The offer went to Málaga 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.
$570.0K was the most the club would pay and Villarreal 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.
It is the most legitimate ambition in the sport and the hardest for most clubs to satisfy. Fabricio López wants continental football; whether Deportivo La Coruña can provide it is a question about the next two seasons, not about him.
Deportivo La Coruña asked and Espanyol said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
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.
Another week, another link, another denial nobody quite believes. Deportivo La Coruña know the market decides these things, not the back pages — but the back pages are louder.
Deportivo La Coruña offered $100.0K; Alavés 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.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Víctor Meseguer 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 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 Deportivo La Coruña know it.
“The easiest signature of my career.” Iván Martínez and Deportivo La Coruña agree another 3 years, and the manager can plan around him rather than about him.
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 Angeliño is on it.
In brief
Loan watchThe goals keep arriving from Charlie Patiño’s exile
“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 The request is on a desk at Cartagena, and it is not being withdrawn.
Zamora paid $1.7M 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.
Juan Iglesias 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.
Deportivo La Coruña paid $480.0K 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.
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.
The dugout14 Jun 2027
The manager has not finished forgetting Juan Iglesias'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.
6 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.
Deportivo La Coruña offered $7.5M; Sabadell 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.
There are footballers who have a good season and footballers a season is remembered for, and the second kind get their names read out in a hall in the summer. Deportivo La Coruña will be quietly delighted and privately nervous.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Deportivo La Coruña can pretend not to have heard.
21 goals in 38 games at Arenas Club — numbers that travel home faster than he does. Somebody at Deportivo La Coruña updates a spreadsheet every Monday, and it makes better reading each week.
“I want to be playing for trophies while my legs still let me.” Nothing in that sentence is a transfer request, and nobody at Deportivo La Coruña heard it as anything else.
The fee is $480.0K, the contract is signed, and the argument about whether he is worth it can begin. Cartagena drove a hard bargain; time will say who won it.
Deportivo La Coruña have gone to Alavés 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.
Every footballer has an answer to the question about his boyhood club, and most of them never get to act on it. Iván Martínez has, at Deportivo La Coruña, and the first month will show what that does to a man.
“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.
“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.
A medical, a signature, a shirt held up in front of a sponsor’s board. Cartagena have done the hard part with Barcelona, and the part that remains is the part supporters actually see.
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 manager has re-ordered his thinking and Alfredo Ortuño 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 manager did not use many words, and he did not need to.” Lucho García has his answer from Cartagena; what he does with it is the next window’s story.
Two goals and a mark of 8.42 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
“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.
Juan Iglesias 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.
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.
There is a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 23-year-old it feels ownership of. Yago Santiago 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.
Marked 7.42 on 10 actions at both ends of the pitch. Midfielders like this get described as unspectacular by people who have never tried to play against one.
A point taken on 89 minutes is worth exactly one point and considerably more than that to a dressing room. This side does not stop, which is a reputation worth more than the result.
Pablo De Blasis 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 approach was made and the answer came back in a sentence. There is no number on the table because there was no number that would have been enough.
Squad21 Sep 2026
Pedro Álvaro 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.
A point taken on 94 minutes is worth exactly one point and considerably more than that to a dressing room. This side does not stop, which is a reputation worth more than the result.
9 combined actions and 6.81. The job he did is the one that shows up as other people looking good, and the only reliable way to notice it is to watch what happens on the afternoons he is missing.
Successful dribbles: 15. 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 finished 1‑1, and it somehow always looked like it would. One of those afternoons where the table moves less than the tempers.
The dugout21 Sep 2026
The view from the dugout
“We did not lose. Some weeks that is all you get, and I would rather have the point than not.” Fernando Prieto chose the glass-half-full version of 1‑1; the supporters left with the other one.