Two goals and a mark of 9.27 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. Alberto Collado provided it, and the 8.53 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
Marked 7.88. 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.
10 goals in one match, Rafa Mir on the scoresheet, and a scoreline that will look like a misprint. Neutrals could not have asked more of Sevilla and Arenas Club.
“I listened, I thought about it, and I am staying. That is the whole story.” The clubs had agreed a fee. Lucien Agoumé had not agreed to go, which turned out to be the part that mattered.
Sevilla asked and Barcelona said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
Carl Rushworth 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.
10 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.
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Jérémy Doku. 1‑0 against Cádiz, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
“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 Sevilla know it.
Sevilla and Real Sociedad have settled on $3.9M. 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.
The offer from Lugo for Lucien Agoumé 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.
Nobody at Sevilla 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. Sevilla know the market decides these things, not the back pages — but the back pages are louder.
Training is not playing and everybody in the game knows it. Edu Altozano has gone out on loan to a club that wants him in the side rather than around it, and he will come back either a better player or an answered question.
Nothing in writing and nothing in public: a word about playing time, given face to face at Sevilla. The team sheets over the next month will show whether it was worth having.
A medical, a signature, a shirt held up in front of a sponsor’s board. Getafe have done the hard part with Elche, and the part that remains is the part supporters actually see.
Nemanja Gudelj 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.
Squad28 Jun 2027
Arda Güler 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 loan enquiry to Newell's Old Boys: cover, or a look at somebody the club cannot afford to buy yet. Either way the answer will come back inside the week.
The enquiry everybody at Getafe was hoping would not arrive has arrived. He has never pretended he did not want to go back, and now there is somewhere to go back to.
The chase for Enes Ünal ended with $16.6M changing hands and Getafe out of reasons to say no. The supporters will judge the fee the only way that matters: on Saturdays.
$650.0K on the table at Celta. The manager wanted him, the board agreed a number, and the only voices still to be heard are the ones at the other club.
There is a version of every career where the player ends up somewhere he chose rather than somewhere that chose him. Enes Ünal is living that version at Sevilla, and it tends to show in the first month.
Sevilla had done everything except persuade the man himself. He stays at Racing Santander, and the manager goes back to the drawing board with the money still in the bank.
Carl Rushworth 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.
Sevilla asked and Valencia said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
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.
It is not a grievance and it is not a demand: he wants to play continental football, and he has stopped hiding it. Whether Getafe can give him that is a question about the club, not about him.
The enquiry everybody at Getafe was hoping would not arrive has arrived. He has never pretended he did not want to go back, and now there is somewhere to go back to.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Cagliari have kept their man, and Getafe go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
“The manager did not use many words, and he did not need to.” Abdelkabir Abqar has his answer from Getafe; what he does with it is the next window’s story.
Sevilla and Getafe have settled on $16.6M. 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.
Fee agreed, wages agreed, and Sabadell waiting with a shirt. Nobody at Sevilla is pretending otherwise, and the supporters have stopped asking whether and started asking when.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Celta have kept their man, and Sevilla go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
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 Jérémy Doku is on it.
Real Sociedad have been asked whether they would lend him. Loans are agreed quickly or not at all, and this one will be one or the other by the weekend.
Sevilla have made the call to Racing Santander. No fee, a share of the wages, and a spare shirt in the position where the squad has been thinnest all season.
Another week, another link, another denial nobody quite believes. Sevilla know the market decides these things, not the back pages — but the back pages are louder.
The board’s statement ran to three sentences and one of them mentioned results. Daniel Campos has managed long enough to translate: win soon, or the next statement is shorter.
The offer from Valencia for Enes Ünal 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.
Getafe and Ceuta have settled on $3.4M. 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.
“I know what people will say. I know what I want, and it is here.” Tarazona had the fee agreed and the shirt ready; they did not have the player, and now they will not.
“I want to be playing for trophies while my legs still let me.” Nothing in that sentence is a transfer request, and nobody at Getafe heard it as anything else.
Nemanja Gudelj 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.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Arda Güler was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Nemanja Gudelj 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.
20 appearances and 0 goals away from here, and a player the manager did not have in August. Loans are sent out hoping for exactly this and most of them do not deliver it.
Squad31 May 2027
Orel Mangala 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.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Zaid Romero trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Enes Ünal signs something — a contract at Getafe or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
Nobody at Getafe 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.
Numbers do not stay secret in a dressing room. He is not asking for more than he is worth; he is asking why somebody beside him is worth more, and Getafe have no good answer.
He asked about his future and was given an answer with minutes in it. The manager has now made a promise in a building where promises are remembered, and the clock on it has started.
7 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.
It is the most legitimate ambition in the sport and the hardest for most clubs to satisfy. Enes Ünal wants continental football; whether Getafe can provide it is a question about the next two seasons, not about him.
Everybody at Getafe saw it before anybody said it, which is how this always goes. At 35 the decline is real and measurable — 3 points — and the only question left is how the club handles somebody it owes a great deal to.
“Nobody here is above being told.” It was not said with a name attached, but the dressing room can count, and so can everybody who was listening.
Squad10 May 2027
Words at Getafe training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Orel Mangala 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 dugout10 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 1‑3 Daniel Campos left the room before anybody could ask which.
A player who expected to start watched it instead. The manager will call it a decision for the team; Abdelkabir Abqar will call it something else in private.
0‑3 against Atlético Madrid, and no complaints that would survive the replay. The manager spoke about character afterwards; the terraces used shorter words.
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.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Getafe this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad3 May 2027
Words at Getafe training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Arda Güler 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 tried. I have really tried, and every day I wake up in the wrong place.” Nobody at Getafe can coach that out of a man, and nobody there is pretending to.
An error at the back is a moment; an error in goal is a goal. David Soria knows it, the crowd knew it instantly, and there was nobody behind him to make it anything else.
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Enes Ünal provided it, and the 8.31 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
At 34 he is supposed to be managing his minutes. Instead he was marked 7.80 and looked, for ninety minutes, exactly like the player everybody remembers.
Defending was optional and nobody took up the option. 6 goals between Getafe and Elche, and not one of the people who paid to be there will ask for the money back.
100 for the club now, each one filed in somebody’s memory with a date and a scoreline. Numbers like this are what supporters argue about in twenty years.
Squad26 Apr 2027
Words at Getafe training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Facundo Melivilo 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.
25 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Getafe 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 Getafe this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
It happens to all of them and it is still the hardest paragraph a local paper has to write. 36 years old, 3 points down on where he was, and a body that has started charging interest on a career.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Orel Mangala was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Another week, another link, another denial nobody quite believes. Getafe know the market decides these things, not the back pages — but the back pages are louder.
Nobody at Getafe 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.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Iván Azón trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
He used to wear the other shirt. On Saturday he plays against Mallorca in this one, and whatever he says this week about it being just another game will be untrue.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Getafe can pretend not to have heard.
It is the most legitimate ambition in the sport and the hardest for most clubs to satisfy. Enes Ünal wants continental football; whether Getafe can provide it is a question about the next two seasons, not about him.
Arda Güler 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 want to be playing for trophies while my legs still let me.” Nothing in that sentence is a transfer request, and nobody at Getafe heard it as anything else.
“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; Getafe are dealing with a man who wants a different country.
He has had enough of the noise. Whether Getafe can be a quieter place for him, or whether the only cure is a move somewhere the phone-ins are gentler, is a question for the next few months.
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Getafe, and both men came out saying it was fine.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Getafe can pretend not to have heard.
“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 Getafe hears a sentence like that exactly as it was built.
“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 Getafe know it.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Getafe this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
22 times he got in the way of something. Centre-halves get written about when they make mistakes and ignored when they do not, so an afternoon like this needs saying out loud: he is the reason the scoreline reads as it does.
16 defensive actions and a clean sheet at the end of them. A defender's afternoon can only be told by what did not happen, which is why nobody makes a highlights package out of one and every manager in the division would take it.
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.
Nemanja Gudelj and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Squad22 Feb 2027
Arda Güler 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.
It is not much of a headline and it is the reason players believe the next promise. Getafe told Mario Martín something would happen and then it happened, which in this industry passes for remarkable.
“We were not good enough today and I am not going to dress it up.” Daniel Campos after 1‑2, in the tone of a man who knows the next question and does not intend to answer it.
Nobody at Getafe 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.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Getafe can pretend not to have heard.
Player ratings15 Feb 2027
Arda Güler, 21, plays like he has been here for years — 8.27
A mark of 8.27 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.
A midfielder is measured on whether the team functions when he is on the pitch, which is nearly impossible to see and completely obvious in retrospect. 12 actions, 6.99, and a manager who will not be substituting him again in a hurry.
The hardest thing about being 21 in a senior side is that nobody makes allowances. Arda Güler did not need any: 8.14, and he looked the most comfortable man on the pitch.
“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 Getafe hears a sentence like that exactly as it was built.
Everything was agreed until it was not, and Jiří Letáček reports back to Getafe with a summer to forget. Neither club is saying who walked away from the table.
Nemanja Gudelj 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.
Squad8 Feb 2027
Words at Getafe training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Arda Güler 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.
Four or five weekends of consistency, judged against everybody in the division doing his job. Arda Güler has come out of that comparison in the side, and Getafe have had the benefit of every one of those afternoons.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the whole of the defence. 6 saves, several of them the kind nobody expects to see made, and ten outfield players who owe him a drink.
It is not a grievance and it is not a demand: he wants to play continental football, and he has stopped hiding it. Whether Getafe can give him that is a question about the club, not about him.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Getafe this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
“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; Getafe are dealing with a man who wants a different country.
Getafe asked and Girona said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Enes Ünal provided it, and the 8.72 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
Minute 91, against Girona, and a goal that felt like a win to everybody who had stayed. It was a draw. Nobody leaving the ground will describe it as one.
Somebody else has been better, the manager has said so with a team sheet, and there is no argument to be had. He will get the shirt back the only way it can be got back.
“A point is a point and I will take it, but we should have had all three.” Daniel Campos after the 2‑2 draw, and the sentence every manager in the country said at some stage this weekend.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Mario Martín trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
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.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the team. 15 saves, several of them the sort nobody expects to see stopped, and a scoreline that flatters everybody in front of him.
Nemanja Gudelj 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.
He is 23 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 pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Djéné Dakonam, and the manager let it.
Squad21 Dec 2026
Orel Mangala 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.
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.
“I want to be playing for trophies while my legs still let me.” Nothing in that sentence is a transfer request, and nobody at Getafe heard it as anything else.
Conceding is one thing; the response is what tells you about a dressing room. Enes Ünal had Getafe level again within 1 minutes, and Athletic Bilbao never got to play with a lead at all.
Squad14 Dec 2026
Words at Getafe training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Orel Mangala 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 dugout14 Dec 2026
Djéné Dakonam 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.
It is not a grievance and it is not a demand: he wants to play continental football, and he has stopped hiding it. Whether Getafe can give him that is a question about the club, not about him.
Abdelkabir Abqar and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Squad30 Nov 2026
Orel Mangala 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.
Somebody else has been better, the manager has said so with a team sheet, and there is no argument to be had. He will get the shirt back the only way it can be got back.
The dugout30 Nov 2026
The manager’s verdict
“I am frustrated, honestly. We did enough to win and we did not win.” Daniel Campos was not hiding it after 0‑0, and nobody in the Getafe dressing room was either.
13 defensive actions and a clean sheet at the end of them. A defender's afternoon can only be told by what did not happen, which is why nobody makes a highlights package out of one and every manager in the division would take it.
At 33 he is supposed to be managing his minutes. Instead he was marked 7.93 and looked, for ninety minutes, exactly like the player everybody remembers.
Nemanja Gudelj 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.
At 23 he is being sung about by people twice his age, which is an affection a signing has to earn over years and a local kid gets for turning up. It is also the hardest thing in football to live up to.
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Higinio. 1‑0 against Betis, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Luis Fernández, and the manager let it.
The dugout23 Nov 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.” Daniel Campos, on a 1‑0 win that he was already picking apart on the walk to the press room.
The dugout23 Nov 2026
Somebody else is better right now than Djéné Dakonam
The team sheet says it in public every week until it changes. The only version of being dropped a footballer cannot argue with, and the one he takes hardest.
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.
At 33 he is supposed to be managing his minutes. Instead he was marked 7.84 and looked, for ninety minutes, exactly like the player everybody remembers.
7.94, 1 on the scoresheet, and the specific comedy of a back-four player celebrating like somebody who does this every week. He does not, and that is exactly why the ground reacted the way it did.
It is not a grievance and it is not a demand: he wants to play continental football, and he has stopped hiding it. Whether Getafe can give him that is a question about the club, not about him.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Getafe this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Orel Mangala was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Squad2 Nov 2026
10 new faces, and Getafe 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 dugout2 Nov 2026
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 Daniel Campos left the room before anybody could ask which.
There is no complaint available here and everybody involved knows it, which does not make the walk to the bench any shorter. Form is the only currency in football that cannot be borrowed against.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Getafe this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
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.
“The supporters are entitled to be angry. So am I. We will put it right.” 0‑1, a manager saying the necessary things, and a dressing room that heard a different version of them.
The one version of being left out a player cannot argue with, and the one he takes worst. Somebody else has been better and the team sheet says so, in public, every week until it changes.
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Enes Ünal signs something — a contract at Getafe or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
In brief
The dugoutManuel Torres knocks on the manager's door
“I have tried. I have really tried, and every day I wake up in the wrong place.” Nobody at Getafe can coach that out of a man, and nobody there is pretending to.
Marked 6.58 on 14 actions at both ends of the pitch. Midfielders like this get described as unspectacular by people who have never tried to play against one.
19 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 ambition story running the other way, and the one nobody tells: a footballer asking for a smaller stage, fewer cameras and a crowd that does not turn. It is not weakness and it is very rarely reported as anything else.
“It is not the end of the world and it is not good enough. Both of those are true.” The manager, after a 0‑0 draw, said the honest thing and then went to say it again inside.
The one version of being left out a player cannot argue with, and the one he takes worst. Somebody else has been better and the team sheet says so, in public, every week until it changes.
The crowd waited for a goal that never came. Alavés defended in numbers and left with what they came for, and the two sides could be playing still without troubling a scorer.
Nemanja Gudelj 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 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.
100 games in these colours. Service of that kind gets rarer every season, and the crowd knows it.
Squad28 Sep 2026
Words at Getafe training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Orel Mangala 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.
“We were not good enough today and I am not going to dress it up.” Daniel Campos after 1‑3, in the tone of a man who knows the next question and does not intend to answer it.
There is no complaint available here and everybody involved knows it, which does not make the walk to the bench any shorter. Form is the only currency in football that cannot be borrowed against.
Nemanja Gudelj 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.
At 18 he is doing things this season that he could not do last season, and doing them every week. Form comes and goes; this has stayed long enough to be called something else.
Behind, and beaten by any honest reading, until minute 87. Levante had the points in their pocket and a corner of the ground still believed, which is generally when it happens.
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 is a point and I will take it, but we should have had all three.” Daniel Campos after the 1‑1 draw, and the sentence every manager in the country said at some stage this weekend.
There is no complaint available here and everybody involved knows it, which does not make the walk to the bench any shorter. Form is the only currency in football that cannot be borrowed against.
He wheeled away like a man who had been carrying it for months, because he had. Getafe have their signing off the mark and one press-conference question retired.
The offer from Rayo Vallecano for Christantus Uche 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 Getafe hears a sentence like that exactly as it was built.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Getafe this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Marked 8.06 — 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.