From our football correspondent
Steady
Market17 Aug 2026
“I know what people will say. I know what I want, and it is here.” Mérida had the fee agreed and the shirt ready; they did not have the player, and now they will not.
Squad17 Aug 2026
Pablo Gavián and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Market17 Aug 2026
The interest is real enough to have reached print. Celta Fortuna have said nothing, which in a transfer window is its own kind of answer.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad10 Aug 2026
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Hugo González and Celta Fortuna agree another 4 years.
Squad10 Aug 2026
Pablo Gavián 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.
Market10 Aug 2026
Add another name to the list: Mérida have asked the question everybody in the game has been asking about Coke Carrillo. The answer from Celta Fortuna has not changed — yet.
The dugout10 Aug 2026
The manager makes an example of Hugo González
“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.
Squad10 Aug 2026
“I want to play”: Pablo Gavián speaks
“I respect the manager and I am not going to sit here and pretend I am happy.” It is the most common sentence in football and it has never once been the end of a story.
Squad10 Aug 2026
Andrés Antañón has done the arithmetic and does not like the answer. Nothing corrodes a squad faster, and no club has ever solved it by explaining the wage structure to a footballer.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad3 Aug 2026
“I never wanted to be anywhere else. There is unfinished business here.” Andrés Antañón commits to Celta Fortuna for another 5 years.
Squad3 Aug 2026
Andrés Antañón 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 2026
Words at Celta Fortuna training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Luis Bilbao 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.
Squad3 Aug 2026
Hugo González has had enough of the bench
“I did not come here to warm up in front of people.” He is out of contract eventually, he is old enough to count the weeks, and Celta Fortuna will have to give him a reason to stay or an exit.
The dugout3 Aug 2026
Hugo González knocks on the manager's door
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Celta Fortuna, and both men came out saying it was fine.
Market3 Aug 2026
49 months to run and not a word offered. A club that lets the calendar negotiate for it usually ends up losing to the calendar.