A bone, which is the one injury with a calendar attached. Albacete will name a return date and, unusually for this business, will probably be right about it.
There is an age at which every good afternoon gets described as a throwback, which is unfair and also accurate. 8.44 at 35, and nobody on the pitch was better.
Dani Cárdenas 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 finished 3‑2, and it was Antonio Puertas’s afternoon: on the scoresheet when it mattered, and the reason the points belong to Albacete.
Squad22 Mar 2027
Words at Albacete training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Carlos Neva 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.
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 7.59 for the rest of it.
Antonio Puertas 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 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.
He is the name in every column and on every phone-in, which is a heavy thing to carry at any age. Some footballers thrive on it; others are quietly finished by it.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Nicolás Álvarez was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
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.
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Albacete, and both men came out saying it was fine.
Albacete close the window on a squad of their own making
3 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.
Dani Cárdenas 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.
Squad1 Feb 2027
Carlos Neva 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.
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Mario Soberón. 1‑0 against Mirandés, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Carlos Neva was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
200 games in this shirt, through managers and relegations and everything else. Service like it is disappearing from the game and the crowd knows what it is watching.
Player ratings28 Sep 2026
Mario Soberón was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.12. 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.
17 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.” Mario Vázquez after the 1‑1 draw, and the sentence every manager in the country said at some stage this weekend.
16 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Albacete lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
Oviedo go through and Albacete go home, 3‑4 the scoreline that did it. The dressing room will call the league the priority now, because that is what dressing rooms say.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the team. 8 saves, several of them the sort nobody expects to see stopped, and a scoreline that flatters everybody in front of him.
At 34 he is supposed to be managing his minutes. Instead he was marked 8.53 and looked, for ninety minutes, exactly like the player everybody remembers.
Successful dribbles: 27. 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.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Albacete this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
7 goals in one match, Víctor Valverde on the scoresheet, and a scoreline that will look like a misprint. Neutrals could not have asked more of Albacete and Oviedo.
24 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Albacete lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Albacete offered $3.3M; Deportivo La Coruña 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.
At 34 he is supposed to be managing his minutes. Instead he was marked 8.05 and looked, for ninety minutes, exactly like the player everybody remembers.
Involvement in 2 goals, from a player who spent the ninety minutes doing the thing a manager actually wants: being where the ball was going to end up. 7.57 beside his name.
“The easiest signature of my career.” Víctor Valverde and Albacete agree another 4 years, and the manager can plan around him rather than about him.
Squad14 Sep 2026
Carlos Neva 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.
Clubs spend fortunes looking for players and occasionally find one down the corridor. Ignacio Aguilar is that, and the reception he gets on his first appearance will be different in kind from the one any signing receives.