Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 35 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
0‑4 to Betis, 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.
Álvaro Djaló 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.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Alavés is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
Squad13 Sep 2038
Words at Alavés training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Jean-Philippe Célestin 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.
3 matches, no goals, and a training ground that has tried everything. It will end — droughts always do — but nobody at Alavés can tell you which week it ends in.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 42 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
Supporters who sing when it goes badly are supporters. Supporters who gather afterwards are a problem, and everybody inside the building knows which of the two this now is.
The shortfall was covered from upstairs again. Supporters are entitled to be relieved and entitled to ask what happens the month it is not, and both feelings usually arrive together.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 49 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the team. 6 saves, several of them the sort nobody expects to see stopped, and a scoreline that flatters everybody in front of him.
Álvaro Djaló 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.
The embargo bars a fee being paid for a player, whatever the manager thinks the squad needs. Every rumour printed about this club between now and its lifting is a rumour about a deal that cannot happen.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 56 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
Player ratings23 Aug 2038
A brace, and Álvaro Djaló takes the afternoon — 8.29
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Álvaro Djaló provided it, and the 8.29 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
At 35 he is supposed to be managing his minutes. Instead he was marked 8.27 and looked, for ninety minutes, exactly like the player everybody remembers.
9 goals. Both benches spent the second half looking at each other rather than at the pitch. Purists will complain about Alavés and Cultural Leonesa in equal measure; everybody else had a wonderful time.
12 boys move up, and somewhere in the building the people who coached them at twelve are quietly having the best morning of their working year. Nothing about this shows up in a result and it is why the academy exists.
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.
The academy exists for exactly this morning. Álvaro García has come through every age group the club runs and has now been handed a senior number, and the people who coached him at twelve will be the proudest in the building.
Álvaro Djaló 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.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Alavés is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
He will play here until the summer and then walk out of the door for free, having already signed elsewhere. Supporters will manage the first part of that sentence; it is the second they will struggle with.
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.
Every club in football pays most of what it earns to its players. Paying nearly all of it is a different arrangement, and it has ended the same way every time somebody has tried it.
5 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.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Alavés this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
The rules permit it and it stings anyway. Nikolaj Kristensen has agreed terms with Zaragoza for the summer, and until then he pulls on this shirt as a player who has already chosen his next one.
Squad9 Aug 2038
Words at Alavés training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Vladyslav Ostrovskyi 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.
Football clubs borrow; that is not the story. Borrowing more than the facility allows is, because from here it is the owner's money or somebody else's decision, and neither of those belongs to the board.
Squad9 Aug 2038
The manager has not finished forgetting Pablo Ibañez's mistake
Publicly it is behind everybody. It is not behind the man who picks the team, and the only place that shows is a team sheet. He will get another chance; he will get it in a match that matters less.
The words a physio says slowly. 15 days is what the club will announce and everybody who has heard this diagnosis before knows the number is the least of it: the knee comes back before the player does.
The board’s statement ran to three sentences and one of them mentioned results. Interim Coach has managed long enough to translate: win soon, or the next statement is shorter.
The words a physio says slowly. 22 days is what the club will announce and everybody who has heard this diagnosis before knows the number is the least of it: the knee comes back before the player does.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Alavés can pretend not to have heard.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Alavés this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
The words a physio says slowly. 29 days is what the club will announce and everybody who has heard this diagnosis before knows the number is the least of it: the knee comes back before the player does.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Alavés have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Álvaro Djaló 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.
The words a physio says slowly. 36 days is what the club will announce and everybody who has heard this diagnosis before knows the number is the least of it: the knee comes back before the player does.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Alavés this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
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.
Football clubs borrow; that is not the story. Borrowing more than the facility allows is, because from here it is the owner's money or somebody else's decision, and neither of those belongs to the board.
The board’s statement ran to three sentences and one of them mentioned results. Interim Coach has managed long enough to translate: win soon, or the next statement is shorter.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Alavés will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Alavés have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Alavés can pretend not to have heard.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Alavés they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 21 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.
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Vladyslav Ostrovskyi and Alavés agree another 2 years.
The shortfall was covered from upstairs again. Supporters are entitled to be relieved and entitled to ask what happens the month it is not, and both feelings usually arrive together.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Alavés will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
“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 Alavés, and it is not being withdrawn.
Álvaro Djaló 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
SquadWords at Alavés training over how hard people work
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Alavés will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Alavés this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
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.
Every club in football pays most of what it earns to its players. Paying nearly all of it is a different arrangement, and it has ended the same way every time somebody has tried it.
Squad21 Jun 2038
The manager has not finished forgetting Pablo Ibañez's mistake
Publicly it is behind everybody. It is not behind the man who picks the team, and the only place that shows is a team sheet. He will get another chance; he will get it in a match that matters less.
It has stopped being a mood in the stands and started being something organised. Boards can ignore a bad atmosphere for a long time; they cannot ignore this stage of it for very long at all.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Alavés will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Alavés can pretend not to have heard.
Álvaro Djaló 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.
Squad14 Jun 2038
Words at Alavés training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Jean-Philippe Célestin 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 name of Martin Klein has come up in conversations Alavés were not part of. Nothing formal, nothing signed — but nothing about it accidental either.
The borrowing is past what the bank agreed, which is the line where a debt stops being how football is financed and starts being a problem. Every phone-in in this town will quote the figure for the next five years.
Another week, another link, another denial nobody quite believes. Alavés know the market decides these things, not the back pages — but the back pages are louder.
What was said behind closed doors has now been said in front of a microphone. Everybody at Alavés can do the arithmetic, including the man it is aimed at.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Alavés will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
449 appearances across 13 seasons in one shirt. Nobody builds a career like that on purpose any more; it happens to a certain kind of footballer at a certain kind of club.
“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 Alavés, and it is not being withdrawn.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Alavés this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
The shortfall was covered from upstairs again. Supporters are entitled to be relieved and entitled to ask what happens the month it is not, and both feelings usually arrive together.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the team. 9 saves, several of them the sort nobody expects to see stopped, and a scoreline that flatters everybody in front of him.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Alavés will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
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 an age at which every good afternoon gets described as a throwback, which is unfair and also accurate. 8.34 at 38, and nobody on the pitch was better.
Álvaro Djaló 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.
Marked 8.89 — 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.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Alavés will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
“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 Alavés, and it is not being withdrawn.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Alavés have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Alavés this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Alavés they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
There is a figure at which a wage bill stops being ambitious and becomes the reason nothing else is possible, and this club has reached it. Nothing is left over for a transfer, a stand or a rainy afternoon.
It has stopped being a mood in the stands and started being something organised. Boards can ignore a bad atmosphere for a long time; they cannot ignore this stage of it for very long at all.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Alavés will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
There is an age at which every good afternoon gets described as a throwback, which is unfair and also accurate. 8.97 at 40, and nobody on the pitch was better.
Two or more conceded in each of the last 6 matches. It is not one mistake repeating itself, which would be the easier thing to fix; it is a different one every week.
Álvaro Djaló 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.
Squad17 May 2038
Ander Guevara 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.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Alavés will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
At 37 he is supposed to be managing his minutes. Instead he was marked 8.43 and looked, for ninety minutes, exactly like the player everybody remembers.
Two or more conceded in each of the last 5 matches. It is not one mistake repeating itself, which would be the easier thing to fix; it is a different one every week.
Squad10 May 2038
Words at Alavés training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Ander Guevara 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.
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Roman Torosyan. 3‑2 against Albacete, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
Marked 9.19. Players have careers without a single afternoon like this in them, and he has just had one in front of everybody at Alavés.
Player ratings10 May 2038
Biel Sánchez was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.80. There are performances a supporter describes to somebody who was not there and cannot quite convey; this was one, and the number does not help either.
In brief
Player ratingsRoman Torosyan was on a different afternoon to everybody else
The club looked outside for a month, found nothing it preferred, and handed the job to the man who had been doing it anyway. He knows the building; now he has to prove he knows the rest.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Alavés will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
593 appearances across 14 seasons in one shirt. Nobody builds a career like that on purpose any more; it happens to a certain kind of footballer at a certain kind of club.
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.
Defending was optional and nobody took up the option. 6 goals between Alavés and Córdoba, and not one of the people who paid to be there will ask for the money back.
This is money that keeps the lights on rather than money that buys a centre-half, and the difference is the whole story. A club funded by its owner rather than by its football has exactly one conversation left ahead of it.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Alavés will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Alavés this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Guilherme Lacerda will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Alavés the goodbyes have quietly begun.
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.
There is a figure at which a wage bill stops being ambitious and becomes the reason nothing else is possible, and this club has reached it. Nothing is left over for a transfer, a stand or a rainy afternoon.
Marked 8.34 — 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.
It has stopped being a mood in the stands and started being something organised. Boards can ignore a bad atmosphere for a long time; they cannot ignore this stage of it for very long at all.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Alavés will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
“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 Alavés, and it is not being withdrawn.
Álvaro Djaló 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.
Match17 Apr 2038
Nobody could stop scoring
7 goals. Both benches spent the second half looking at each other rather than at the pitch. Purists will complain about Alavés and Levante in equal measure; everybody else had a wonderful time.
“If you cannot run for the shirt, somebody else will wear it.” No name was used and none was needed; every player in that room knew who it was for.
Player ratings19 Apr 2038
Roman Torosyan was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.21. There are performances a supporter describes to somebody who was not there and cannot quite convey; this was one, and the number does not help either.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Alavés will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Alavés have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
At 38 he is supposed to be managing his minutes. Instead he was marked 8.38 and looked, for ninety minutes, exactly like the player everybody remembers.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Alavés this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
11 days with the chair empty, a list of names that grows and shrinks by the day, and not one signature on anything. Every week that passes takes the best candidates off it.
The manager may talk to whoever he likes and may pay nobody. A squad survives a window like this by borrowing, by promoting, and by hoping the injuries land somewhere else.
The end came on a Tuesday, as these things usually do: a short meeting, a shorter statement, and Interim Coach clearing his office by noon. Football’s cruellest ritual, performed to schedule.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Alavés will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
Not an interim appointment — an institution with an empty coaching office. Somebody unfamiliar will run the sessions this week, and the question of how a club gets into this state is one the board will be asked and will not answer.
Nothing has been announced and everybody understands what it means. A board that summons the whole football department on a Tuesday morning is a board that has stopped believing the problem will fix itself.
“I am not thinking past Saturday, and I would advise nobody else to.” The caretaker’s first rule is to pretend the job is small; Interim Coach recited it perfectly.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Alavés have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Álvaro Djaló 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.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Alavés this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Alavés they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
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.
There is a figure at which a wage bill stops being ambitious and becomes the reason nothing else is possible, and this club has reached it. Nothing is left over for a transfer, a stand or a rainy afternoon.
The injury that keeps coming back, keeps being rushed back from, and quietly costs more careers than the dramatic ones. 15 days is the estimate; the honest figure depends on whether anybody is patient.
It has stopped being a mood in the stands and started being something organised. Boards can ignore a bad atmosphere for a long time; they cannot ignore this stage of it for very long at all.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the team. 9 saves, several of them the sort nobody expects to see stopped, and a scoreline that flatters everybody in front of him.
At 38 he is supposed to be managing his minutes. Instead he was marked 7.91 and looked, for ninety minutes, exactly like the player everybody remembers.
Player ratings22 Mar 2038
Up for the corner, and Biel Sánchez delivers — 7.96
Centre-halves are allowed forward twice a season and are judged on what they do when they get there. Biel Sánchez scored, was marked 7.96, and got back before anybody noticed he had gone.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Alavés have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
A season average of 7.51 with 10 goals behind it. Opponents have started planning around him, which is the sincerest compliment football pays.
Squad22 Mar 2038
Words at Alavés training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Jean-Philippe Célestin 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.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Alavés this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
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.
The manager may talk to whoever he likes and may pay nobody. A squad survives a window like this by borrowing, by promoting, and by hoping the injuries land somewhere else.
Football clubs borrow; that is not the story. Borrowing more than the facility allows is, because from here it is the owner's money or somebody else's decision, and neither of those belongs to the board.
“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 Alavés know it.
What was said behind closed doors has now been said in front of a microphone. Everybody at Alavés can do the arithmetic, including the man it is aimed at.
Nothing has been announced and everybody understands what it means. A board that summons the whole football department on a Tuesday morning is a board that has stopped believing the problem will fix itself.
At 37 he is supposed to be managing his minutes. Instead he was marked 8.84 and looked, for ninety minutes, exactly like the player everybody remembers.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Alavés can pretend not to have heard.
Álvaro Djaló 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.
9 goals. Both benches spent the second half looking at each other rather than at the pitch. Purists will complain about Alavés and Leganés in equal measure; everybody else had a wonderful time.
Squad8 Mar 2038
Words at Alavés training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Jean-Philippe Célestin 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.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the team. 8 saves, several of them the sort nobody expects to see stopped, and a scoreline that flatters everybody in front of him.
There is an age at which every good afternoon gets described as a throwback, which is unfair and also accurate. 7.95 at 38, and nobody on the pitch was better.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Alavés this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Alavés they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
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.
Headers, blocks, tackles, interceptions — 21 of them, and not one goal behind him. The sort of performance that never makes a highlight reel and wins football matches.
It has stopped being a mood in the stands and started being something organised. Boards can ignore a bad atmosphere for a long time; they cannot ignore this stage of it for very long at all.
Álvaro Djaló 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 goals and a season average of 7.48 will do that. The space he used to find has gone; he keeps scoring anyway, which is the mark of the real thing.
Squad22 Feb 2038
Words at Alavés training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Jean-Philippe Célestin 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.
2 goals to the good, and then a slow surrender of everything that had been earned. Carlos Pérez will not be the one blamed for it, but nobody at Alavés escapes the conversation that follows a collapse like this.
19 goals and a season average of 7.71 will do that. The space he used to find has gone; he keeps scoring anyway, which is the mark of the real thing.
Player ratings15 Feb 2038
A brace, and Carlos Pérez takes the afternoon — 8.79
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Carlos Pérez provided it, and the 8.79 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
There is an age at which every good afternoon gets described as a throwback, which is unfair and also accurate. 8.25 at 38, and nobody on the pitch was better.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Alavés this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Two or more conceded in each of the last 5 matches. It is not one mistake repeating itself, which would be the easier thing to fix; it is a different one every week.
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.
What was said behind closed doors has now been said in front of a microphone. Everybody at Alavés can do the arithmetic, including the man it is aimed at.
This is money that keeps the lights on rather than money that buys a centre-half, and the difference is the whole story. A club funded by its owner rather than by its football has exactly one conversation left ahead of it.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the team. 9 saves, several of them the sort nobody expects to see stopped, and a scoreline that flatters everybody in front of him.
3 in front and in complete control, and it finished with Betis the happier side. There is no version of this afternoon that Alavés will enjoy reviewing.
Two goals and a mark of 8.58 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
There is an age at which every good afternoon gets described as a throwback, which is unfair and also accurate. 8.59 at 38, and nobody on the pitch was better.
55 appearances across 11 seasons in one shirt. Nobody builds a career like that on purpose any more; it happens to a certain kind of footballer at a certain kind of club.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Alavés this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Alavés they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
The rules permit it and it stings anyway. Guilherme Lacerda has agreed terms with Osasuna for the summer, and until then he pulls on this shirt as a player who has already chosen his next one.
It has stopped being a mood in the stands and started being something organised. Boards can ignore a bad atmosphere for a long time; they cannot ignore this stage of it for very long at all.
Nobody on the board has said anything against the manager, which is the point — they have stopped saying anything for him either.
Player ratings25 Jan 2038
A brace, and Carlos Pérez takes the afternoon — 9.17
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Carlos Pérez provided it, and the 9.17 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
There is an age at which every good afternoon gets described as a throwback, which is unfair and also accurate. 9.19 at 40, and nobody on the pitch was better.
Álvaro Djaló 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.
Three points for Alavés, 3‑2 the final word against Gijón in a contest settled by the finer margins.
Squad25 Jan 2038
Words at Alavés training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Jean-Philippe Célestin 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.
At 40 he is supposed to be managing his minutes. Instead he was marked 8.73 and looked, for ninety minutes, exactly like the player everybody remembers.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Alavés have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Alavés this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Defending was optional and nobody took up the option. 6 goals between Alavés and Eibar, and not one of the people who paid to be there will ask for the money back.
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.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the team. 6 saves, several of them the sort nobody expects to see stopped, and a scoreline that flatters everybody in front of him.
Álvaro Djaló 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 goals and a season average of 7.51 will do that. The space he used to find has gone; he keeps scoring anyway, which is the mark of the real thing.
Squad11 Jan 2038
Words at Alavés training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Jean-Philippe Célestin 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.
Marked 8.98 — 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.
There is a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 23-year-old it feels ownership of. Carlos Pérez has it now, and everything he does for the rest of his time here will be measured against the goodwill he was handed for free.
The embargo bars a fee being paid for a player, whatever the manager thinks the squad needs. Every rumour printed about this club between now and its lifting is a rumour about a deal that cannot happen.
Player ratings11 Jan 2038
Ben Wodskou was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.45. There are performances a supporter describes to somebody who was not there and cannot quite convey; this was one, and the number does not help either.
What was said behind closed doors has now been said in front of a microphone. Everybody at Alavés can do the arithmetic, including the man it is aimed at.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Alavés this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Alavés they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
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.
The shortfall was covered from upstairs again. Supporters are entitled to be relieved and entitled to ask what happens the month it is not, and both feelings usually arrive together.
There is a figure at which a wage bill stops being ambitious and becomes the reason nothing else is possible, and this club has reached it. Nothing is left over for a transfer, a stand or a rainy afternoon.
In brief
Player ratingsThe chances came and went for Ben Wodskou
It has stopped being a mood in the stands and started being something organised. Boards can ignore a bad atmosphere for a long time; they cannot ignore this stage of it for very long at all.
16 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Alavés lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
At 38 he is supposed to be managing his minutes. Instead he was marked 8.63 and looked, for ninety minutes, exactly like the player everybody remembers.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the team. 6 saves, several of them the sort nobody expects to see stopped, and a scoreline that flatters everybody in front of him.
Álvaro Djaló 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.
6 goals. Both benches spent the second half looking at each other rather than at the pitch. Purists will complain about Alavés and Almería in equal measure; everybody else had a wonderful time.
Player ratings28 Dec 2037
Roman Torosyan was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.59. There are performances a supporter describes to somebody who was not there and cannot quite convey; this was one, and the number does not help either.
In brief
Player ratingsNinety minutes of Biel Sánchez at his very best
23 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Alavés lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the team. 10 saves, several of them the sort nobody expects to see stopped, and a scoreline that flatters everybody in front of him.
29 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.
There is an age at which every good afternoon gets described as a throwback, which is unfair and also accurate. 8.10 at 39, and nobody on the pitch was better.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Alavés 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.
30 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Alavés lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Álvaro Djaló 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.
The embargo bars a fee being paid for a player, whatever the manager thinks the squad needs. Every rumour printed about this club between now and its lifting is a rumour about a deal that cannot happen.
The borrowing is past what the bank agreed, which is the line where a debt stops being how football is financed and starts being a problem. Every phone-in in this town will quote the figure for the next five years.
37 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Alavés lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
The board have said in public what they had been saying in private. Results between now and the next meeting decide it, and everybody in the building knows the arithmetic.
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 was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Alavés this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Alavés is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
“The easiest signature of my career.” Vladyslav Ostrovskyi and Alavés agree another 2 years, and the manager can plan around him rather than about him.
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.
The shortfall was covered from upstairs again. Supporters are entitled to be relieved and entitled to ask what happens the month it is not, and both feelings usually arrive together.
Player ratings7 Dec 2037
Carlos Pérez was on a different afternoon to everybody else
9.05. There are performances a supporter describes to somebody who was not there and cannot quite convey; this was one, and the number does not help either.
It has stopped being a mood in the stands and started being something organised. Boards can ignore a bad atmosphere for a long time; they cannot ignore this stage of it for very long at all.
44 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Alavés lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
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 Alavés this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad30 Nov 2037
Words at Alavés training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Jean-Philippe Célestin 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.
There is an age at which every good afternoon gets described as a throwback, which is unfair and also accurate. 7.89 at 38, and nobody on the pitch was better.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Alavés this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Defending was optional and nobody took up the option. 6 goals between Alavés and Levante, and not one of the people who paid to be there will ask for the money back.
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.
Álvaro Djaló 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.
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.
Squad16 Nov 2037
Words at Alavés training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Jean-Philippe Célestin 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 embargo bars a fee being paid for a player, whatever the manager thinks the squad needs. Every rumour printed about this club between now and its lifting is a rumour about a deal that cannot happen.
The borrowing is past what the bank agreed, which is the line where a debt stops being how football is financed and starts being a problem. Every phone-in in this town will quote the figure for the next five years.
There is an age at which every good afternoon gets described as a throwback, which is unfair and also accurate. 8.69 at 38, and nobody on the pitch was better.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Alavés have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Alavés this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Josh Murphy will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Alavés the goodbyes have quietly begun.
7 goals in one match, Roman Torosyan on the scoresheet, and a scoreline that will look like a misprint. Neutrals could not have asked more of Alavés and Valladolid.
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.
There is a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 22-year-old it feels ownership of. Carlos Pérez has it now, and everything he does for the rest of his time here will be measured against the goodwill he was handed for free.
In brief
Player ratingsCarlos Pérez was on a different afternoon to everybody else
Boardroom128% of the income goes out in wages at Alavés
Player ratingsRoman Torosyan was on a different afternoon to everybody else
It has stopped being a mood in the stands and started being something organised. Boards can ignore a bad atmosphere for a long time; they cannot ignore this stage of it for very long at all.
The board’s statement ran to three sentences and one of them mentioned results. Interim Coach has managed long enough to translate: win soon, or the next statement is shorter.
Two goals and a mark of 8.36 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
Álvaro Djaló 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.
8 goals. Both benches spent the second half looking at each other rather than at the pitch. Purists will complain about Alavés and Cultural Leonesa in equal measure; everybody else had a wonderful time.
In brief
SquadWords at Alavés training over how hard people work
There is an age at which every good afternoon gets described as a throwback, which is unfair and also accurate. 8.54 at 38, and nobody on the pitch was better.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the team. 6 saves, several of them the sort nobody expects to see stopped, and a scoreline that flatters everybody in front of him.
Álvaro Djaló 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.
Defending was optional and nobody took up the option. 7 goals between Alavés and Mirandés, and not one of the people who paid to be there will ask for the money back.
Squad26 Oct 2037
Words at Alavés training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Jean-Philippe Célestin 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.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Alavés this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
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.
The manager may talk to whoever he likes and may pay nobody. A squad survives a window like this by borrowing, by promoting, and by hoping the injuries land somewhere else.
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. 8 saves, several of them the sort nobody expects to see stopped, and a scoreline that flatters everybody in front of him.
There is an age at which every good afternoon gets described as a throwback, which is unfair and also accurate. 8.88 at 38, and nobody on the pitch was better.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Alavés they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
Squad12 Oct 2037
Ander Guevara 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.
There is a figure at which a wage bill stops being ambitious and becomes the reason nothing else is possible, and this club has reached it. Nothing is left over for a transfer, a stand or a rainy afternoon.
The borrowing is past what the bank agreed, which is the line where a debt stops being how football is financed and starts being a problem. Every phone-in in this town will quote the figure for the next five years.
Supporters who sing when it goes badly are supporters. Supporters who gather afterwards are a problem, and everybody inside the building knows which of the two this now is.
The board’s statement ran to three sentences and one of them mentioned results. Interim Coach has managed long enough to translate: win soon, or the next statement is shorter.
2 behind and going nowhere, until Álvaro Djaló decided otherwise. Osasuna had done the hard part and then watched it come apart, and the noise at the final whistle was the sort a ground keeps.
Player ratings5 Oct 2037
A brace, and Álvaro Djaló takes the afternoon — 9.99
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Álvaro Djaló provided it, and the 9.99 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
There is an age at which every good afternoon gets described as a throwback, which is unfair and also accurate. 9.12 at 40, and nobody on the pitch was better.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Alavés they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Alavés this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
In brief
SquadWords at Alavés training over how hard people work
Álvaro Djaló 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.
Squad28 Sep 2037
Words at Alavés training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Jean-Philippe Célestin 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.
Another week, another link, another denial nobody quite believes. Alavés know the market decides these things, not the back pages — but the back pages are louder.
Two goals and a mark of 8.31 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
There is an age at which every good afternoon gets described as a throwback, which is unfair and also accurate. 8.73 at 38, and nobody on the pitch was better.
Player ratings21 Sep 2037
A first appearance Jorge Castillo will want to forget — 5.72
Everybody's debut is one of two stories and this was the other one. 5.72, and the only consolation available is that nobody's career has ever been decided by ninety minutes in a shirt he had just been given.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Alavés this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Alavés they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Álvaro Djaló. 3‑1 against Deportivo La Coruña, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
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.
At 38 he is supposed to be managing his minutes. Instead he was marked 7.83 and looked, for ninety minutes, exactly like the player everybody remembers.
Álvaro Djaló 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.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Alavés they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
Defending was optional and nobody took up the option. 6 goals between Alavés and Granada, and not one of the people who paid to be there will ask for the money back.
Beaten 2‑4, and beaten fairly. The manager kept his words short afterwards, which was probably wise.
Squad14 Sep 2037
Words at Alavés training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Jean-Philippe Célestin 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.
Supporters who sing when it goes badly are supporters. Supporters who gather afterwards are a problem, and everybody inside the building knows which of the two this now is.
The board had gone up, the arguing had started, and then the ball was in the net in the 93th minute. Betis will replay every second of the added time for a week.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Ziyad Larkeche will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Alavés the goodbyes have quietly begun.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Alavés this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Marked 10.00 — 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.
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.
Álvaro Djaló 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.
Beaten 1‑3, and beaten fairly. The manager kept his words short afterwards, which was probably wise.
Squad31 Aug 2037
Words at Alavés training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Jean-Philippe Célestin 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.
Nobody will confirm this and nothing else explains the last month of selections. A costly error buys a player a period of being second choice that is always longer than the error was.
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
Player ratingsCarlos Pérez changes it off the bench
3 goals to the good, and then a slow surrender of everything that had been earned. Biel Sánchez will not be the one blamed for it, but nobody at Alavés escapes the conversation that follows a collapse like this.
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.
At 38 he is supposed to be managing his minutes. Instead he was marked 8.92 and looked, for ninety minutes, exactly like the player everybody remembers.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Alavés is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
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.
The manager may talk to whoever he likes and may pay nobody. A squad survives a window like this by borrowing, by promoting, and by hoping the injuries land somewhere else.
At 39 the improving is meant to be over. It is not: 3 points better than the mark taken at the start of the year, which is the sort of thing that happens to players who take the boring parts of the job seriously.
Player ratings24 Aug 2037
Ben Wodskou was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.27. There are performances a supporter describes to somebody who was not there and cannot quite convey; this was one, and the number does not help either.
Álvaro Djaló 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.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Alavés they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
9 boys move up, and somewhere in the building the people who coached them at twelve are quietly having the best morning of their working year. Nothing about this shows up in a result and it is why the academy exists.
Squad17 Aug 2037
Words at Alavés training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Jean-Philippe Célestin 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 academy exists for exactly this morning. Roberto Hernández has come through every age group the club runs and has now been handed a senior number, and the people who coached him at twelve will be the proudest in the building.
Clubs spend fortunes looking for players and occasionally find one down the corridor. Roberto Gil is that, and the reception he gets on his first appearance will be different in kind from the one any signing receives.
There is no fee, no unveiling and no agent on the steps. Javier Ríos has been at this club since he was a boy and is now, formally, one of the first-team squad — which for a local readership beats any signing of any size.
At 32 the improving is meant to be over. It is not: 4 points better than the mark taken at the start of the year, which is the sort of thing that happens to players who take the boring parts of the job seriously.
Supporters who sing when it goes badly are supporters. Supporters who gather afterwards are a problem, and everybody inside the building knows which of the two this now is.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Alavés they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Alavés this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
There is no worse way to lose a footballer. Josh Murphy has pre-agreed a move away, which means every appearance between now and June is made by a man the club can no longer sell, and somebody upstairs will be asked why the contract was allowed to get here.
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 20 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.
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.
There is a figure at which a wage bill stops being ambitious and becomes the reason nothing else is possible, and this club has reached it. Nothing is left over for a transfer, a stand or a rainy afternoon.
What was said behind closed doors has now been said in front of a microphone. Everybody at Alavés can do the arithmetic, including the man it is aimed at.
535 appearances across 13 seasons in one shirt. Nobody builds a career like that on purpose any more; it happens to a certain kind of footballer at a certain kind of club.
Álvaro Djaló 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.
Squad3 Aug 2037
Words at Alavés training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Jean-Philippe Célestin 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.
This is money that keeps the lights on rather than money that buys a centre-half, and the difference is the whole story. A club funded by its owner rather than by its football has exactly one conversation left ahead of 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 Alavés this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Kristian Henriksen will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Alavés the goodbyes have quietly begun.
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.
The manager may talk to whoever he likes and may pay nobody. A squad survives a window like this by borrowing, by promoting, and by hoping the injuries land somewhere else.
Álvaro Djaló 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.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Nicolás Carrasco will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Alavés the goodbyes have quietly begun.
Squad20 Jul 2037
Words at Alavés training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Jean-Philippe Célestin 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.
Squad20 Jul 2037
Mateo Brignani has improved at 32, which nobody expected
Careers are supposed to plateau and then decline, and the players who ignore that are always the ones who were listening on the training ground. 3 points of it, over months, at an age where the direction normally only goes one way.
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Pablo Ibañez signs something — a contract at Alavés or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
Supporters who sing when it goes badly are supporters. Supporters who gather afterwards are a problem, and everybody inside the building knows which of the two this now is.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Alavés can pretend not to have heard.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Ziyad Larkeche will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Alavés the goodbyes have quietly begun.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Alavés this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Jorge Castillo is 20, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
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.
There is a figure at which a wage bill stops being ambitious and becomes the reason nothing else is possible, and this club has reached it. Nothing is left over for a transfer, a stand or a rainy afternoon.
Football clubs borrow; that is not the story. Borrowing more than the facility allows is, because from here it is the owner's money or somebody else's decision, and neither of those belongs to the board.
The club looked outside for a month, found nothing it preferred, and handed the job to the man who had been doing it anyway. He knows the building; now he has to prove he knows the rest.
“I never wanted to be anywhere else. There is unfinished business here.” Álvaro Djaló commits to Alavés for another 2 years.
Squad6 Jul 2037
Words at Alavés training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Jean-Philippe Célestin 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.
This is money that keeps the lights on rather than money that buys a centre-half, and the difference is the whole story. A club funded by its owner rather than by its football has exactly one conversation left ahead of 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 Alavés this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
7 arrivals, an average age nobody would call a squad, and a set of parents being shown around a building their sons will spend more time in than at home. The scouting has already happened; today is only the paperwork.
Another week, another link, another denial nobody quite believes. Alavés know the market decides these things, not the back pages — but the back pages are louder.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Alavés have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Alavés this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Kristian Henriksen will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Alavés the goodbyes have quietly begun.
Squad29 Jun 2037
Words at Alavés training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Ander Guevara 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 manager may talk to whoever he likes and may pay nobody. A squad survives a window like this by borrowing, by promoting, and by hoping the injuries land somewhere else.
Álvaro Djaló 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.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Nicolás Carrasco will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Alavés the goodbyes have quietly begun.
Squad22 Jun 2037
Ander Guevara 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.
Supporters who sing when it goes badly are supporters. Supporters who gather afterwards are a problem, and everybody inside the building knows which of the two this now is.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Alavés is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Alavés this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
The rules permit it and it stings anyway. Ziyad Larkeche has agreed terms with Zaragoza for the summer, and until then he pulls on this shirt as a player who has already chosen his next one.
14 days with the chair empty, a list of names that grows and shrinks by the day, and not one signature on anything. Every week that passes takes the best candidates off it.
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.
Every club in football pays most of what it earns to its players. Paying nearly all of it is a different arrangement, and it has ended the same way every time somebody has tried it.
Football clubs borrow; that is not the story. Borrowing more than the facility allows is, because from here it is the owner's money or somebody else's decision, and neither of those belongs to the board.
Not an interim appointment — an institution with an empty coaching office. Somebody unfamiliar will run the sessions this week, and the question of how a club gets into this state is one the board will be asked and will not answer.
“Somebody has to pick the team on Saturday, and this week that is me.” An interim appointment with no promises attached, which is how most of them start.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Alavés is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
Álvaro Djaló 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.
There is no worse way to lose a footballer. Jorge Castillo has pre-agreed a move away, which means every appearance between now and June is made by a man the club can no longer sell, and somebody upstairs will be asked why the contract was allowed to get here.
In brief
SquadAnder Guevara falls out with a teammate over standards
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Alavés this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
There is no worse way to lose a footballer. Kristian Henriksen has pre-agreed a move away, which means every appearance between now and June is made by a man the club can no longer sell, and somebody upstairs will be asked why the contract was allowed to get here.
The target is the manager, the approach is real, and the compensation clause is the whole conversation. Clubs deny this kind of story right up until the photograph.
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.
The manager may talk to whoever he likes and may pay nobody. A squad survives a window like this by borrowing, by promoting, and by hoping the injuries land somewhere else.
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Ander Guevara signs something — a contract at Alavés or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
Position 20, 26 points, and a fixture list with fewer games left in it than excuses. The arithmetic is not cruel yet, but it has stopped being kind.
Player ratings25 May 2037
A brace, and Biel Sánchez takes the afternoon — 9.14
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Biel Sánchez provided it, and the 9.14 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
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.
There is an age at which every good afternoon gets described as a throwback, which is unfair and also accurate. 8.55 at 37, and nobody on the pitch was better.
Álvaro Djaló 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.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Alavés they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
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.
Supporters who sing when it goes badly are supporters. Supporters who gather afterwards are a problem, and everybody inside the building knows which of the two this now is.
There is an age at which every good afternoon gets described as a throwback, which is unfair and also accurate. 8.87 at 39, and nobody on the pitch was better.
Ander Guevara 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.
6 goals in one match, Álvaro Djaló on the scoresheet, and a scoreline that will look like a misprint. Neutrals could not have asked more of Alavés and Albacete.
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.
There is an age at which every good afternoon gets described as a throwback, which is unfair and also accurate. 8.64 at 39, and nobody on the pitch was better.
Álvaro Djaló 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 pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Toni Martínez, and the manager let it.
Squad11 May 2037
Words at Alavés training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Jean-Philippe Célestin 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 board’s statement ran to three sentences and one of them mentioned results. Interim Coach has managed long enough to translate: win soon, or the next statement is shorter.
Player ratings4 May 2037
A brace, and Biel Sánchez takes the afternoon — 8.59
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Biel Sánchez provided it, and the 8.59 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
At 37 he is supposed to be managing his minutes. Instead he was marked 8.35 and looked, for ninety minutes, exactly like the player everybody remembers.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Alavés this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
6 goals. Both benches spent the second half looking at each other rather than at the pitch. Purists will complain about Alavés and Granada in equal measure; everybody else had a wonderful time.
13 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.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the team. 10 saves, several of them the sort nobody expects to see stopped, and a scoreline that flatters everybody in front of him.
“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 Alavés, and it is not being withdrawn.
Álvaro Djaló 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.
Nobody makes a documentary about a hamstring and everybody in the game fears one. Alavés will be careful with the return date, because the second one is always worse than the first.
Supporters who sing when it goes badly are supporters. Supporters who gather afterwards are a problem, and everybody inside the building knows which of the two this now 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 Alavés this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
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.
Nobody will confirm this and nothing else explains the last month of selections. A costly error buys a player a period of being second choice that is always longer than the error was.
There is an age at which every good afternoon gets described as a throwback, which is unfair and also accurate. 8.07 at 37, and nobody on the pitch was better.
Álvaro Djaló 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.
There is a figure at which a wage bill stops being ambitious and becomes the reason nothing else is possible, and this club has reached it. Nothing is left over for a transfer, a stand or a rainy afternoon.
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.
The borrowing is past what the bank agreed, which is the line where a debt stops being how football is financed and starts being a problem. Every phone-in in this town will quote the figure for the next five years.
Alavés interviewed the field and appointed the corridor: Interim Coach keeps the job he had been doing in all but title. Sometimes the safest pair of hands is the one already holding the wheel.
10 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 Alavés this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
The shortfall was covered from upstairs again. Supporters are entitled to be relieved and entitled to ask what happens the month it is not, and both feelings usually arrive together.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 17 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
9 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.
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.
At 37 he is supposed to be managing his minutes. Instead he was marked 8.78 and looked, for ninety minutes, exactly like the player everybody remembers.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Alavés this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
12 shots, and a count that reads like a good afternoon until you check the other column. Strikers survive weeks like this on the understanding that the chances keep arriving; the day they stop is the day it becomes a problem.
Supporters who sing when it goes badly are supporters. Supporters who gather afterwards are a problem, and everybody inside the building knows which of the two this now is.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 24 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
At 37 he is supposed to be managing his minutes. Instead he was marked 7.99 and looked, for ninety minutes, exactly like the player everybody remembers.
“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 Alavés, and it is not being withdrawn.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Alavés this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Beaten 1‑3, and beaten fairly. The manager kept his words short afterwards, which was probably wise.
Squad23 Mar 2037
Words at Alavés training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Vladyslav Ostrovskyi 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.
A player who expected to start watched it instead. The manager will call it a decision for the team; Jean-Philippe Célestin will call it something else in private.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 31 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
Two goals and a mark of 8.32 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
At 37 he is supposed to be managing his minutes. Instead he was marked 8.06 and looked, for ninety minutes, exactly like the player everybody remembers.
Álvaro Djaló 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.
Defending was optional and nobody took up the option. 7 goals between Alavés and Leganés, and not one of the people who paid to be there will ask for the money back.
Every club in football pays most of what it earns to its players. Paying nearly all of it is a different arrangement, and it has ended the same way every time somebody has tried it.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 38 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the team. 9 saves, several of them the sort nobody expects to see stopped, and a scoreline that flatters everybody in front of him.
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 Alavés this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Alavés they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
Day 8 of the vacancy. Candidates have been priced, sounded out and quietly ruled out — and the caretaker’s win ratio is becoming an argument all by itself.
The manager may talk to whoever he likes and may pay nobody. A squad survives a window like this by borrowing, by promoting, and by hoping the injuries land somewhere else.
The end came on a Tuesday, as these things usually do: a short meeting, a shorter statement, and Interim Coach clearing his office by noon. Football’s cruellest ritual, performed to schedule.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 45 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
Position 20 and 19 points, and the table gets read bottom-up in this part of town. The calendar has stopped being a schedule and started being a countdown.
Not an interim appointment — an institution with an empty coaching office. Somebody unfamiliar will run the sessions this week, and the question of how a club gets into this state is one the board will be asked and will not answer.
“I am not thinking past Saturday, and I would advise nobody else to.” The caretaker’s first rule is to pretend the job is small; Interim Coach recited it perfectly.
Álvaro Djaló 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.
Supporters who sing when it goes badly are supporters. Supporters who gather afterwards are a problem, and everybody inside the building knows which of the two this now is.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 52 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
Two goals and a mark of 8.50 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
There is an age at which every good afternoon gets described as a throwback, which is unfair and also accurate. 8.38 at 37, and nobody on the pitch was better.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Alavés this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
8 goals. Both benches spent the second half looking at each other rather than at the pitch. Purists will complain about Alavés and Andorra in equal measure; everybody else had a wonderful time.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 59 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
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.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Alavés can pretend not to have heard.
Álvaro Djaló 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.
There is a figure at which a wage bill stops being ambitious and becomes the reason nothing else is possible, and this club has reached it. Nothing is left over for a transfer, a stand or a rainy afternoon.
The borrowing is past what the bank agreed, which is the line where a debt stops being how football is financed and starts being a problem. Every phone-in in this town will quote the figure for the next five years.
It needed Ben Wodskou to find the net to bring anything home at all: 2‑2 against Racing Santander, and half the dressing room will call it a point won.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Alavés will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
Two goals and a mark of 8.72 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Alavés is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Alavés this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
The embargo bars a fee being paid for a player, whatever the manager thinks the squad needs. Every rumour printed about this club between now and its lifting is a rumour about a deal that cannot happen.
Conceding is one thing; the response is what tells you about a dressing room. Ben Wodskou had Alavés level again within 1 minutes, and Betis never got to play with a lead at all.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Alavés will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
What was said behind closed doors has now been said in front of a microphone. Everybody at Alavés can do the arithmetic, including the man it is aimed at.
Ben Wodskou had done his part in building a 2-goal cushion. What happened after that was collective, and Gijón were allowed back into a match that had been finished with.
At 38 he is supposed to be managing his minutes. Instead he was marked 8.76 and looked, for ninety minutes, exactly like the player everybody remembers.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Alavés can pretend not to have heard.
It has stopped being a mood in the stands and started being something organised. Boards can ignore a bad atmosphere for a long time; they cannot ignore this stage of it for very long at all.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Alavés will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
There is no crueller way to lose a football match. Alavés scored in the 91th minute, the restart barely happened, and the away end was still standing when the whistle went.
At 37 he is supposed to be managing his minutes. Instead he was marked 8.88 and looked, for ninety minutes, exactly like the player everybody remembers.
Álvaro Djaló 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.
Eibar made Alavés work for it, but the scoreboard read 2‑1 at the end and the table does not ask how.
Player ratings26 Jan 2037
Biel Sánchez was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.79. There are performances a supporter describes to somebody who was not there and cannot quite convey; this was one, and the number does not help either.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Alavés will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
“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.
Player ratings19 Jan 2037
A brace, and Ben Wodskou takes the afternoon — 8.71
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Ben Wodskou provided it, and the 8.71 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
There is an age at which every good afternoon gets described as a throwback, which is unfair and also accurate. 8.58 at 37, and nobody on the pitch was better.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Alavés can pretend not to have heard.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Alavés this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Defending was optional and nobody took up the option. 8 goals between Alavés and Cultural Leonesa, and not one of the people who paid to be there will ask for the money back.
There is a figure at which a wage bill stops being ambitious and becomes the reason nothing else is possible, and this club has reached it. Nothing is left over for a transfer, a stand or a rainy afternoon.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Alavés will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Alavés can pretend not to have heard.
Álvaro Djaló 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.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Alavés they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
Defending was optional and nobody took up the option. 7 goals between Alavés and Mirandés, and not one of the people who paid to be there will ask for the money back.
There is a version of every career where the player ends up somewhere he chose rather than somewhere that chose him. Petros Papanikolaou is living that version at Alavés, and it tends to show in the first month.
11 days with the chair empty, a list of names that grows and shrinks by the day, and not one signature on anything. Every week that passes takes the best candidates off it.
Four paragraphs on the club website, none of them about football. The board thanked him, wished him well, and had the search under way before the page went up.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Alavés will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
The coaching staff has emptied out entirely and there was nobody internal to promote, so the club has appointed a name almost none of its supporters will recognise. Clubs recover from this; none of them enjoy explaining it.
“Somebody picks the team on Saturday. This week it is me, and that is as far as I have thought.” No promises were made in either direction, which is how these usually begin.
“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 Alavés, and it is not being withdrawn.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Alavés this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Alavés they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
It has stopped being a mood in the stands and started being something organised. Boards can ignore a bad atmosphere for a long time; they cannot ignore this stage of it for very long at all.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Alavés will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
There is an age at which every good afternoon gets described as a throwback, which is unfair and also accurate. 8.63 at 37, and nobody on the pitch was better.
Álvaro Djaló 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.
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.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Alavés will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
There is an age at which every good afternoon gets described as a throwback, which is unfair and also accurate. 8.90 at 37, and nobody on the pitch was better.
Ander Guevara 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.
There is a figure at which a wage bill stops being ambitious and becomes the reason nothing else is possible, and this club has reached it. Nothing is left over for a transfer, a stand or a rainy afternoon.
Squad22 Dec 2036
Words at Alavés training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Pablo Martínez 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.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Alavés will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
3‑6 to Deportivo La Coruña, 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.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the team. 8 saves, several of them the sort nobody expects to see stopped, and a scoreline that flatters everybody in front of him.
A defender on the scoresheet, which happens rarely enough that everybody in the ground remembers who took the corner. 1 for him, and a mark of 7.89 for the rest of it.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Francesco Gallea Beidi will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Alavés the goodbyes have quietly begun.
Álvaro Djaló 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.
9 goals. Both benches spent the second half looking at each other rather than at the pitch. Purists will complain about Alavés and Deportivo La Coruña in equal measure; everybody else had a wonderful time.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Alavés will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
Alavés interviewed the field and appointed the corridor: Interim Coach keeps the job he had been doing in all but title. Sometimes the safest pair of hands is the one already holding the wheel.
The board’s statement ran to three sentences and one of them mentioned results. Interim Coach has managed long enough to translate: win soon, or the next statement is shorter.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the team. 6 saves, several of them the sort nobody expects to see stopped, and a scoreline that flatters everybody in front of him.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Alavés is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
It has stopped being a mood in the stands and started being something organised. Boards can ignore a bad atmosphere for a long time; they cannot ignore this stage of it for very long at all.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Alavés will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
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.
There is an age at which every good afternoon gets described as a throwback, which is unfair and also accurate. 8.57 at 37, and nobody on the pitch was better.
Álvaro Djaló 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.
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.
In brief
Player ratingsThe one thing Ben Wodskou could not do
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Alavés will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
At 37 he is supposed to be managing his minutes. Instead he was marked 7.95 and looked, for ninety minutes, exactly like the player everybody remembers.
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.
“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 Alavés, and it is not being withdrawn.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Alavés this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Every club in football pays most of what it earns to its players. Paying nearly all of it is a different arrangement, and it has ended the same way every time somebody has tried it.
Squad24 Nov 2036
Words at Alavés training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Pablo Martínez 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
Player ratingsNinety minutes of Biel Sánchez at his very best
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Alavés will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
Two goals and a mark of 8.54 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
There is an age at which every good afternoon gets described as a throwback, which is unfair and also accurate. 8.84 at 39, and nobody on the pitch was better.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Francesco Gallea Beidi will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Alavés the goodbyes have quietly begun.
Álvaro Djaló 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.
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.
The rules permit it and it stings anyway. Francesco Gallea Beidi has agreed terms with Rayo Vallecano for the summer, and until then he pulls on this shirt as a player who has already chosen his next one.
6 goals in one match, Roman Torosyan on the scoresheet, and a scoreline that will look like a misprint. Neutrals could not have asked more of Alavés and Valladolid.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Alavés will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
At 37 he is supposed to be managing his minutes. Instead he was marked 7.89 and looked, for ninety minutes, exactly like the player everybody remembers.
Player ratings10 Nov 2036
Up for the corner, and Biel Sánchez delivers — 7.77
Centre-halves are allowed forward twice a season and are judged on what they do when they get there. Biel Sánchez scored, was marked 7.77, and got back before anybody noticed he had gone.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Alavés have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Alavés this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Alavés is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
The end came on a Tuesday, as these things usually do: a short meeting, a shorter statement, and Interim Coach clearing his office by noon. Football’s cruellest ritual, performed to schedule.
It has stopped being a mood in the stands and started being something organised. Boards can ignore a bad atmosphere for a long time; they cannot ignore this stage of it for very long at all.
Not an interim appointment — an institution with an empty coaching office. Somebody unfamiliar will run the sessions this week, and the question of how a club gets into this state is one the board will be asked and will not answer.
“I am not thinking past Saturday, and I would advise nobody else to.” The caretaker’s first rule is to pretend the job is small; Interim Coach recited it perfectly.
There is an age at which every good afternoon gets described as a throwback, which is unfair and also accurate. 8.48 at 39, and nobody on the pitch was better.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Alavés this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
This is money that keeps the lights on rather than money that buys a centre-half, and the difference is the whole story. A club funded by its owner rather than by its football has exactly one conversation left ahead of it.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the team. 8 saves, several of them the sort nobody expects to see stopped, and a scoreline that flatters everybody in front of him.
At 37 he is supposed to be managing his minutes. Instead he was marked 8.65 and looked, for ninety minutes, exactly like the player everybody remembers.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Alavés have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Alavés this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Every club in football pays most of what it earns to its players. Paying nearly all of it is a different arrangement, and it has ended the same way every time somebody has tried it.
Squad27 Oct 2036
Words at Alavés training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Pablo Martínez 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.
12 shots, and a count that reads like a good afternoon until you check the other column. Strikers survive weeks like this on the understanding that the chances keep arriving; the day they stop is the day it becomes a problem.
6 attempts, none of them in. He got into the right places all afternoon, which is the hard part, and did the easy part badly — and that is the version of a bad day a manager can live with.
At 37 he is supposed to be managing his minutes. Instead he was marked 9.02 and looked, for ninety minutes, exactly like the player everybody remembers.
Álvaro Djaló 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.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Alavés is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
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.