Marked for César Tárrega
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Squad15 Apr 2030
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.
Match15 Apr 2030
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 dugout15 Apr 2030
“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.
Market15 Apr 2030
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.
Market15 Apr 2030
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 watch15 Apr 2030
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.
Squad15 Apr 2030
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.
Squad15 Apr 2030
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 watch15 Apr 2030
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.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Match20 Oct 2029
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 ratings22 Oct 2029
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.
Match22 Oct 2029
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.
Market22 Oct 2029
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 dugout22 Oct 2029
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.
Market22 Oct 2029
“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.
Match20 Oct 2029
Hard to beat is not the same as winning, but 7 matches without defeat is a foundation Olympiacos did not have in the autumn.
Squad22 Oct 2029
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.
Squad22 Oct 2029
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.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Market22 Jan 2029
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 targets22 Jan 2029
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.
Market22 Jan 2029
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.
Squad22 Jan 2029
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 dugout22 Jan 2029
news_b_frozen_out_of_the_side
Squad22 Jan 2029
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.
Squad22 Jan 2029
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.
Market22 Jan 2029
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 targets22 Jan 2029
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.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Player ratings18 Dec 2028
Successful dribbles: 41. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Market18 Dec 2028
“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.
Squad18 Dec 2028
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.
Market18 Dec 2028
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.
Market18 Dec 2028
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.
Match16 Dec 2028
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.
Market18 Dec 2028
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.
Squad18 Dec 2028
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 ratings18 Dec 2028
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.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Market20 Nov 2028
“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.
Match18 Nov 2028
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.
Squad20 Nov 2028
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.
Market20 Nov 2028
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.
Squad20 Nov 2028
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.
Market20 Nov 2028
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.
Squad20 Nov 2028
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 dugout20 Nov 2028
“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.
Boardroom20 Nov 2028
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.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Player ratings13 Nov 2028
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.
Match8 Nov 2028
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.
Squad13 Nov 2028
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.
Market13 Nov 2028
“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 ratings13 Nov 2028
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.
Match11 Nov 2028
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.
Market13 Nov 2028
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.
Squad13 Nov 2028
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 ratings13 Nov 2028
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.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Match21 Oct 2028
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 ratings23 Oct 2028
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.
Market23 Oct 2028
“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.
Market23 Oct 2028
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.
Match21 Oct 2028
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.
Market23 Oct 2028
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.
Squad23 Oct 2028
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.
Match21 Oct 2028
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.
Squad23 Oct 2028
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
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The dugout
Ayman Kari gets it from the manager
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Boardroom
Inquest at Girona
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Squad
10 new faces, and Girona are still learning each other