“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Las Palmas, and both men came out saying it was fine.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Las Palmas have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
He wheeled away like a man who had been carrying it for months, because he had. Las Palmas have their signing off the mark and one press-conference question retired.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the team. 7 saves, several of them the sort nobody expects to see stopped, and a scoreline that flatters everybody in front of him.
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Las Palmas, and both men came out saying it was fine.
Junior Mendieta is 34 and has run out of things to prove. What he has left is where to stand, when to slow it down and what to say at half-time, and none of that is on a fitness chart.
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Las Palmas, and both men came out saying it was fine.
A new face in his position, and Enzo Loiodice suddenly has to win back what he thought he owned. Las Palmas have promised nothing — clubs rarely do at this stage.
The fee is $3.7M, the contract is signed, and the argument about whether he is worth it can begin. Espanyol drove a hard bargain; time will say who won it.
A window away with the national side, and a shirt at Las Palmas that briefly doubles as an advertisement. A call-up flatters the player and the club that built him in the same breath.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Las Palmas can pretend not to have heard.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the team. 7 saves, several of them the sort nobody expects to see stopped, and a scoreline that flatters everybody in front of him.
Every touch is being weighed now, in print and everywhere else. Some players grow into that and some are quietly ruined by it, and nobody knows which in advance.
In brief
The terracesThe press have found their man in Dinko Horkaš
A shoot-out is remembered by its ending, and this one ends with Dinko Horkaš: 2 kept out, and a set of supporters who will describe every one of them for the next twenty years.
49 months left and silence from upstairs — no offer, no talks, nothing for his people to answer. Clubs that let a calendar do their negotiating usually end up negotiating with the calendar.
It is a strip of cloth and it decides nothing on a Saturday. It still tells the dressing room exactly whose opinion the manager values, which is the whole point of it.