Francisco Trincão 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 manager did not use many words, and he did not need to.” Yuri has his answer from Athletic Bilbao; what he does with it is the next window’s story.
The manager has re-ordered his thinking and Juan Dinenno has come out of it lower. He will be told it is temporary, and the players who have heard that before will avoid his eye.
The manager kept them in and said what needed saying. A response is expected on Saturday, and if it does not come the questions move upstairs.
The dugout1 Nov 2027
The view from the dugout
“We will look at it, we will learn from it, and we go again.” The three sentences every manager keeps for a 0‑2 defeat, delivered by Santiago Torres to a room that had heard them before.
Every manager keeps a short list in his head of the men he wants on the pitch when the stakes rise, and it is never published. The team sheets for the big afternoons say Nico Williams is on it.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the whole of the defence. 9 saves, several of them the kind nobody expects to see made, and ten outfield players who owe him a drink.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Athletic Bilbao this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
At 20 he is being sung about by people twice his age, which is an affection a signing has to earn over years and a local kid gets for turning up. It is also the hardest thing in football to live up to.
There is a particular helplessness in conceding 2 times before the twentieth minute. Betis tried to reorganise, Athletic Bilbao did not allow it, and the result was written long before it was confirmed.
Marked 8.10. Players have careers without a single afternoon like this in them, and he has just had one in front of everybody at Athletic Bilbao.
The dugout25 Oct 2027
The manager has not finished forgetting Oihan Sancet'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 is never announced and it is entirely visible: the biggest afternoons of the season keep containing him. A press box works this out long before anybody at the club confirms a word of it.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Athletic Bilbao 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.
“I watch every Athletic Bilbao game from here. That says everything about where my head is.” The loan at Celta runs its course, but his heart never made the trip.
The dugout18 Oct 2027
The view from the dugout
“We will look at it, we will learn from it, and we go again.” The three sentences every manager keeps for a 0‑3 defeat, delivered by Santiago Torres to a room that had heard them before.
Nobody at Athletic Bilbao will say this on the record and the team sheets have been saying it for weeks. There is a small group in every squad who get picked when the fixture is difficult, and he has joined it.
Somebody else has been better, the manager has said so with a team sheet, and there is no argument to be had. He will get the shirt back the only way it can be got back.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Efe Korkut will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Athletic Bilbao the goodbyes have quietly begun.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Óscar De Marcos was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
“I watch every Athletic Bilbao game from here. That says everything about where my head is.” The loan at Salernitana runs its course, but his heart never made the trip.
Every manager keeps a short list in his head of the men he wants on the pitch when the stakes rise, and it is never published. The team sheets for the big afternoons say Dani Vivian is on it.
“We keep meeting, and we keep leaving the room with the same numbers we walked in with.” Another round of talks at Athletic Bilbao, another week without a signature from Kevin Pineda.
Another week, another link, another denial nobody quite believes. Athletic Bilbao know the market decides these things, not the back pages — but the back pages are louder.
In brief
The dugoutAlexis Cuello is still being punished for one mistake
SquadManex Lozano has seen what the next man earns
Nobody makes a documentary about a hamstring and everybody in the game fears one. Athletic Bilbao will be careful with the return date, because the second one is always worse than the first.
He is 23 and the ground already sings his name, which is a thing that happens to local boys and almost never to signings. Everything from here is measured against an affection he did nothing to earn except be from here.
200 games in this shirt, through managers and relegations and everything else. Service like it is disappearing from the game and the crowd knows what it is watching.
Óscar De Marcos 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 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.
Beaten 0‑1 by Real Sociedad in the one fixture that is never just a fixture. Work, school, the corner shop — there will be no getting away from this one.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Athletic Bilbao have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
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.
7 new signings in one window. Every one may be an upgrade and the side can still be worse for a while, which is the part of a rebuild the verdicts never mention.
Nobody at Athletic Bilbao will say this on the record and the team sheets have been saying it for weeks. There is a small group in every squad who get picked when the fixture is difficult, and he has joined it.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Athletic Bilbao have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Francisco Trincão and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Squad20 Sep 2027
Efe Korkut 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.
Real Sociedad next, which means a week that starts on Monday. Everything else on this page will be forgotten by Saturday; this fixture will not be forgotten for a year.
“The supporters are entitled to be angry. So am I. We will put it right.” 0‑2, a manager saying the necessary things, and a dressing room that heard a different version of them.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Athletic Bilbao is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
Two goals and a mark of 8.59 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Athletic Bilbao have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Francisco Trincão and a teammate said things this week that will take longer than a week to unsay. It was not about football, and both of them play on Saturday.
3 wins on the spin now, and the question has changed from whether the run ends to who ends it. Confidence like this cannot be bought; it has to be earned exactly this way.
“The easiest signature of my career.” Manex Lozano and Athletic Bilbao agree another 5 years, and the manager can plan around him rather than about him.
Every footballer has an answer to the question about his boyhood club, and most of them never get to act on it. David López has, at Athletic Bilbao, and the first month will show what that does to a man.
Successful dribbles: 21. He went past people as if he had been told there was a prize for it, and by the end the full-back had stopped pretending to try.
In brief
The dugoutThe manager makes an example of Unai Simón
SquadEfe Korkut falls out with a teammate over standards
“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 Athletic Bilbao, and it is not being withdrawn.
Boardroom6 Sep 2027
Athletic Bilbao close the window on a squad of their own making
11 in and 26 out, and no more changes for months. The manager has what he has, the supporters have their opinion of it, and the table will have the last word.
“I have ambitions, and I would like the club to share them.” Nobody has asked to leave and nobody has been shown the door — but a player chooses that sentence carefully, and a boardroom hears it exactly as it was meant.
Francisco Trincão 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.
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Iñaki Williams and Athletic Bilbao agree another 3 years.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Levante have kept their man, and Athletic Bilbao go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
The young player of the month award goes to a 20-year-old at Athletic Bilbao who has looked like the finished article for four weekends running. The next four are the ones that decide whether he is.
“I watch every Athletic Bilbao game from here. That says everything about where my head is.” The loan at Oviedo runs its course, but his heart never made the trip.
Nobody at Athletic Bilbao will say this on the record and the team sheets have been saying it for weeks. There is a small group in every squad who get picked when the fixture is difficult, and he has joined it.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Athletic Bilbao can pretend not to have heard.
Fee agreed, wages agreed, and Newport County waiting with a shirt. Nobody at Athletic Bilbao is pretending otherwise, and the supporters have stopped asking whether and started asking when.
Everybody at Athletic Bilbao saw it before anybody said it, which is how this always goes. At 38 the decline is real and measurable — 3 points — and the only question left is how the club handles somebody it owes a great deal to.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Athletic Bilbao have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Player ratings23 Aug 2027
Manex Lozano, 20, plays like he has been here for years — 7.98
A mark of 7.98 means one thing beside a twenty-nine-year-old's name and something else entirely beside a 20-year-old's. Nobody at the ground needed telling which this was.
The offer from Al-Ittihad for Mikel Santos was heard out and sent back the same day. First bids are rarely meant to succeed; they are meant to find out how loudly the door closes.
5 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.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Levante have kept their man, and Athletic Bilbao go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
There is a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 23-year-old it feels ownership of. Mikel Jauregizar 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.
There is no fee, no unveiling and no agent on the steps. Carlos Giménez 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.
Clubs spend fortunes looking for players and occasionally find one down the corridor. Luis Diez is that, and the reception he gets on his first appearance will be different in kind from the one any signing receives.
Every long career reaches the week the last one is thought about. He would like it to be where he started, and Athletic Bilbao know now that the thought has arrived.
The general version of this complaint is that a player wants more. The specific version names the thing: he wants to walk out under floodlights against clubs from other countries, and he has stopped pretending otherwise.
“I am grateful for the games, but I did not become a footballer to be somebody else's spare part.” He wants to be at Athletic Bilbao, and 0 appearances in 9 say he has earned the hearing.
Every manager keeps a short list in his head of the men he wants on the pitch when the stakes rise, and it is never published. The team sheets for the big afternoons say Dani Vivian is on it.
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Athletic Bilbao, and both men came out saying it was fine.
“I know what people will say. I know what I want, and it is here.” Al-Ittihad had the fee agreed and the shirt ready; they did not have the player, and now they will not.
Óscar De Marcos 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.
Every manager keeps a short list in his head of the men he wants on the pitch when the stakes rise, and it is never published. The team sheets for the big afternoons say Jesús Areso is on it.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Aymeric Laporte trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
Position 5, 71 points, and a run-in that decides whether next season has Thursday nights in it. Nobody is calling it a race yet, which is what people say during one.
He asked about his future and was given an answer with minutes in it. The manager has now made a promise in a building where promises are remembered, and the clock on it has started.
Nobody writes a headline about a tutor. Nobody has to be told, either, what happens to a signing who spends two years being the man nobody can talk to at lunch.
In brief
The dugoutThe manager plants his flag on Oihan Sancet
The clubs had agreed and the player had not. A snub, and a public one: Barcelona keep him, and the supporters here are left wondering what he had heard about the place.
The name of Mikel Santos has come up in conversations Athletic Bilbao were not part of. Nothing formal, nothing signed — but nothing about it accidental either.
Every manager keeps a short list in his head of the men he wants on the pitch when the stakes rise, and it is never published. The team sheets for the big afternoons say Nico Williams is on it.
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Unai Simón signs something — a contract at Athletic Bilbao or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
Nothing in writing and nothing in public: a word about playing time, given face to face at Athletic Bilbao. The team sheets over the next month will show whether it was worth having.
The chase for Luiz Júnior ended with $10.2M changing hands and Villarreal out of reasons to say no. The supporters will judge the fee the only way that matters: on Saturdays.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Athletic Bilbao 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 Athletic Bilbao can pretend not to have heard.
Everything agreed with Barcelona, everything agreed with the player; a doctor is the only person left to persuade. The photograph is a day or two away.
There is a version of every career where the player ends up somewhere he chose rather than somewhere that chose him. Luiz Júnior is living that version at Athletic Bilbao, and it tends to show in the first month.
10 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.
Every manager keeps a short list in his head of the men he wants on the pitch when the stakes rise, and it is never published. The team sheets for the big afternoons say Oihan Sancet is on it.
The clubs have shaken hands with Villarreal; the player has not yet. Personal terms are next, and personal terms are where more deals die than anybody prints.
A bone, which is the one injury with a calendar attached. Athletic Bilbao will name a return date and, unusually for this business, will probably be right about it.
There is a version of every career where the player ends up somewhere he chose rather than somewhere that chose him. Juan Dinenno is living that version at Athletic Bilbao, and it tends to show in the first month.
Oihan Sancet 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 system has changed and his position has not. A footballer can improve his form; he cannot improve the manager’s formation, and that is the whole of the problem.
“I watch every Athletic Bilbao game from here. That says everything about where my head is.” The loan at Andorra runs its course, but his heart never made the trip.
Every manager keeps a short list in his head of the men he wants on the pitch when the stakes rise, and it is never published. The team sheets for the big afternoons say Dani Vivian is on it.
The clubs have settled the fee and he has settled his wages. What remains is a medical and a photograph, and around Athletic Bilbao people have started saying his name in the past tense.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Athletic Bilbao will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
Unai Simón and a teammate said things this week that will take longer than a week to unsay. It was not about football, and both of them play on Saturday.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Castellón have kept their man, and Athletic Bilbao go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
Every manager keeps a short list in his head of the men he wants on the pitch when the stakes rise, and it is never published. The team sheets for the big afternoons say Jesús Areso is on it.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Athletic Bilbao will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
“I have ambitions, and I would like the club to share them.” Nobody has asked to leave and nobody has been shown the door — but a player chooses that sentence carefully, and a boardroom hears it exactly as it was meant.
“The easiest signature of my career.” Andoni Gorosabel and Athletic Bilbao agree another 3 years, and the manager can plan around him rather than about him.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Osasuna have kept their man, and Athletic Bilbao go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
35 appearances and 5 goals away from here, and a player the manager did not have in August. Loans are sent out hoping for exactly this and most of them do not deliver it.
“The manager did not use many words, and he did not need to.” Yeray has his answer from Athletic Bilbao; what he does with it is the next window’s story.
Every footballer has an answer to the question about his boyhood club, and most of them never get to act on it. Peque has, at Athletic Bilbao, and the first month will show what that does to a man.
The phone has started ringing about Íñigo Lekue again, and this time the name on the line is Guadalajara. Athletic Bilbao are listening politely and promising nothing.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Athletic Bilbao they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Porto have kept their man, and Athletic Bilbao go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
Every shape has positions in it and this one does not have his. Athletic Bilbao will either change the shape, change his job, or change his club, and he is waiting to hear which.
Nobody at Athletic Bilbao will say this on the record and the team sheets have been saying it for weeks. There is a small group in every squad who get picked when the fixture is difficult, and he has joined it.
6 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.
In brief
The dugoutThe manager has not finished forgetting Alexis Cuello's mistake
The clubs have settled the fee and he has settled his wages. What remains is a medical and a photograph, and around Athletic Bilbao people have started saying his name in the past tense.
This is not cover and nobody is pretending it is. $31.1M has been paid because Ez Abde is straightforwardly better than what was already here, and the club has decided to stop waiting.
Racing Santander wanted more than $27.1M and the board would not go there. Walked away, for now, which in a transfer window means until somebody blinks.
“It was not right for me. I am not going to explain why to anybody except the people I owe an explanation to.” A deal agreed between two clubs, and a player who declined to be part of it.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Athletic Bilbao will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
Footballers are asked about their boyhood club so often that nobody listens to the answer. Ez Abde has just signed for Athletic Bilbao, and for once the answer mattered.
Athletic Bilbao asked and Sporting CP said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
Óscar De Marcos and a teammate said things this week that will take longer than a week to unsay. It was not about football, and both of them play on Saturday.
The clubs have shaken hands with Betis; the player has not yet. Personal terms are next, and personal terms are where more deals die than anybody prints.
$27.1M on the table at Racing Santander. The manager wanted him, the board agreed a number, and the only voices still to be heard are the ones at the other club.
The clubs have settled the fee and he has settled his wages. What remains is a medical and a photograph, and around Athletic Bilbao people have started saying his name in the past tense.
Athletic Bilbao asked and Racing Santander said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
A bone, which is the one injury with a calendar attached. Athletic Bilbao will name a return date and, unusually for this business, will probably be right about it.
Oihan Sancet and a teammate said things this week that will take longer than a week to unsay. It was not about football, and both of them play on Saturday.
The number the board signed off was not enough. It has been asked again and raised its own offer to $29.0M — a club that wants Iván Martín enough to be asked twice.
“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 Athletic Bilbao, and it is not being withdrawn.
“I know what people will say. I know what I want, and it is here.” Andorra had the fee agreed and the shirt ready; they did not have the player, and now they will not.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Athletic Bilbao will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
“I want to be playing for trophies while my legs still let me.” Nothing in that sentence is a transfer request, and nobody at Athletic Bilbao heard it as anything else.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Athletic Bilbao this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Qualification is secured, and next season the big floodlit nights are continental ones. For the players it is a stage; for the accounts it is a lifeline; for the supporters it is passports.
20 appearances and 0 goals away from here, and a player the manager did not have in August. Loans are sent out hoping for exactly this and most of them do not deliver it.
Nobody at Athletic Bilbao will say this on the record and the team sheets have been saying it for weeks. There is a small group in every squad who get picked when the fixture is difficult, and he has joined it.
6 new signings in one window. Every one may be an upgrade and the side can still be worse for a while, which is the part of a rebuild the verdicts never mention.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Beñat Prados trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
The name of Oihan Sancet keeps appearing in other people's back pages. Athletic Bilbao say nothing, which says plenty.
The dugout31 May 2027
The manager has not finished forgetting Alexis Cuello'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 last league game has been played and the table has stopped moving: 71 points. The summer begins on Monday, and so does the argument about what it all meant.
Oihan Sancet 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 kind of year that ends with a name being read out in a hall. Athletic Bilbao had the benefit of it every week and now have the problem of everybody else knowing.
Successful dribbles: 27. He went past people as if he had been told there was a prize for it, and by the end the full-back had stopped pretending to try.
12 goals in 20 games at Tenerife — numbers that travel home faster than he does. Somebody at Athletic Bilbao updates a spreadsheet every Monday, and it makes better reading each 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.
Every manager keeps a short list in his head of the men he wants on the pitch when the stakes rise, and it is never published. The team sheets for the big afternoons say Dani Vivian is on it.
A brace, and Oihan Sancet takes the afternoon — 8.45
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Oihan Sancet provided it, and the 8.45 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
Aitor Paredes 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 and a season average of 7.36 will do that. The space he used to find has gone; he keeps scoring anyway, which is the mark of the real thing.
Player ratings10 May 2027
Nico Williams was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.04. 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.
The oldest argument in any dressing room and the only one that is genuinely about football: one man thinks another is not putting enough in. It is also the row a manager privately does not mind having happened.
A player who expected to start watched it instead. The manager will call it a decision for the team; Aitor Paredes will call it something else in private.
In brief
The dugoutNico Williams has become a man the manager trusts
13 seasons and 473 appearances, all of them here. Careers like this are not designed; they happen to a certain kind of man at a certain kind of club, and this town has one.
At 23 he is being sung about by people twice his age, which is an affection a signing has to earn over years and a local kid gets for turning up. It is also the hardest thing in football to live up to.
Óscar De Marcos and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Player ratings3 May 2027
Nico Williams was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.06. 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.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Athletic Bilbao have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Oihan Sancet 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 first defeat in 6 matches. The manager will say it had to come; the dressing room will say it did not have to come against Barcelona; the supporters will say both, in that order, all week.
Marked 6.84 on 11 actions at both ends of the pitch. Midfielders like this get described as unspectacular by people who have never tried to play against one.
Marked 8.18 — 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.
Level with 86 minutes on the clock, after an afternoon Athletic Bilbao had all but put away. Barcelona will call it a point earned; the home dressing room will call it two given away, and both of them are right.
In brief
SquadÓscar De Marcos falls out with a teammate over standards
6 wins in a row changes how opponents warm up: quieter, more glances across. Runs end, everybody knows that — but nobody in this dressing room is planning for it.
“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 Athletic Bilbao, and it is not being withdrawn.
Francisco Trincão and a teammate said things this week that will take longer than a week to unsay. It was not about football, and both of them play on Saturday.
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.
Successful dribbles: 39. He went past people as if he had been told there was a prize for it, and by the end the full-back had stopped pretending to try.
5 wins in a row changes how opponents warm up: quieter, more glances across. Runs end, everybody knows that — but nobody in this dressing room is planning for it.
Francisco Trincão and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Match10 Apr 2027
Another one collected away from home
3 on the bounce on the road for Athletic Bilbao. The coaches leave early, arrive at unlovely grounds in the dark, and keep coming home with three points.
Marked 8.25 — 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.
“Some mornings you wake up and you are still a long way from everything you know.” It is not the football and it never was; Athletic Bilbao are dealing with a man who wants a different country.
Something was said to Francisco Trincão and then it happened. In this industry that passes for remarkable, and the dressing room noticed faster than any supporter could.
Every manager keeps a short list in his head of the men he wants on the pitch when the stakes rise, and it is never published. The team sheets for the big afternoons say Nico Williams is on it.
Two goals and a mark of 8.48 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
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.
There is a particular helplessness in conceding 2 times before the twentieth minute. Celta tried to reorganise, Athletic Bilbao did not allow it, and the result was written long before it was confirmed.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Óscar De Marcos was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Óscar De Marcos was at the centre of it, and by the time it was pulled apart there were three or four others involved. Training grounds are small places and long seasons make them smaller.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Jon De Luis was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Nobody at Athletic Bilbao will say this on the record and the team sheets have been saying it for weeks. There is a small group in every squad who get picked when the fixture is difficult, and he has joined it.
6 goals in 12 games at Tenerife — numbers that travel home faster than he does. Somebody at Athletic Bilbao updates a spreadsheet every Monday, and it makes better reading each week.
54 points from position 5. The title is somebody else’s business and the drop is somebody else’s problem; what is left is the argument about passports.
3 wins in a row changes how opponents warm up: quieter, more glances across. Runs end, everybody knows that — but nobody in this dressing room is planning for it.
Warm-up bib, ninety minutes of watching, and a handshake at the end that fooled nobody. Big matches tell you who a manager trusts; this one told Aitor Paredes.
4 call-ups is a compliment to the squad and a headache for the man running it. He will get them back in a fortnight, tired, in various states of repair.
“The easiest signature of my career.” Asier Hierro and Athletic Bilbao agree another 5 years, and the manager can plan around him rather than about him.
Everybody saw it before anybody said it. At 38 the numbers say 3 points down on what he was, and the question for Athletic Bilbao is how to handle a man they owe a great deal.
Marked 8.16 — 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.
At 23 he is being sung about by people twice his age, which is an affection a signing has to earn over years and a local kid gets for turning up. It is also the hardest thing in football to live up to.
Two goals and a mark of 8.55 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
Francisco Trincão was at the centre of it, and by the time it was pulled apart there were three or four others involved. Training grounds are small places and long seasons make them smaller.
“I want to win things, and I would like to do it here.” Nothing has been demanded and nothing has been threatened — but a boardroom at Athletic Bilbao hears a sentence like that exactly as it was built.
“I have tried. I have really tried, and every day I wake up in the wrong place.” Nobody at Athletic Bilbao can coach that out of a man, and nobody there is pretending to.
8.36. 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.
0‑3 to Real Madrid, and it was every bit as bad as the number suggests. There are defeats you argue about and defeats you apologise for; this was the second kind.
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.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Athletic Bilbao can pretend not to have heard.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Athletic Bilbao have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Francisco Trincão and a teammate said things this week that will take longer than a week to unsay. It was not about football, and both of them play on Saturday.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Jon De Luis 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.
Centre-halves are allowed forward twice a season and are judged on what they do when they get there. Aymeric Laporte scored, was marked 7.97, and got back before anybody noticed he had gone.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Athletic Bilbao this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Marked 8.46 — 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.
“I am grateful for the games, but I did not become a footballer to be somebody else's spare part.” He wants to be at Athletic Bilbao, and 0 appearances in 5 say he has earned the hearing.
The deal that would have taken Álvaro Djaló to Villarreal has collapsed at the last stage, and he reports back to Athletic Bilbao with a summer to forget and a season still to play. Nobody is saying which side walked away.
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Iñaki Williams and Athletic Bilbao agree another 2 years.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Efe Korkut was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Successful dribbles: 18. He went past people as if he had been told there was a prize for it, and by the end the full-back had stopped pretending to try.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Athletic Bilbao this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
8.15. 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.
Nothing about the week ahead is ordinary. Real Sociedad on Saturday, a town that has already started talking about it, and a dressing room that does not need telling what it means.
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.
The deadline has passed and the squad is the squad. 2 arrived, 10 left, and everything else printed about this club last month was a rumour that stayed one.
“I have ambitions, and I would like the club to share them.” Nobody has asked to leave and nobody has been shown the door — but a player chooses that sentence carefully, and a boardroom hears it exactly as it was meant.
Oihan Sancet and a teammate said things this week that will take longer than a week to unsay. It was not about football, and both of them play on Saturday.
There is no worse way to lose a footballer. Iker Galindo 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.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Efe Korkut 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.
18 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Athletic Bilbao lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
There comes a point where a club either backs its own ambition or admits it does not have any. Athletic Bilbao have paid $16.3M for Alexis Cuello, which is the loudest way there is of saying which one it chose.
Sevilla paid $11.3M and Athletic Bilbao took it, which is the whole story in one sentence. The longer version involves a wage budget and will be told all season.
“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 Athletic Bilbao, and it is not being withdrawn.
At 34 he is supposed to be managing his minutes. Instead he was marked 8.02 and looked, for ninety minutes, exactly like the player everybody remembers.
3 wins on the spin now, and the question has changed from whether the run ends to who ends it. Confidence like this cannot be bought; it has to be earned exactly this way.
In brief
SquadAlexis Cuello arrives at the club he grew up with
Athletic Bilbao and San Lorenzo have settled on $16.3M. The rest belongs to the player and his agent, and a supporter who has watched one of these before knows not to buy the shirt yet.
25 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Athletic Bilbao lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
Girona will want this one forgotten quickly: 3‑0, every duel lost, and a long ride home. Athletic Bilbao were ruthless in the way good sides are ruthless.
Athletic Bilbao asked and Fulham said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
“I know what people will say. I know what I want, and it is here.” UTA Arad had the fee agreed and the shirt ready; they did not have the player, and now they will not.
The phone has started ringing about Oihan Sancet again, and this time the name on the line is Real Madrid. Athletic Bilbao are listening politely and promising nothing.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Athletic Bilbao this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Maroan Sannadi 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 chase for Francisco Trincão ended with $74.6M changing hands and Al-Ahli out of reasons to say no. The supporters will judge the fee the only way that matters: on Saturdays.
Athletic Bilbao and Almería have settled on $17.6M. The rest belongs to the player and his agent, and a supporter who has watched one of these before knows not to buy the shirt yet.
35 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Athletic Bilbao lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Fee agreed, wages agreed, and Elche waiting with a shirt. Nobody at Athletic Bilbao is pretending otherwise, and the supporters have stopped asking whether and started asking when.
$18.9M was the most the club would pay and Parma were asking for more. Deals like this are revived in the last week of a window roughly half the time, and everybody involved knows it.
There is a version of every career where the player ends up somewhere he chose rather than somewhere that chose him. Francisco Trincão is living that version at Athletic Bilbao, and it tends to show in the first month.
The offer from Sevilla for Maroan Sannadi was heard out and sent back the same day. First bids are rarely meant to succeed; they are meant to find out how loudly the door closes.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Athletic Bilbao this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Athletic Bilbao and Al-Ahli have settled on $74.6M. The rest belongs to the player and his agent, and a supporter who has watched one of these before knows not to buy the shirt yet.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the whole of the defence. 11 saves, several of them the kind nobody expects to see made, and ten outfield players who owe him a drink.
The offer went to Parma this week and it is theirs to answer. First bids are rarely meant to succeed; they are meant to find out how loud the door closes.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Athletic Bilbao can pretend not to have heard.
Player ratings4 Jan 2027
A brace, and Nico Williams takes the afternoon — 8.58
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Nico Williams provided it, and the 8.58 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
Oihan Sancet and a teammate said things this week that will take longer than a week to unsay. It was not about football, and both of them play on Saturday.
The phone has started ringing about Gorka Guruzeta again, and this time the name on the line is Elche. Athletic Bilbao are listening politely and promising nothing.
“Some mornings you wake up and you are still a long way from everything you know.” It is not the football and it never was; Athletic Bilbao are dealing with a man who wants a different country.
Unai Simón 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 particular warmth a ground reserves for a 21-year-old it feels ownership of. Peio Canales 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.
At 38, 3 points below where he was, and a body that has started charging interest. It happens to all of them and it is still the hardest paragraph on this page.
Nobody at Athletic Bilbao will say this on the record and the team sheets have been saying it for weeks. There is a small group in every squad who get picked when the fixture is difficult, and he has joined it.
18 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Athletic Bilbao lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Maroan Sannadi was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
A performance of 8.19 does not come along often, and when it does the rest of the team becomes scenery. He was magnificent.
The dugout21 Dec 2026
Dani Vivian is still being punished for one mistake
Nobody will confirm it and the team sheets confirm it every week. One error has bought him a spell as second choice that is already longer than the error deserved.
The ambition story running backwards, and the one nobody tells: a footballer who wants a smaller ground, fewer cameras and a crowd that does not turn. It is not weakness and it is rarely reported as anything else.
Every manager keeps a short list in his head of the men he wants on the pitch when the stakes rise, and it is never published. The team sheets for the big afternoons say Nico Williams is on it.
The words a physio says slowly. 26 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.
At 23 he is being sung about by people twice his age, which is an affection a signing has to earn over years and a local kid gets for turning up. It is also the hardest thing in football to live up to.
A performance of 8.39 does not come along often, and when it does the rest of the team becomes scenery. He was magnificent.
Player ratings14 Dec 2026
Iñaki Williams was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.02. 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 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.
A 1‑1 draw with Getafe leaves the dressing room somewhere between relief and regret.
The dugout14 Dec 2026
The view from the dugout
“We did not lose. Some weeks that is all you get, and I would rather have the point than not.” Santiago Torres chose the glass-half-full version of 1‑1; the supporters left with the other one.
In brief
Player ratingsThe one thing Peio Canales could not do
Óscar De Marcos 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 general version of this complaint is that a player wants more. The specific version names the thing: he wants to walk out under floodlights against clubs from other countries, and he has stopped pretending otherwise.
Every run ends on an afternoon somebody had marked down as routine. This one went 4 matches, which is long enough that a town had stopped counting, and short enough that it will remember exactly who stopped it.
Four or five weekends of consistency, judged against everybody in the division doing his job. Yuri has come out of that comparison in the side, and Athletic Bilbao have had the benefit of every one of those afternoons.
Every manager keeps a short list in his head of the men he wants on the pitch when the stakes rise, and it is never published. The team sheets for the big afternoons say Jesús Areso is on it.
The hardest thing about being 21 in a senior side is that nobody makes allowances. Peio Canales did not need any: 7.94, and he looked the most comfortable man on the pitch.
4 wins on the spin now, and the question has changed from whether the run ends to who ends it. Confidence like this cannot be bought; it has to be earned exactly this way.
He is 21 and the ground already sings his name, which is a thing that happens to local boys and almost never to signings. Everything from here is measured against an affection he did nothing to earn except be from here.
Player ratings30 Nov 2026
Iñaki Williams was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.28. 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 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.
“The players deserve the credit. My job was easy today.” It was not, and everybody in the room knew it; after 2‑1, Santiago Torres could afford to be generous.
3 wins in a row changes how opponents warm up: quieter, more glances across. Runs end, everybody knows that — but nobody in this dressing room is planning for 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 Athletic Bilbao this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
There is a version of every career where the player ends up somewhere he chose rather than somewhere that chose him. Óscar De Marcos is living that version at Athletic Bilbao, and it tends to show in the first month.
Marked 8.32 — 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.
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Óscar De Marcos and Athletic Bilbao agree another 2 years.
Nobody at Athletic Bilbao will say this on the record and the team sheets have been saying it for weeks. There is a small group in every squad who get picked when the fixture is difficult, and he has joined it.
“We earned that. I asked them for a reaction and I got one, and now I want the same again on Saturday.” Santiago Torres on a 1‑0 afternoon that pleased him more than he was prepared to show.
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Mikel Jauregizar and Athletic Bilbao agree another 5 years.
It is never announced and it is entirely visible: the biggest afternoons of the season keep containing him. A press box works this out long before anybody at the club confirms a word of it.
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Oihan Sancet signs something — a contract at Athletic Bilbao or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
He used to wear the other shirt. On Saturday he plays against Espanyol in this one, and whatever he says this week about it being just another game will be untrue.
He asked about his future and was given an answer with minutes in it. The manager has now made a promise in a building where promises are remembered, and the clock on it has started.
Numbers do not stay secret in a dressing room and never have. He is not asking for more than he is worth; he is asking why somebody beside him is worth more, and at Athletic Bilbao that is a harder question to answer.
Two goals and a mark of 8.59 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
At 34 he is supposed to be managing his minutes. Instead he was marked 8.18 and looked, for ninety minutes, exactly like the player everybody remembers.
Unai Simón and a teammate said things this week that will take longer than a week to unsay. It was not about football, and both of them play on Saturday.
Involvement in 2 goals, from a player who spent the ninety minutes doing the thing a manager actually wants: being where the ball was going to end up. 7.98 beside his name.
Three points for Athletic Bilbao, 1‑0 the final word against Mallorca in a contest settled by the finer margins.
Player ratings9 Nov 2026
Oihan Sancet was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.15. 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.
“I want to win things, and I would like to do it here.” Nothing has been demanded and nothing has been threatened — but a boardroom at Athletic Bilbao hears a sentence like that exactly as it was built.
Minute 88, against Rayo Vallecano, and a goal that felt like a win to everybody who had stayed. It was a draw. Nobody leaving the ground will describe it as one.
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.
He has had enough of the noise. Whether Athletic Bilbao can be a quieter place for him, or whether the only cure is a move somewhere the phone-ins are gentler, is a question for the next few months.
Nobody at Athletic Bilbao will say this on the record and the team sheets have been saying it for weeks. There is a small group in every squad who get picked when the fixture is difficult, and he has joined it.
A month is long enough that nobody gets in by accident. Kevin Pineda is in the division's best eleven for it, which is a quieter compliment than an award and a more reliable one.
Two goals and a mark of 8.73 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
Conceding is one thing; the response is what tells you about a dressing room. Maroan Sannadi had Athletic Bilbao level again within 3 minutes, and Betis never got to play with a lead at all.
Successful dribbles: 15. He went past people as if he had been told there was a prize for it, and by the end the full-back had stopped pretending to try.
Nobody at Athletic Bilbao will say this on the record and the team sheets have been saying it for weeks. There is a small group in every squad who get picked when the fixture is difficult, and he has joined it.
“It is not the end of the world and it is not good enough. Both of those are true.” The manager, after a 2‑2 draw, said the honest thing and then went to say it again inside.
The shape wanted a different profile against this opponent, which is a real football answer and no comfort at all to the man it is about. He did nothing wrong and he did not play.
0‑3 against Real Madrid, and no complaints that would survive the replay. The manager spoke about character afterwards; the terraces used shorter words.
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 23 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.
5 new signings in one window. Every one may be an upgrade and the side can still be worse for a while, which is the part of a rebuild the verdicts never mention.
He is the name in every column and on every phone-in, which is a heavy thing to carry at any age. Some footballers thrive on it; others are quietly finished by it.
The ambition story running the other way, and the one nobody tells: a footballer asking for a smaller stage, fewer cameras and a crowd that does not turn. It is not weakness and it is very rarely reported as anything else.
In brief
The dugoutJesús Areso has become a man the manager trusts
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.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Athletic Bilbao this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Maroan Sannadi was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Nobody at Athletic Bilbao will say this on the record and the team sheets have been saying it for weeks. There is a small group in every squad who get picked when the fixture is difficult, and he has joined it.
He asked about his future and was given an answer with minutes in it. The manager has now made a promise in a building where promises are remembered, and the clock on it has started.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Léo Baptistão trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the whole of the defence. 6 saves, several of them the kind nobody expects to see made, and ten outfield players who owe him a drink.
Oihan Sancet 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 combined actions and 7.45. The job he did is the one that shows up as other people looking good, and the only reliable way to notice it is to watch what happens on the afternoons he is missing.
4 call-ups is a compliment to the squad and a headache for the man running it. He will get them back in a fortnight, tired, in various states of repair.
Every manager keeps a short list in his head of the men he wants on the pitch when the stakes rise, and it is never published. The team sheets for the big afternoons say Oihan Sancet is on it.
“The players deserve the credit. My job was easy today.” It was not, and everybody in the room knew it; after 3‑0, Santiago Torres could afford to be generous.
Derby days make names, and Oihan Sancet made his against Real Sociedad. 1‑0, bragging rights secured, and one half of town will be tired of hearing about him by Tuesday.
There are goals, and then there are goals against that particular opponent. The Athletic Bilbao support have their bragging rights for a year and they know exactly whose name is on them.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Athletic Bilbao this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
At 22 he is being sung about by people twice his age, which is an affection a signing has to earn over years and a local kid gets for turning up. It is also the hardest thing in football to live up to.
“I was told straight, and I would rather have it straight.” The manager at Athletic Bilbao has been clear about where Íñigo Ruiz de Galarreta stands, which is more than many ever get.
Successful dribbles: 16. He went past people as if he had been told there was a prize for it, and by the end the full-back had stopped pretending to try.
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.
The dugout28 Sep 2026
The view from the dugout
“We controlled it. There were spells I did not like and we will look at them, but the group showed me something.” Santiago Torres, on a 1‑0 win that he was already picking apart on the walk to the press room.
Nothing about the week ahead is ordinary. Real Sociedad on Saturday, a town that has already started talking about it, and a dressing room that does not need telling what it means.
“We were not good enough today and I am not going to dress it up.” Santiago Torres after 1‑2, in the tone of a man who knows the next question and does not intend to answer it.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Íñigo Ruiz de Galarreta trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
He used to wear the other shirt. On Saturday he plays against Real Sociedad in this one, and whatever he says this week about it being just another game will be untrue.
Nobody at Athletic Bilbao is suggesting he is out of form. The manager simply wanted somebody with a different set of qualities for ninety specific minutes, and there is nothing a player can train to fix that.
There is a version of every career where the player ends up somewhere he chose rather than somewhere that chose him. Léo Baptistão is living that version at Athletic Bilbao, and it tends to show in the first month.
The system has changed and his position has not. A footballer can improve his form; he cannot improve the manager’s formation, and that is the whole of the problem.
The dugout14 Sep 2026
The view from the dugout
“We will look at it, we will learn from it, and we go again.” The three sentences every manager keeps for a 2‑3 defeat, delivered by Santiago Torres to a room that had heard them before.
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.
The team sheet says it in public every week until it changes. The only version of being dropped a footballer cannot argue with, and the one he takes hardest.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Athletic Bilbao can pretend not to have heard.
Boardroom7 Sep 2026
Deadline passes with 18 signed and 5 gone
That is the business done at Athletic Bilbao until the window opens again. Whether it was enough will be answered on Saturdays rather than in a column, and the first Saturday is close.
“I want to be playing for trophies while my legs still let me.” Nothing in that sentence is a transfer request, and nobody at Athletic Bilbao heard it as anything else.
A medical, a signature, a shirt held up in front of a sponsor’s board. Athletic Bilbao have done the hard part with Almería, and the part that remains is the part supporters actually see.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Almería have kept their man, and Athletic Bilbao go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
The manager has re-ordered his thinking and Aitor Paredes has come out of it lower. He will be told it is temporary, and the players who have heard that before will avoid his eye.
It will be explained as a change for the team and it may even be one. Nobody who has worn one believes that, and neither does the man who has just had it taken away.
He used to be one of the options. He is now one of the men the options are picked around, and the change happened quietly enough that only the dressing room noticed on the day.
There were 8 saves in it, and at least three that had no business being saves at all. The ten outfield players owe him a drink and they know it.
Player ratings31 Aug 2026
A brace, and Oihan Sancet takes the afternoon — 8.27
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Oihan Sancet provided it, and the 8.27 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
Athletic Bilbao offered $9.0M; Valencia said it was not close. The manager will be told the money is still there for the right player, which is what managers are told.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Athletic Bilbao can pretend not to have heard.
Athletic Bilbao asked and Penarol said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Oihan Sancet. 2‑1 against Villarreal, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Maroan Sannadi 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 Athletic Bilbao will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Godoy Cruz have kept their man, and Athletic Bilbao go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
There is a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 22-year-old it feels ownership of. Mikel Jauregizar 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.
Athletic Bilbao have made the call to Penarol. No fee, a share of the wages, and a spare shirt in the position where the squad has been thinnest all season.
“The players deserve the credit. My job was easy today.” It was not, and everybody in the room knew it; after 3‑1, Santiago Torres could afford to be generous.
In brief
The dugoutThe plan did not have a place for Aitor Paredes
The dugoutNico Williams wants a proper job in this side
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 30 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
$9.3M on the table at Barcelona. The manager wanted him, the board agreed a number, and the only voices still to be heard are the ones at the other club.
The number the board signed off was not enough. It has been asked again and raised its own offer to $10.0M — a club that wants Marc Bernal enough to be asked twice.
Oihan Sancet and a teammate said things this week that will take longer than a week to unsay. It was not about football, and both of them play on Saturday.
3 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.
There is no fee, no unveiling and no agent on the steps. Miguel Domínguez 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.
The offer from Valencia for Unai Simón was heard out and sent back the same day. First bids are rarely meant to succeed; they are meant to find out how loudly the door closes.
The fee is $12.7M, the contract is signed, and the argument about whether he is worth it can begin. Veracruz drove a hard bargain; time will say who won it.
The offer went to Getafe this week and it is theirs to answer. First bids are rarely meant to succeed; they are meant to find out how loud the door closes.
Footballers are asked about their boyhood club so often that nobody listens to the answer. Kevin Pineda has just signed for Athletic Bilbao, and for once the answer mattered.
The number the board signed off was not enough. It has been asked again and raised its own offer to $10.0M — a club that wants Zaid Romero enough to be asked twice.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Athletic Bilbao this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
“I want to be playing for trophies while my legs still let me.” Nothing in that sentence is a transfer request, and nobody at Athletic Bilbao heard it as anything else.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Girona have kept their man, and Athletic Bilbao go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
The offer went to Veracruz this week and it is theirs to answer. First bids are rarely meant to succeed; they are meant to find out how loud the door closes.
439 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.
The offer from Kaiserslautern for Gorka Guruzeta was heard out and sent back the same day. First bids are rarely meant to succeed; they are meant to find out how loudly the door closes.
“I want to win things, and I would like to do it here.” Nothing has been demanded and nothing has been threatened — but a boardroom at Athletic Bilbao hears a sentence like that exactly as it was built.
Unai Simón 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.
24 months left and silence from upstairs — no offer, no talks, nothing for his people to answer. Clubs that let a calendar do their negotiating usually end up negotiating with the calendar.