks about its club, and Oviedo were the afternoon it stopped. Nothing is fixed by one result and everything feels different by one.
Squad25 Oct 2027
Iván Martín 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 players deserve the credit. My job was easy today.” It was not, and everybody in the room knew it; after 2‑0, Roberto Álvarez could afford to be generous.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Juan Carlos Arana trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
Something was said to Mario García and then it happened. In this industry that passes for remarkable, and the dressing room noticed faster than any supporter could.
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 Manu Hernando is on it.
The run now stands at 5, and the questions being asked around Racing Santander are no longer polite ones.
Squad27 Sep 2027
Iván Martín 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.” 1‑2, a manager saying the necessary things, and a dressing room that heard a different version of them.
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 Manu Hernando is on it.
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.
Successful dribbles: 12. 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.
Villarreal next, and one man in the Racing Santander dressing room knows their training ground better than his own. The reception will tell him what they thought of him.
$12.3M was the most the club would pay and Rayo Vallecano 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.
Real Murcia have accepted the money. What Racing Santander do not yet have is the man, and between here and the photograph is a conversation about wages that both sides are dreading.
1 for Pablo Ramón, marked 7.89, and a centre-half's name in the part of the report he normally only reaches by mistake. He will not be allowed to forget it in the dressing room for a month.
Nobody makes a documentary about a hamstring and everybody in the game fears one. Racing Santander will be careful with the return date, because the second one is always worse than the first.
9 without defeat on their own grass. The pitch has not changed; the crowd has — louder earlier, and quicker to sense when the opposition would rather be somewhere else.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Aritz Aldasoro 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 Racing Santander this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
The clubs have shaken hands with Teruel; the player has not yet. Personal terms are next, and personal terms are where more deals die than anybody prints.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Racing Santander can pretend not to have heard.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Aritz Aldasoro was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
“The easiest signature of my career.” Mateo Gallardo and Racing Santander agree another 3 years, and the manager can plan around him rather than about him.
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 conversation in the manager’s office, and a commitment that came out of it. Promises like that are cheap to make and expensive to break, and Juan Carlos Arana has written the date down.
Mathematically certain, and nobody in this town is going to bed early. Whatever else happened this season, it finishes a division above where it started.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Racing Santander 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 Racing Santander this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
“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 Racing Santander hears a sentence like that exactly as it was built.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Iván Martín was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
18 games, 3 goals, and a squad option that has arrived without a fee attached. The interesting question at Racing Santander now is not whether he plays but who he displaces.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Burgos have kept their man, and Racing Santander go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
The demotion a club never announces and a dressing room always notices. Manu Hernando is further from the side than he was, and the reason will not be given until he asks.
“I know what people will say. I know what I want, and it is here.” Sevilla had the fee agreed and the shirt ready; they did not have the player, and now they will not.
It is the most legitimate ambition in the sport and the hardest for most clubs to satisfy. Juan Carlos Arana wants continental football; whether Racing Santander can provide it is a question about the next two seasons, not about him.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Iván Martín 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.
20 games, 3 goals, and a squad option that has arrived without a fee attached. The interesting question at Racing Santander now is not whether he plays but who he displaces.
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Guilherme Fernandes and Racing Santander agree another 4 years.
Nobody at Racing Santander 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 had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Racing Santander, and both men came out saying it was fine.
The deal with Athletic Bilbao is done in every sense but the one that puts him on the pitch. Nothing goes wrong at this stage, except on the occasions when it does.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Cartagena have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Teruel have kept their man, and Cartagena go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
Alavés paid $560.0K and Cartagena took it, which is the whole story in one sentence. The longer version involves a wage budget and will be told all season.
At 38, 3 points below where he was, and a body that has started charging interest. It happens to all of them and it is still the hardest paragraph on this page.
Squad21 Jun 2027
Words at Cartagena training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Aridane Hernández 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.
$2.9M settles it between the clubs for Victor Aznar
Cádiz have accepted the money. What Cartagena do not yet have is the man, and between here and the photograph is a conversation about wages that both sides are dreading.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Valencia have kept their man, and Cartagena go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
“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 Cartagena, and it is not being withdrawn.
The chase for Usse Diao ended with $1.7M changing hands and Juventud Torremolinos out of reasons to say no. The supporters will judge the fee the only way that matters: on Saturdays.
The offer from Canon Yaounde for Jean Jules 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.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Cartagena 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 Aridane Hernández was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Both sides expect a conversation in the coming days. Cartagena will name a price, and everything after that is arithmetic.
The dugout14 Jun 2027
The manager has not finished forgetting Lucho García's mistake
Publicly it is behind everybody. It is not behind the man who picks the team, and the only place that shows is a team sheet. He will get another chance; he will get it in a match that matters less.
Manu Hernando 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 Cartagena training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Aridane Hernández 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.
“I was told straight, and I would rather have it straight.” The manager at Cartagena has been clear about where Pablo Moyá stands, which is more than many ever get.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Thiaguinho trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
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.
Noël Atom has done the arithmetic and does not like the answer. Nothing corrodes a squad faster, and no club has ever solved it by explaining the wage structure to a footballer.
The last league game has been played and the table has stopped moving: 74 points. The summer begins on Monday, and so does the argument about what it all meant.
12 without defeat on their own grass. The pitch has not changed; the crowd has — louder earlier, and quicker to sense when the opposition would rather be somewhere else.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Cartagena 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 Cartagena this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
20 days, the medical staff say, and medical staff are optimists by profession. The team sheet will look wrong without him.
Squad17 May 2027
Words at Cartagena training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Aridane Hernández 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.
Manu Hernando 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.
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.
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Ayoze Pérez. 1‑0 against Teruel, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
A player who expected to start watched it instead. The manager will call it a decision for the team; Aridane Hernández will call it something else in private.
The dugout10 May 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.” Sergio López kept it short after the 1‑0 win, which is what managers do when they are happy.
The dugout10 May 2027
Lucho García is still being punished for one mistake
Nobody will confirm it and the team sheets confirm it every week. One error has bought him a spell as second choice that is already longer than the error deserved.
It is a specific kind of quiet, a ground watching a winning position dissolve. Gimnàstic kept coming because nothing stopped them, and Cartagena will be asked about the last half hour all week.
“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 Cartagena, and it is not being withdrawn.
At 33 he is supposed to be managing his minutes. Instead he was marked 8.52 and looked, for ninety minutes, exactly like the player everybody remembers.
A defender on the scoresheet, which happens rarely enough that everybody in the ground remembers who took the corner. 1 for him, and a mark of 7.79 for the rest of it.
Manu Hernando 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 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.
Two goals and a mark of 8.73 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
5 wins on the spin now, and the question has changed from whether the run ends to who ends it. Confidence like this cannot be bought; it has to be earned exactly this way.
11 home matches unbeaten. Visiting sides arrive already talking about the atmosphere, which is usually the sign that they have half-lost before kickoff.
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.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Aridane Hernández was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
There is a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 22-year-old it feels ownership of. Alex Freeman has it now, and everything he does for the rest of his time here will be measured against the goodwill he was handed for free.
2 goals, and the second was the one that settled it. Marked 8.39, and he could have had a third with better luck at the near post.
Squad12 Apr 2027
Words at Cartagena training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Aridane Hernández 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.
Pablo De Blasis 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.
“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.
Player ratings12 Apr 2027
Manu Hernando was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.37. 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.
“The players deserve the credit. My job was easy today.” It was not, and everybody in the room knew it; after 3‑0, Sergio López could afford to be generous.
Every signing waits for it and every press conference asks about it until it comes. It has come, Cartagena have their man off the mark, and the second one is always easier.
“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 Cartagena, and it is not being withdrawn.
Position 3, 58 points, and the result everyone checks first is now theirs. The word is still not being said around the ground, which is how you know everyone is thinking it.
There is an age at which every good afternoon gets described as a throwback, which is unfair and also accurate. 8.23 at 33, and nobody on the pitch was better.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Cartagena have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Manu Hernando 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.
At 22 he is doing things this season that he could not do last season, and doing them every week. Form comes and goes; this has stayed long enough to be called something else.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Aridane Hernández was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Cartagena this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
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.
At 35, 3 points below where he was, and a body that has started charging interest. It happens to all of them and it is still the hardest paragraph on this page.
Something was said to Dani Perejón and then it happened. In this industry that passes for remarkable, and the dressing room noticed faster than any supporter could.
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Cartagena, and both men came out saying it was fine.
He used to wear the other shirt. On Saturday he plays against Betis Deportivo in this one, and whatever he says this week about it being just another game will be untrue.
“I did not come here to warm up in front of people.” He is out of contract eventually, he is old enough to count the weeks, and Cartagena will have to give him a reason to stay or an exit.
Nothing in writing and nothing in public: a word about playing time, given face to face at Cartagena. The team sheets over the next month will show whether it was worth having.
At 38, 3 points below where he was, and a body that has started charging interest. It happens to all of them and it is still the hardest paragraph on this page.
Squad22 Mar 2027
Words at Cartagena training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Aridane Hernández 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 run ends on an afternoon somebody had marked down as routine. This one went 4 matches, which is long enough that a town had stopped counting, and short enough that it will remember exactly who stopped it.
The dugout22 Mar 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 0‑2 defeat, delivered by Sergio López to a room that had heard them before.
Two goals and a mark of 9.29 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
Manu Hernando 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.
It is the most legitimate ambition in the sport and the hardest for most clubs to satisfy. Thiaguinho wants continental football; whether Cartagena can provide it is a question about the next two seasons, not about him.
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.
8 without defeat on their own grass. The pitch has not changed; the crowd has — louder earlier, and quicker to sense when the opposition would rather be somewhere else.
A player who expected to start watched it instead. The manager will call it a decision for the team; Aridane Hernández will call it something else in private.
“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 Cartagena, and it is not being withdrawn.
Position 3, 52 points, and the result everyone checks first is now theirs. The word is still not being said around the ground, which is how you know everyone is thinking it.
There is an age at which every good afternoon gets described as a throwback, which is unfair and also accurate. 7.90 at 33, and nobody on the pitch was better.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Cartagena have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
3 wins on the spin now, and the question has changed from whether the run ends to who ends it. Confidence like this cannot be bought; it has to be earned exactly this way.
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Aridane Hernández and Cartagena agree another 2 years.
Manu Hernando 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.
Squad8 Mar 2027
Words at Cartagena training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Aridane Hernández 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 Cartagena this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
“Some mornings you wake up and you are still a long way from everything you know.” It is not the football and it never was; Cartagena are dealing with a man who wants a different country.
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 goal that put Sabadell ahead was still being replayed on the concourse when Cartagena equalised, 1 minutes later. Leads are only worth what you do with them.
Cartagena had done everything except persuade the man himself. He stays at Tigre, and the manager goes back to the drawing board with the money still in the bank.
Manu Hernando 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 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.” 1‑2, a manager saying the necessary things, and a dressing room that heard a different version of them.
“I did not sign to watch. Nobody does.” The oldest complaint in the game, and Cartagena will have to answer it with minutes or with a move.
Squad15 Feb 2027
6 new faces, and Cartagena 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.
A medical, a signature, a shirt held up in front of a sponsor’s board. Cartagena have done the hard part with Racing Club, and the part that remains is the part supporters actually see.
Cartagena offered $980.0K; Rayo Vallecano said it was not close. The manager will be told the money is still there for the right player, which is what managers are told.
Manu Hernando 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.
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.
Cartagena asked and Córdoba said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
200 games in the shirt. Nobody sets out to build a record like that; it happens to a certain kind of player at a certain kind of club, and this town knows what it has.
3 goals in one game. The first was taken well, the second was taken greedily, and by the third the crowd were simply waiting for him to get the ball.
Boardroom1 Feb 2027
Cartagena close the window on a squad of their own making
4 in and 0 out, and no more changes for months. The manager has what he has, the supporters have their opinion of it, and the table will have the last word.
“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.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Cartagena this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Player ratings1 Feb 2027
Chiki was on a different afternoon to everybody else
9.85. 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.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Aridane Hernández was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Palermo have kept their man, and Cartagena go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
Cartagena and Villarreal have settled on $1.2M. The rest belongs to the player and his agent, and a supporter who has watched one of these before knows not to buy the shirt yet.
The clubs had agreed and the player had not. A snub, and a public one: Valencia keep him, and the supporters here are left wondering what he had heard about the place.
Squad25 Jan 2027
Words at Cartagena training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Aridane Hernández 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.
Cartagena asked and Gimnasia La Plata said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
“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.
The dugout25 Jan 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 Sergio López left the room before anybody could ask which.
Cartagena have made the call to Estudiantes. No fee, a share of the wages, and a spare shirt in the position where the squad has been thinnest all season.
A medical, a signature, a shirt held up in front of a sponsor’s board. Cartagena have done the hard part with Racing Santander, and the part that remains is the part supporters actually see.
Rayo Vallecano wanted more than $980.0K and the board would not go there. Walked away, for now, which in a transfer window means until somebody blinks.
Róber Pier and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Squad11 Jan 2027
Words at Cartagena training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Aridane Hernández 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.
Nothing happens for months and then he simply arrives, at no cost, having signed a pre-contract while still turning out for somebody else. It is the least dramatic way to sign a footballer and frequently the shrewdest.
Cartagena asked and Ibiza 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 have given this everything, but my family is not here and neither am I, not really.” A footballer can be coached out of bad form. Nobody has ever been coached out of this, and Cartagena know it.
The clubs have settled the fee and he has settled his wages. What remains is a medical and a photograph, and around Racing Santander people have started saying his name in the past tense.
Match9 Jan 2027
Sergio Canales wins it after the whistle should have gone
92 minutes played. Sergio Canales found the finish in time that only existed because of earlier delays, and Cultural Leonesa went from a point to nothing inside one movement.
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Sergio Canales provided it, and the 8.49 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
The offer from Eupen for Manu Hernando 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.
3 wins in a row changes how opponents warm up: quieter, more glances across. Runs end, everybody knows that — but nobody in this dressing room is planning for it.
At 19 he is doing things this season that he could not do last season, and doing them every week. Form comes and goes; this has stayed long enough to be called something else.
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Sergio Canales. 2‑1 against Cultural Leonesa, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
Two goals and a mark of 8.73 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
3 wins on the spin now, and the question has changed from whether the run ends to who ends it. Confidence like this cannot be bought; it has to be earned exactly this way.
It is not a grievance and it is not a demand: he wants to play continental football, and he has stopped hiding it. Whether Cartagena can give him that is a question about the club, not about him.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Aridane Hernández was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Alfredo Ortuño. 2‑0 against Gimnàstic, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
At 37, 3 points below where he was, and a body that has started charging interest. It happens to all of them and it is still the hardest paragraph on this page.
There is a particular helplessness in conceding 2 times before the twentieth minute. Gimnàstic tried to reorganise, Cartagena did not allow it, and the result was written long before it was confirmed.
The manager has re-ordered his thinking and Thiaguinho 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.
In brief
Player ratingsYanis Rahmani beats them one at a time
Sergio Canales wins it after the whistle should have gone
90 minutes played. Sergio Canales found the finish in time that only existed because of earlier delays, and Burgos went from a point to nothing inside one movement.
There is an age at which every good afternoon gets described as a throwback, which is unfair and also accurate. 8.21 at 35, and nobody on the pitch was better.
The bid was some way short and Racing Santander did not need long over it. Nobody in the game reads a first refusal as the end of anything.
Player ratings4 Jan 2027
Up for the corner, and Pablo Ramón delivers — 7.71
Centre-halves are allowed forward twice a season and are judged on what they do when they get there. Pablo Ramón scored, was marked 7.71, and got back before anybody noticed he had gone.
Racing Santander asked and Argentinos Juniors said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
Up for the corner, and Iván Martín delivers — 7.79
Centre-halves are allowed forward twice a season and are judged on what they do when they get there. Iván Martín scored, was marked 7.79, and got back before anybody noticed he had gone.
Manex Lozano 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.
“There are things I liked and things we will be doing on Tuesday until they are right.” 1‑1, and a manager who had already decided what Tuesday looked like.
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 Manu Hernando is on it.
Nobody at Racing Santander is suggesting he is out of form. The manager simply wanted somebody with a different set of qualities for ninety specific minutes, and there is nothing a player can train to fix that.
Successful dribbles: 8. 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.
There is no crueller way to lose a football match. Racing Santander scored in the 90th minute, the restart barely happened, and the away end was still standing when the whistle went.
3 wins in a row changes how opponents warm up: quieter, more glances across. Runs end, everybody knows that — but nobody in this dressing room is planning for it.
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Iván Martín. 2‑1 against Gijón, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
“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.
The dugout23 Nov 2026
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.” Roberto Álvarez kept it short after the 2‑1 win, which is what managers do when they are happy.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Racing Santander have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
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.
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Racing Santander, and both men came out saying it was fine.
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 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.
Level with 89 minutes on the clock, after an afternoon Racing Santander had all but put away. Las Palmas will call it a point earned; the home dressing room will call it two given away, and both of them are right.
There is a figure at which a wage bill stops being ambitious and becomes the reason nothing else is possible, and this club has reached it. Nothing is left over for a transfer, a stand or a rainy afternoon.
A month is long enough that nobody gets in by accident. Jeanuël Belocian is in the division's best eleven for it, which is a quieter compliment than an award and a more reliable one.
“There are things I liked and things we will be doing on Tuesday until they are right.” 1‑1, and a manager who had already decided what Tuesday looked like.
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.
Player ratings19 Oct 2026
Yassir Zabiri, 21, plays like he has been here for years — 7.63
A mark of 7.63 means one thing beside a twenty-nine-year-old's name and something else entirely beside a 21-year-old's. Nobody at the ground needed telling which this was.
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Jorge Salinas is 19, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
“We were not good enough today and I am not going to dress it up.” Roberto Álvarez after 1‑2, in the tone of a man who knows the next question and does not intend to answer it.
The shape wanted a different profile against this opponent, which is a real football answer and no comfort at all to the man it is about. He did nothing wrong and he did not play.
He wheeled away like a man who had been carrying it for months, because he had. Racing Santander have their signing off the mark and one press-conference question retired.
He used to wear the other shirt. On Saturday he plays against Mirandés in this one, and whatever he says this week about it being just another game will be untrue.
That is the business done at Racing Santander until the window opens again. Whether it was enough will be answered on Saturdays rather than in a column, and the first Saturday is close.
The number the board signed off was not enough. It has been asked again and raised its own offer to $1.3M — a club that wants Álvaro Odriozola enough to be asked twice.
A month is long enough that nobody gets in by accident. Jeanuël Belocian is in the division's best eleven for it, which is a quieter compliment than an award and a more reliable one.
The team at the top of the table next, and the honest measure of where this side actually is. Anybody can beat the club below them; the question is what happens against Granada.