Barcelona have gone to Chelsea with a bid, and the supporters have gone to the internet with an opinion about it. Whether either changes anything is up to the selling club.
The clubs had agreed and the player had not. A snub, and a public one: Tottenham keep him, and the supporters here are left wondering what he had heard about the place.
The fee is $31.2M, the contract is signed, and the argument about whether he is worth it can begin. Girona drove a hard bargain; time will say who won it.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Sevilla have kept their man, and Barcelona go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
“I listened, I thought about it, and I am staying. That is the whole story.” The clubs had agreed a fee. Alberto Moleiro had not agreed to go, which turned out to be the part that mattered.
The clubs had agreed and the player had not. A snub, and a public one: Zenit keep him, and the supporters here are left wondering what he had heard about the place.
Barcelona paid $31.2M and Girona took it, which is the whole story in one sentence. The longer version involves a wage budget and will be told all season.
The clubs have settled the fee and he has settled his wages. What remains is a medical and a photograph, and around Girona people have started saying his name in the past tense.
The offer from Atlético Madrid for Tani Oluwaseyi 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.
Everything agreed with Villarreal, everything agreed with the player; a doctor is the only person left to persuade. The photograph is a day or two away.
Girona offered $3.5M; Villarreal 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.
The most awkward business a club does is signing tomorrow's answer while today's is still in the building. Nelson Deossa comes from Betis for exactly that purpose, and the handover will not be discussed publicly by anybody.
Tani Oluwaseyi 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 offer went to Villarreal this week and it is theirs to answer. First bids are rarely meant to succeed; they are meant to find out how loud the door closes.
Barcelona have gone to Girona with a bid, and the supporters have gone to the internet with an opinion about it. Whether either changes anything is up to the selling club.
$21.9M on the table at Rayo Vallecano. The manager wanted him, the board agreed a number, and the only voices still to be heard are the ones at the other club.
$11.3M on the table at Villarreal. The manager wanted him, the board agreed a number, and the only voices still to be heard are the ones at the other club.
6 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.
An individual honour is a strange thing in a team game, and the best of them are never argued with. He has had the sort of year that ends with his name being read out, and Barcelona have had the benefit of it.
Player ratings3 Jan 2028
Lamine Yamal, 20, plays like he has been here for years — 8.37
A mark of 8.37 means one thing beside a twenty-nine-year-old's name and something else entirely beside a 20-year-old's. Nobody at the ground needed telling which this was.
“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 Barcelona, and it is not being withdrawn.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Girona can pretend not to have heard.
The phone has started ringing about Bryan Gil again, and this time the name on the line is Barcelona. Girona are listening politely and promising nothing.
$1.5M on the table at Valladolid. The manager wanted him, the board agreed a number, and the only voices still to be heard are the ones at the other club.
4 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.
4 matches, no goals, and a training ground that has tried everything. It will end — droughts always do — but nobody at Girona can tell you which week it ends in.
“I want to be playing for trophies while my legs still let me.” Nothing in that sentence is a transfer request, and nobody at Girona heard it as anything else.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Girona this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
The chances are being made and something is happening between the making and the finishing. 3 matches now, and the anxiety in the ground arrives a little earlier every week.
Something was said to Fran Beltrán and then it happened. In this industry that passes for remarkable, and the dressing room noticed faster than any supporter could.
The dugout27 Dec 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 0‑2 Jaime Gutiérrez left the room before anybody could ask which.
A 2‑1 win over Racing Santander, a place in the next round, and the quiet arithmetic every supporter does on the walk home: how many more until a final?
Centre-halves are allowed forward twice a season and are judged on what they do when they get there. Facundo Bernal scored, was marked 7.96, and got back before anybody noticed he had gone.
“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 Girona know it.
“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 Girona, and 0 appearances in 27 say he has earned the hearing.
There is a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 22-year-old it feels ownership of. Dean Huijsen 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 before the ground had finished arriving. Rayo Vallecano spent the rest of the afternoon playing a match that had already been decided, and everybody in the stadium knew it.
Player ratings13 Dec 2027
Dean Huijsen was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.26. 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.
In brief
Player ratingsNinety minutes of Bryan Gil at his very best
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Girona can pretend not to have heard.
4 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.
He is 21 and the ground already sings his name, which is a thing that happens to local boys and almost never to signings. Everything from here is measured against an affection he did nothing to earn except be from here.
“I have tried. I have really tried, and every day I wake up in the wrong place.” Nobody at Girona can coach that out of a man, and nobody there is pretending to.
In brief
Player ratingsNinety minutes of Bryan Gil at his very best
Bryan Gil 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. Yaser Asprilla wants continental football; whether Girona can provide it is a question about the next two seasons, not about him.
100 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.
“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 Girona, and it is not being withdrawn.
Facundo Bernal 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.
“I watch every Girona game from here. That says everything about where my head is.” The loan at Eibar runs its course, but his heart never made the trip.
Nobody at Girona 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 trains hard, says the right things and goes home to an empty flat. Nobody at Girona has done anything wrong, which is exactly what makes it so difficult to fix.
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.
“We were not good enough today and I am not going to dress it up.” Jaime Gutiérrez after 1‑2, in the tone of a man who knows the next question and does not intend to answer it.
The manager has re-ordered his thinking and David López 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.
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.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 23 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
Ninety minutes of very little, and then everything at once. The winner arrived in the 86th, and Elche spent what remained of the match appealing to the referee rather than chasing the ball.
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.
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 Iván Morante is on it.
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Vladyslav Vanat signs something — a contract at Girona or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
A bone, which is the one injury with a calendar attached. Girona will name a return date and, unusually for this business, will probably be right about it.
“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; Girona are dealing with a man who wants a different country.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Girona this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
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 David López is on it.
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Fran Beltrán signs something — a contract at Girona or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
“We keep meeting, and we keep leaving the room with the same numbers we walked in with.” Another round of talks at Girona, another week without a signature from Thalys.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Girona will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Girona have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
“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 will be explained as a change for the team and it may even be one. Nobody who has worn one believes that, and neither does the man who has just had it taken away.
“A point is a point and I will take it, but we should have had all three.” Jaime Gutiérrez after the 0‑0 draw, and the sentence every manager in the country said at some stage this weekend.
A bone, which is the one injury with a calendar attached. Girona will name a return date and, unusually for this business, will probably be right about it.
“It was not right for me. I am not going to explain why to anybody except the people I owe an explanation to.” A deal agreed between two clubs, and a player who declined to be part of it.
Yaser Asprilla 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.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Osasuna have kept their man, and Girona go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
A bone, which is the one injury with a calendar attached. Girona will name a return date and, unusually for this business, will probably be right about it.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Girona can pretend not to have heard.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Girona have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Terms were offered and declined. Whether it was the wages, the role or the town, nobody at Celta is saying, and nobody at Girona is enjoying the guessing.
Bryan Gil 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.
5 boys move up, and somewhere in the building the people who coached them at twelve are quietly having the best morning of their working year. Nothing about this shows up in a result and it is why the academy exists.
The academy exists for exactly this morning. Vicente León has come through every age group the club runs and has now been handed a senior number, and the people who coached him at twelve will be the proudest in the building.
Clubs spend fortunes looking for players and occasionally find one down the corridor. Víctor Ramírez is that, and the reception he gets on his first appearance will be different in kind from the one any signing receives.
Clubs spend fortunes looking for players and occasionally find one down the corridor. Carlos Duran is that, and the reception he gets on his first appearance will be different in kind from the one any signing receives.
A bone, which is the one injury with a calendar attached. Girona will name a return date and, unusually for this business, will probably be right about it.
The last thing about a transfer that is still about the player is his signature on his own terms, and it is there. Girona have lost him in all but the paperwork.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Girona this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
It is not a grievance and it is not a demand: he wants to play continental football, and he has stopped hiding it. Whether Girona can give him that is a question about the club, not about him.
10 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.
The system has changed and his position has not. A footballer can improve his form; he cannot improve the manager’s formation, and that is the whole of the problem.
In brief
Looking aheadGirona take on the side everybody is chasing
The words a physio says slowly. 27 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.
The offer from Celta for Portu 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.
The injury that keeps coming back, keeps being rushed back from, and quietly costs more careers than the dramatic ones. 14 days is the estimate; the honest figure depends on whether anybody is patient.
“We keep meeting, and we keep leaving the room with the same numbers we walked in with.” Another round of talks at Girona, another week without a signature from Yaser Asprilla.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Alejandro Francés trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
Nobody at Girona 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 has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Fran Beltrán signs something — a contract at Girona or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
Nothing in writing and nothing in public: a word about playing time, given face to face at Girona. The team sheets over the next month will show whether it was worth having.
35 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Girona 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 Girona this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
It is not much of a headline and it is the reason players believe the next promise. Girona told Bryan Gil something would happen and then it happened, which in this industry passes for remarkable.
Squad12 Jul 2027
10 new faces, and Girona 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.
43 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Girona lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Girona can pretend not to have heard.
“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 Girona know it.
Bryan Gil 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.
“I want to be playing for trophies while my legs still let me.” Nothing in that sentence is a transfer request, and nobody at Girona heard it as anything else.
34 games, 1 goals, and a squad option that has arrived without a fee attached. The interesting question at Girona now is not whether he plays but who he displaces.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Osasuna have kept their man, and Girona go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Girona have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Bryan Gil 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.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Rayo Vallecano have kept their man, and Girona go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
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.
Every shape has positions in it and this one does not have his. Girona will either change the shape, change his job, or change his club, and he is waiting to hear which.
Something was said to Andrés Ibargüen and then it happened. In this industry that passes for remarkable, and the dressing room noticed faster than any supporter could.
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.
The offer went to Sport Recife this week and it is theirs to answer. First bids are rarely meant to succeed; they are meant to find out how loud the door closes.
“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 Girona, and it is not being withdrawn.
“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.
“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; Girona are dealing with a man who wants a different country.
Girona asked and Deportivo La Coruña said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
A month is long enough that nobody gets in by accident. Jones El-Abdellaoui is in the division's best eleven for it, which is a quieter compliment than an award and a more reliable one.
Vitor Reis, 21, plays like he has been here for years — 7.82
A mark of 7.82 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.
“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 dugout17 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.” Jaime Gutiérrez kept it short after the 1‑0 win, which is what managers do when they are happy.
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Girona, and both men came out saying it was fine.
Successful dribbles: 13. 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.
The manager wanted a different profile for this opponent, which is a real football reason and no consolation. He did nothing wrong and he did not play.
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.
“A point is a point and I will take it, but we should have had all three.” Jaime Gutiérrez after the 0‑0 draw, and the sentence every manager in the country said at some stage this weekend.
Nobody at Girona 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.
6 shots, and a count that reads like a good afternoon until you check the other column. Strikers survive weeks like this on the understanding that the chances keep arriving; the day they stop is the day it becomes a problem.
Nobody at Girona 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.
Another week, another link, another denial nobody quite believes. Girona know the market decides these things, not the back pages — but the back pages are louder.
The crowd waited for a goal that never came. Getafe defended in numbers and left with what they came for, and the two sides could be playing still without troubling a scorer.
“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; Girona are dealing with a man who wants a different country.
0‑1 to Celta, and no complaints worth printing. The performance asked for nothing more than it got.
The dugout3 May 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 Jaime Gutiérrez left the room before anybody could ask which.
Clubs make promises constantly and the page usually only hears about them when they are broken. This one was honoured, and the dressing room noticed that faster than any supporter did.
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.
“The manager did not use many words, and he did not need to.” Vladyslav Krapyvtsov has his answer from Girona; what he does with it is the next window’s story.
Getafe next, and one man in the Girona dressing room knows their training ground better than his own. The reception will tell him what they thought of him.
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Martín Satriano provided it, and the 8.69 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
“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 Girona, and it is not being withdrawn.
It is not a grievance and it is not a demand: he wants to play continental football, and he has stopped hiding it. Whether Girona can give him that is a question about the club, not about him.
“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.
Squad12 Apr 2027
6 new faces, and Girona 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.
The dugout12 Apr 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.” Jaime Gutiérrez kept it short after the 3‑0 win, which is what managers do when they are happy.
“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 Girona know it.
Clubs make promises constantly and the page usually only hears about them when they are broken. This one was honoured, and the dressing room noticed that faster than any supporter did.
Nobody at Girona 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 used to wear the other shirt. On Saturday he plays against Sevilla in this one, and whatever he says this week about it being just another game will be untrue.
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 Paulo Gazzaniga has written the date down.
Everything was agreed until it was not, and Portu reports back to Girona with a summer to forget. Neither club is saying who walked away from the table.
It is the most legitimate ambition in the sport and the hardest for most clubs to satisfy. Martín Satriano wants continental football; whether Girona can provide it is a question about the next two seasons, not about him.
Girona asked and Ceuta said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
Successful dribbles: 18. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
The dugout15 Feb 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 1‑2 defeat, delivered by Jaime Gutiérrez to a room that had heard them before.
Squad15 Feb 2027
5 new faces, and Girona 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.
In brief
The dugoutFran Beltrán asks for a word with the manager
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Girona have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Girona have gone to OH Leuven with a bid, and the supporters have gone to the internet with an opinion about it. Whether either changes anything is up to the selling club.
This is not cover and nobody is pretending it is. $9.1M has been paid because Jones El-Abdellaoui is straightforwardly better than what was already here, and the club has decided to stop waiting.
The deadline has passed and the squad is the squad. 5 arrived, 1 left, and everything else printed about this club last month was a rumour that stayed one.
“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 Girona hears a sentence like that exactly as it was built.
Girona had done everything except persuade the man himself. He stays at Celta, and the manager goes back to the drawing board with the money still in the bank.
Girona and Celta have settled on $9.1M. 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.
Two goals and a mark of 8.80 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Thalys provided it, and the 8.23 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
There comes a point where a club either backs its own ambition or admits it does not have any. Girona have paid $4.8M for Martín Satriano, which is the loudest way there is of saying which one it chose.
The offer went to Sport Recife this week and it is theirs to answer. First bids are rarely meant to succeed; they are meant to find out how loud the door closes.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Racing Genk have kept their man, and Girona go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
The offer from Atlético Madrid for Bryan Gil 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.
The offer went to Almería this week and it is theirs to answer. First bids are rarely meant to succeed; they are meant to find out how loud the door closes.
Girona have gone to Envigado with a bid, and the supporters have gone to the internet with an opinion about it. Whether either changes anything is up to the selling club.
“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; Girona are dealing with a man who wants a different country.
The words a physio says slowly. 39 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.
“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 Girona hears a sentence like that exactly as it was built.
“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 Girona, and 2 appearances in 17 say he has earned the hearing.
Marked 8.49 — the sort of number a correspondent writes down twice to be sure. Everything he tried came off, and what he did not try was not worth trying.
Four or five weekends of consistency, judged against everybody in the division doing his job. Vitor Reis has come out of that comparison in the side, and Girona have had the benefit of every one of those afternoons.
The dugout7 Dec 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.” Jaime Gutiérrez, on a 3‑0 win that he was already picking apart on the walk to the press room.
The dugout7 Dec 2026
Carles Pérez 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.
47 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Girona lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
“I have tried. I have really tried, and every day I wake up in the wrong place.” Nobody at Girona can coach that out of a man, and nobody there is pretending to.
“The players deserve the credit. My job was easy today.” It was not, and everybody in the room knew it; after 2‑1, Jaime Gutiérrez could afford to be generous.
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Girona, and both men came out saying it was fine.
Another week, another link, another denial nobody quite believes. Girona know the market decides these things, not the back pages — but the back pages are louder.
In brief
The dugoutPaulinho Boia has become a man the manager trusts
56 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Girona lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
0‑3 to Villarreal, 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.
“The supporters are entitled to be angry. So am I. We will put it right.” 0‑3, a manager saying the necessary things, and a dressing room that heard a different version of them.
Successful dribbles: 14. 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.
Nobody at Girona 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.
Every squad has one of these fixtures for somebody every season. This one is Bryan Gil’s: the club that knew him first, the supporters who will decide in the first minute whether to applaud, and Girona needing him to play as if none of it matters.
82 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Girona lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
“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 Girona hears a sentence like that exactly as it was built.
4 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.
Four or five weekends of consistency, judged against everybody in the division doing his job. Vitor Reis has come out of that comparison in the side, and Girona have had the benefit of every one of those afternoons.
“We keep meeting, and we keep leaving the room with the same numbers we walked in with.” Another round of talks at Girona, another week without a signature from Alejandro Francés.
The dugout2 Nov 2026
The manager’s verdict
“I am frustrated, honestly. We did enough to win and we did not win.” Jaime Gutiérrez was not hiding it after 0‑0, and nobody in the Girona dressing room was either.
Another week, another link, another denial nobody quite believes. Girona know the market decides these things, not the back pages — but the back pages are louder.
125 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Girona lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
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.
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Vladyslav Vanat. 2‑1 against Rayo Vallecano, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
12 signings in three months. Every one of them may be an upgrade and the team can still be worse for a while, which is the part of a rebuild that never appears in the transfer-window verdicts.
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.” Jaime Gutiérrez, on a 2‑1 win that he was already picking apart on the walk to the press room.
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Girona, and both men came out saying it was fine.
Espanyol next, and one man in the Girona dressing room knows their training ground better than his own. The reception will tell him what they thought of him.
141 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Girona lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Tenerife have kept their man, and Girona go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
“I watch every Girona game from here. That says everything about where my head is.” The loan at Levante runs its course, but his heart never made the trip.
The dugout14 Sep 2026
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 Jaime Gutiérrez to a room that had heard them before.
Every squad has one of these fixtures for somebody every season. This one is Iván Morante’s: the club that knew him first, the supporters who will decide in the first minute whether to applaud, and Girona needing him to play as if none of it matters.
Girona have gone to Villarreal with a bid, and the supporters have gone to the internet with an opinion about it. Whether either changes anything is up to the selling club.
Girona asked and Inter Miami CF said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
Terms were offered and declined. Whether it was the wages, the role or the town, nobody at Defensor Sporting is saying, and nobody at Girona is enjoying the guessing.
Footballers are asked about their boyhood club so often that nobody listens to the answer. Paulinho Boia has just signed for Girona, and for once the answer mattered.
The academy exists for exactly this morning. Gabriel Méndez has come through every age group the club runs and has now been handed a senior number, and the people who coached him at twelve will be the proudest in the building.
There is no fee, no unveiling and no agent on the steps. Aimar Ruiz has been at this club since he was a boy and is now, formally, one of the first-team squad — which for a local readership beats any signing of any size.
The academy exists for exactly this morning. Ismael Castro has come through every age group the club runs and has now been handed a senior number, and the people who coached him at twelve will be the proudest in the building.
$3.5M on the table at Defensor Sporting. The manager wanted him, the board agreed a number, and the only voices still to be heard are the ones at the other club.
The offer from Köln for Abel Ruiz 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.
“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 Girona hears a sentence like that exactly as it was built.
The phone has started ringing about Vladyslav Krapyvtsov again, and this time the name on the line is Osasuna. Girona are listening politely and promising nothing.