37 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Los Angeles Football Club lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Los Angeles Football Club have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
The deadline has passed and the squad is the squad. 7 arrived, 6 left, and everything else printed about this club last month was a rumour that stayed one.
The deal with FC Cincinnati is done in every sense but the one that puts him on the pitch. Nothing goes wrong at this stage, except on the occasions when it does.
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.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Los Angeles Football Club this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
$360.0K was the most the club would pay and Toronto FC 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.
The young player of the month award goes to a 17-year-old at Los Angeles Football Club who has looked like the finished article for four weekends running. The next four are the ones that decide whether he is.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Los Angeles Football Club this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
At 17 he is being measured against the rest of the division's kids and coming out in front. The senior version of this award is where the club would like this to lead.
Another week, another link, another denial nobody quite believes. Los Angeles Football Club know the market decides these things, not the back pages — but the back pages are louder.
He is going to Seattle Sounders, the club has $4.9M it did not have on Friday, and the phone-ins have already decided how they feel about that. Selling well and selling somebody they loved are not the same skill.
Seattle Sounders pay $4.9M, and the deal is done. The number reads well on a balance sheet; whether it reads well on the pitch is next season's question.
5 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.
Kenny Nielsen 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 manager did not use many words, and he did not need to.” Ryan Raposo has his answer from Los Angeles Football Club; what he does with it is the next window’s story.
“There are things I liked and things we will be doing on Tuesday until they are right.” 0‑0, and a manager who had already decided what Tuesday looked like.
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.
Kenny Nielsen 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.
Another week, another link, another denial nobody quite believes. Los Angeles Football Club know the market decides these things, not the back pages — but the back pages are louder.
Nothing in writing and nothing in public: a word about playing time, given face to face at Los Angeles Football Club. The team sheets over the next month will show whether it was worth having.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Dylan Sargent trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
Bayern Munich paid $9.9M and Los Angeles Football Club took it, which is the whole story in one sentence. The longer version involves a wage budget and will be told all season.
Armindo Sieb has gone, the accounts have $9.9M in them, and the supporters have the feeling of having been sold something themselves. Good business and a good decision are not always the same thing.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Sergi Palencia 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.
Timothy Tillman 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.
A conversation in the manager’s office, and a commitment that came out of it. Promises like that are cheap to make and expensive to break, and Jeremy Ebobisse has written the date down.
“I want to be playing for trophies while my legs still let me.” Nothing in that sentence is a transfer request, and nobody at Los Angeles Football Club heard it as anything else.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Sergi Palencia was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
The board have answered with money instead of encouragement, which is the only answer a manager ever wants. Spending it well is now entirely his problem.
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Sergi Palencia signs something — a contract at Los Angeles Football Club or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
Nothing in writing and nothing in public: a word about playing time, given face to face at Los Angeles Football Club. The team sheets over the next month will show whether it was worth having.
In brief
The dugoutThe manager plants his flag on Ryan Raposo
SquadRyan Raposo is training like a man with a point to make
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 22 he is doing things at this level he could not do at the start of the season, and the coaching staff will tell you exactly which of them.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Los Angeles Football Club this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
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.
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Sergi Palencia signs something — a contract at Los Angeles Football Club or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
Every squad has one of these fixtures for somebody every season. This one is Ryan Raposo’s: the club that knew him first, the supporters who will decide in the first minute whether to applaud, and Los Angeles Football Club needing him to play as if none of it matters.
In brief
The dugoutNkosi Tafari asks for a word with the manager