César Tárrega

Central Defender - Olympiacos
17 Jul 2030
Wednesday
Process

Marked for César Tárrega

194 Edition

The Olympiacos Herald

15 Apr 2030
From our football correspondent Upbeat

Squad

The knee: Soufiane Rahimi out for 38 days

38 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Olympiacos lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.

Match

Olympiacos are top

66 points and nobody above them. The word is not being said around the ground yet, and it is being thought in every seat.

The dugout

César Tárrega says Olympiacos went back on their word

“I was told what my role would be, and I signed on that basis. It has not happened.” A grievance with a date attached is the hardest kind to settle.

Market

Amath N'Diaye hands in a written request

“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Olympiacos can pretend not to have heard.

Market

Only the photograph left for Mady Camara

Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Mady Camara will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Olympiacos the goodbyes have quietly begun.

Loan watch

The goals keep arriving from Jan Hurtado’s exile

19 goals in 12 games at Atletico Venezuela — numbers that travel home faster than he does. Somebody at Olympiacos updates a spreadsheet every Monday, and it makes better reading each week.

Squad

Dávid Hancko 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.

Squad

Bastien Meupiyou gets the move he always wanted

Footballers are asked about their boyhood club so often that nobody listens to the answer. Bastien Meupiyou has just signed for Olympiacos, and for once the answer mattered.

Loan watch

Pablo García keeps scoring at Wanderers

9 appearances away from home and 16 goals to show for them. Every one of them makes next summer's conversation a little more expensive.

In brief

Back issues
169 Edition

The Olympiacos Herald

22 Oct 2029
From our football correspondent Upbeat

Match

Olympiacos make home a hard place to visit

25 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.

Player ratings

Both of them Akor Adams's — 9.08

2 goals, and the second was the one that settled it. Marked 9.08, and he could have had a third with better luck at the near post.

Match

Olympiacos are in among the leaders

Position 3 and 21 points on the board. Nobody at the ground will say the word out loud yet, and everybody at the ground is thinking it.

Market

Zini has one foot out of the door

Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Olympiacos they have already started talking about him in the past tense.

The dugout

Gui says Olympiacos went back on their word

“I was told what my role would be, and I signed on that basis. It has not happened.” A grievance with a date attached is the hardest kind to settle.

Market

Stefan Bajić puts it in writing

“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 Olympiacos, and it is not being withdrawn.

Match

7 unbeaten for Olympiacos

Hard to beat is not the same as winning, but 7 matches without defeat is a foundation Olympiacos did not have in the autumn.

Squad

César Tárrega arrives at the club he grew up with

Every footballer has an answer to the question about his boyhood club, and most of them never get to act on it. César Tárrega has, at Olympiacos, and the first month will show what that does to a man.

Squad

Tempers go at Olympiacos

Pol Lozano 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.

In brief

130 Edition

The Girona Chronicle

22 Jan 2029
From our football correspondent Crisis

Market

César Tárrega hands in a written request

“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.

Transfer targets

Girona bid $15.8M for Fabian Martinez

The offer went to Junior 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.

Market

Real Madrid come back empty-handed

The bid was some way short and Girona did not need long over it. Nobody in the game reads a first refusal as the end of anything.

Squad

A one-man rearguard from Paulo Gazzaniga

There were 7 saves in it, and at least three that had no business being saves at all. The ten outfield players owe him a drink and they know it.

The dugout

news_h_frozen_out_of_the_side

news_b_frozen_out_of_the_side

Squad

Gonzalo Petit in a row with a teammate

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.

Squad

Álex Moreno 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.

Market

Iván Morante attracts admirers

The name of Iván Morante has come up in conversations Girona were not part of. Nothing formal, nothing signed — but nothing about it accidental either.

Transfer targets

Door shut on Matías Fonseca

Girona asked and Andorra said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.

In brief

125 Edition

The Girona Chronicle

18 Dec 2028
From our football correspondent Uneasy

Player ratings

Nobody could get near Kota Tawaratsumida

Successful dribbles: 41. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.

Market

César Tárrega puts it in writing

“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.

Squad

David Martínez breaks a bone — 32 days out

Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 32 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.

Market

Girona say no — this time

The offer from Deportivo Municipal for Carles Pérez 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.

Market

Roger Hinojo has one foot out of the door

Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Girona they have already started talking about him in the past tense.

Match

No end in sight to Girona's wait for a win

5 matches now without a victory, and the excuses have worn thinner than the patience. Somebody at Girona has to find a result from somewhere.

Market

Alejandro Francés wants European nights

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.

Squad

Tempers go at Girona

Kota Tawaratsumida 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.

Player ratings

A hand in 2 of them from Omar Sadik — 7.86

Marked 7.86. There is a kind of forward whose value only shows up when you count what he was involved in rather than what he finished, and this is the day that argument makes itself.

In brief

121 Edition

The Girona Chronicle

20 Nov 2028
From our football correspondent Crisis

Market

César Tárrega asks to leave Girona

“I have given everything here and I need a new challenge.” The request is formal, and the relationship will never be quite the same again.

Match

Girona taken apart

0‑3 to Real Madrid, 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.

Squad

63 days out for David Martínez after a fracture

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.

Market

Roger Hinojo is on his way

The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Girona is pretending he will be back in the shirt.

Squad

Tempers go at Girona

Gonzalo Petit 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.

Market

Girona may not be able to give Rodrigo Schlegel what he wants

It is the most legitimate ambition in the sport and the hardest for most clubs to satisfy. Rodrigo Schlegel wants continental football; whether Girona can provide it is a question about the next two seasons, not about him.

Squad

Words at Girona training over how hard people work

Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Álex Moreno 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.

The dugout

No hiding place for Paulo Gazzaniga

“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Paulo Gazzaniga, and the manager let it.

Boardroom

Nobody left the Girona dressing room in a hurry

The door stayed shut a long time after the final whistle. What was said in there is between them; whether it worked is between them and Saturday.

In brief

120 Edition

The Girona Chronicle

13 Nov 2028
From our football correspondent Uneasy

Player ratings

Kota Tawaratsumida runs at them all day

Successful dribbles: 34. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.

Match

Girona out of the cup

Espanyol ended it 2‑3. The season narrows to the league now, and everyone in the ground knew it before the final whistle.

Squad

David Martínez breaks a bone — 72 days out

Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 72 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.

Market

Carles Pérez puts it in writing

“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.

Player ratings

Nothing got past César Tárrega

Headers, blocks, tackles, interceptions — 29 of them, and not one goal behind him. The sort of performance that never makes a highlight reel and wins football matches.

Match

The drought breaks for Girona

9 without a win is the sort of run that changes how a town talks about its club, and Valladolid were the afternoon it stopped. Nothing is fixed by one result and everything feels different by one.

Market

Tomás Giménez is on his way

The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Girona is pretending he will be back in the shirt.

Squad

Words exchanged at Girona

Kota Tawaratsumida 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.

Player ratings

A goal and an assist for Omar Sadik — 7.87

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. 7.87 beside his name.

In brief

117 Edition

The Girona Chronicle

23 Oct 2028
From our football correspondent Crisis

Match

Girona taken apart

0‑3 to Athletic Bilbao, 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.

Player ratings

Kota Tawaratsumida was unplayable

Successful dribbles: 33. 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.

Market

César Tárrega puts it in writing

“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.

Market

Roger Hinojo is on his way

The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Girona is pretending he will be back in the shirt.

Match

The wait goes on for Girona

6 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.

Market

Girona may not be able to give Alejandro Francés what he wants

It is the most legitimate ambition in the sport and the hardest for most clubs to satisfy. Alejandro Francés wants continental football; whether Girona can provide it is a question about the next two seasons, not about him.

Squad

Tempers go at Girona

Kota Tawaratsumida 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.

Match

Girona are shipping goals every week

Two or more conceded in each of the last 4 matches. It is not one mistake repeating itself, which would be the easier thing to fix; it is a different one every week.

Squad

Words at Girona training over how hard people work

Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Carles Pérez 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.

In brief

  • The dugout Ayman Kari gets it from the manager
  • Boardroom Inquest at Girona
  • Squad 10 new faces, and Girona are still learning each other