Two goals and a mark of 8.93 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.
Dani Ceballos 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.
21 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.
There is a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 23-year-old it feels ownership of. Hugo Álvarez 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.
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Carlos Domínguez. 2‑0 against Sevilla, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
Successful dribbles: 19. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
Squad12 Oct 2026
Aleix Febas 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.
In brief
Player ratingsHugo Álvarez was on a different afternoon to everybody else
The terracesThe press have found their man in Hugo Álvarez
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Celta this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad5 Oct 2026
Ilaix Moriba 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 one version of being left out a player cannot argue with, and the one he takes worst. Somebody else has been better and the team sheet says so, in public, every week until it changes.
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.
10 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.
27 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.
Dani Ceballos 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 had been thinking. Ilaix Moriba 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 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.
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.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Celta this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
8.54. 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.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Aleix Febas is at the centre of it, and the squad will now find out whether the standard rises or the pair of them simply stop speaking.
“I watch every Celta game from here. That says everything about where my head is.” The loan at Betis runs its course, but his heart never made the trip.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Ilaix Moriba 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 performance of 8.52 does not come along often, and when it does the rest of the team becomes scenery. He was magnificent.
Player ratings14 Sep 2026
Dani Ceballos 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.
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.
Successful dribbles: 29. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Squad7 Sep 2026
Ilaix Moriba 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.
Carl Starfelt 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.
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.
Williot Swedberg had done his part in building a 2-goal cushion. What happened after that was collective, and Espanyol were allowed back into a match that had been finished with.
The offer from Mallorca for Javi Galán 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.
There is a version of every career where the player ends up somewhere he chose rather than somewhere that chose him. William Mikelbrencis is living that version at Celta, and it tends to show in the first month.
Dani Ceballos 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 8.94 — 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.
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.
Successful dribbles: 19. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Player ratings31 Aug 2026
Carl Starfelt was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.61. 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.
Iago Aspas 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.
Squad24 Aug 2026
Ilaix Moriba 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.
The music was off and the showers ran late. What was said in that dressing room stays there, but Saturday will publish the minutes.
Squad24 Aug 2026
The manager has not finished forgetting Ionuţ Radu'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.
Nobody's fault and entirely his: a goal that goes into the book with his name against it and nothing about it intended. Celta deserved better, and so did he.
Shots: 9. Goals: none. The chances were there and they were good ones, and they went into the stand, the goalkeeper's arms and the side netting in roughly that order.
In brief
The terracesEverybody has an opinion about Peru Rodríguez
The offer from Sevilla for Carlos Domínguez 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.
Footballers are asked about their boyhood club so often that nobody listens to the answer. Joaquín has just signed for Celta, and for once the answer mattered.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Celta this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Ilaix Moriba 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 morning the pathway stops being a brochure and becomes a team sheet. Most of them will not be here in three years; all of them have already done the hard part, which was getting to today.
The academy exists for exactly this morning. Héctor Gallardo 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.
There is a version of every career where the player ends up somewhere he chose rather than somewhere that chose him. Dani Ceballos is living that version at Celta, and it tends to show in the first month.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Celta this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
The name of Carlos Domínguez has come up in conversations Celta were not part of. Nothing formal, nothing signed — but nothing about it accidental either.
409 appearances across 12 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 Celta this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
In brief
SquadIlaix Moriba falls out with a teammate over standards