A bone, which is the one injury with a calendar attached. Eibar will name a return date and, unusually for this business, will probably be right about it.
Adu Ares 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 Albert Lottin was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
It is not much of a headline and it is the reason players believe the next promise. Eibar told Lucas Robertone something would happen and then it happened, which in this industry passes for remarkable.
“It is not the end of the world and it is not good enough. Both of those are true.” The manager, after a 0‑0 draw, said the honest thing and then went to say it again inside.
The crowd waited for a goal that never came. Gijón defended in numbers and left with what they came for, and the two sides could be playing still without troubling a scorer.
Real Murcia next, and one man in the Eibar dressing room knows their training ground better than his own. The reception will tell him what they thought of him.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 95 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
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.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Eibar this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
“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; Eibar are dealing with a man who wants a different country.
“We were not good enough today and I am not going to dress it up.” Interim Coach after 0‑2, in the tone of a man who knows the next question and does not intend to answer it.
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.
Marked 4.26. Nothing he attempted worked and by the hour mark he had stopped attempting much, which is the part a manager notices rather than the mistakes.
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.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 102 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
Player ratings17 Sep 2029
A brace, and Martín Soto takes the afternoon — 8.92
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Martín Soto provided it, and the 8.92 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Eibar have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
“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 Eibar, and it is not being withdrawn.
There is a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 21-year-old it feels ownership of. Martín Soto 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.
A bone, which is the one injury with a calendar attached. Eibar will name a return date and, unusually for this business, will probably be right about 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 Eibar, and it is not being withdrawn.
40 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.
A deal that was a phone call from completion at lunchtime was dead by midnight. Eibar will try again when the window opens; Marbella may not be selling by then.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Adu Ares was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Sergio Álvarez 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.
10 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.
A bone, which is the one injury with a calendar attached. Eibar will name a return date and, unusually for this business, will probably be right about it.
Marbella have accepted the money. What Eibar do not yet have is the man, and between here and the photograph is a conversation about wages that both sides are dreading.
He arrived for a fee and leaves for a fraction of it. $1.4M of what Eibar paid for Èric Monjonell is money the club will not see again, and the boardroom will be asked about it for two seasons.
The deadline has passed and the squad is the squad. 22 arrived, 12 left, and everything else printed about this club last month was a rumour that stayed one.
Adu Ares 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.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Valladolid have kept their man, and Eibar go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
A bone, which is the one injury with a calendar attached. Eibar will name a return date and, unusually for this business, will probably be right about 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 Eibar this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Real Sociedad have kept their man, and Eibar go back to a list with one name crossed 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.
0‑4 to Osasuna, 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.
“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 Eibar, and it is not being withdrawn.
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.
The number the board signed off was not enough. It has been asked again and raised its own offer to $606.1K — a club that wants Carles Soria enough to be asked twice.
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.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Adu Ares was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
“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 Eibar, and it is not being withdrawn.
The fee is $1.5M, the contract is signed, and the argument about whether he is worth it can begin. Castellón drove a hard bargain; time will say who won it.
The number the board signed off was not enough. It has been asked again and raised its own offer to $606.1K — a club that wants Adrián Fuentes enough to be asked twice.
The offer went to Zamora 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.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Adu Ares was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Sergio Álvarez 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.
12 days since the seat came open, a list of names doing the rounds, and nobody has signed anything. Every week this drags on the shortlist gets shorter.
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 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.
Adu Ares 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 bill for the sacking has arrived. Markel Solís leaves with $57.8K for the time left on his deal, and that money buys the club nothing it can put on the pitch.
The injury that keeps coming back, keeps being rushed back from, and quietly costs more careers than the dramatic ones. 14 days is the estimate; the honest figure depends on whether anybody is patient.
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.
Everybody at Eibar saw it before anybody said it, which is how this always goes. At 33 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.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Eibar this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Eibar have made the call to Atlético Madrid. No fee, a share of the wages, and a spare shirt in the position where the squad has been thinnest all season.
The clubs have settled the fee and he has settled his wages. What remains is a medical and a photograph, and around Eibar people have started saying his name in the past tense.
Eibar have gone to Valencia with a bid, and the supporters have gone to the internet with an opinion about it. Whether either changes anything is up to the selling club.
It happens to all of them and it is still the hardest paragraph a local paper has to write. 36 years old, 3 points down on where he was, and a body that has started charging interest on a career.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Adu Ares 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.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Barcelona have kept their man, and Eibar go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
It is the most legitimate ambition in the sport and the hardest for most clubs to satisfy. Thiago Balbuena wants continental football; whether Eibar can provide it is a question about the next two seasons, not about him.
The offer from Fafe for Marcelo Estigarribia 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 have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Eibar can pretend not to have heard.
$2.1M on the table at Real Sociedad. 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 $2.3M — a club that wants Darío Ramírez enough to be asked twice.
The fee is $320.0K, the contract is signed, and the argument about whether he is worth it can begin. Tarazona drove a hard bargain; time will say who won it.
Adu Ares 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.
Every footballer has an answer to the question about his boyhood club, and most of them never get to act on it. João Bom has, at Eibar, and the first month will show what that does to a man.
It happens to all of them and it is still the hardest paragraph a local paper has to write. 36 years old, 3 points down on where he was, and a body that has started charging interest on a career.
The offer went to Ponferradina 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.
The deal with Tarazona is done in every sense but the one that puts him on the pitch. Nothing goes wrong at this stage, except on the occasions when it does.
Terms were offered and declined. Whether it was the wages, the role or the town, nobody at Barcelona is saying, and nobody at Eibar is enjoying the guessing.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Adu Ares was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Sergio Álvarez 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 have tried. I have really tried, and every day I wake up in the wrong place.” Nobody at Eibar can coach that out of a man, and nobody there is pretending to.
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.
Fee agreed, wages agreed, and Huesca waiting with a shirt. Nobody at Eibar is pretending otherwise, and the supporters have stopped asking whether and started asking when.
“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 Eibar, and it is not being withdrawn.
The number the board signed off was not enough. It has been asked again and raised its own offer to $1.9M — a club that wants Riccardo De Zen enough to be asked twice.
The chase for Exequiel Oviedo ended with $440.0K changing hands and Teruel out of reasons to say no. The supporters will judge the fee the only way that matters: on Saturdays.
Every footballer has an answer to the question about his boyhood club, and most of them never get to act on it. Exequiel Oviedo has, at Eibar, and the first month will show what that does to a man.
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 footballer has an answer to the question about his boyhood club, and most of them never get to act on it. Thiago Amitrano has, at Eibar, and the first month will show what that does to a man.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Atlético Madrid have kept their man, and Eibar go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Unai Elgezabal was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Every shape has positions in it and this one does not have his. Eibar will either change the shape, change his job, or change his club, and he is waiting to hear which.
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Jonmi Magunagoitia signs something — a contract at Eibar or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
A conversation in the manager’s office, and a commitment that came out of it. Promises like that are cheap to make and expensive to break, and Marcelo Estigarribia has written the date down.
He arrived for a fee and leaves for a fraction of it. $599.3K of what Eibar paid for Diego González is money the club will not see again, and the boardroom will be asked about it for two seasons.
Adu Ares 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 Marcelo Estigarribia again, and this time the name on the line is Elche. Eibar are listening politely and promising nothing.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Unai Elgezabal was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
$36.1M is a serious amount of money and it does not play centre-forward. Everybody in the dressing room knows who used to be looked at when it went wrong.
He is going to Barcelona, the club has $36.1M it did not have on Friday, and the phone-ins have already decided how they feel about that. Selling well and selling somebody they loved are not the same skill.
The offer from Talavera for Marcelo Estigarribia 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.
Adu Ares 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.
$36.0K on the table at Marbella. The manager wanted him, the board agreed a number, and the only voices still to be heard are the ones at the other club.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Barcelona have kept their man, and Eibar go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Unai Elgezabal 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 last league game has been played and the table has stopped moving: 52 points. The summer begins on Monday, and so does the argument about what it all meant.
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.
The offer went to CE Europa 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.
The offer went to Pontevedra 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.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Eibar this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Diego González will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Eibar the goodbyes have quietly begun.
Adu Ares 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 thought about how hard another man trains, and Cucho Hernández was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
“We were not good enough today and I am not going to dress it up.” Markel Solís after 1‑2, in the tone of a man who knows the next question and does not intend to answer it.
Eibar interviewed the field and appointed the corridor: Markel Solís keeps the job he had been doing in all but title. Sometimes the safest pair of hands is the one already holding the wheel.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Eibar can pretend not to have heard.
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 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.
Lander Olaetxea 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 shut-outs in 30 games. A goalkeeper’s loan is judged on the afternoons when nothing happened at all, and Pablo Valencia has been having a lot of them.
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.
“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 Eibar know it.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Eibar will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
Day 36 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.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Eibar this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 28 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
At 33 he is supposed to be managing his minutes. Instead he was marked 8.01 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 Eibar is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Eibar can pretend not to have heard.
7.92, 1 on the scoresheet, and the specific comedy of a back-four player celebrating like somebody who does this every week. He does not, and that is exactly why the ground reacted the way it did.
“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 Eibar, and it is not being withdrawn.
A bone, which is the one injury with a calendar attached. Eibar will name a return date and, unusually for this business, will probably be right about it.
It happens to all of them and it is still the hardest paragraph a local paper has to write. 36 years old, 3 points down on where he was, and a body that has started charging interest on a career.
3 matches, no goals, and a training ground that has tried everything. It will end — droughts always do — but nobody at Eibar can tell you which week it ends in.
“The supporters are entitled to be angry. So am I. We will put it right.” 0‑1, a manager saying the necessary things, and a dressing room that heard a different version of them.
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.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Eibar 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 Cucho Hernández was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
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.
7 goals in 33 games at Huesca — numbers that travel home faster than he does. Somebody at Eibar updates a spreadsheet every Monday, and it makes better reading each week.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Eibar can pretend not to have heard.
Adu Ares 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 days since the seat came open, a list of names doing the rounds, and nobody has signed anything. Every week this drags on the shortlist gets shorter.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Unai Elgezabal 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.
Successful dribbles: 16. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
The dugout9 Apr 2029
Cucho Hernández is playing like a man with something to prove
The oldest phenomenon in the sport: a new voice in the dressing room and suddenly everybody is available for everything. Cucho Hernández is training as though the last team sheet never existed, because as far as he is concerned it does not.
It is not much of a headline and it is the reason players believe the next promise. Eibar told Martín Soto something would happen and then it happened, which in this industry passes for remarkable.
9 clean sheets from 26 appearances at Marbella. That is the whole of a goalkeeper’s job done properly, and it is being done a long way from the club that owns him.
The official line will be that it was routine. It was not routine, the timing says so, and every person in that room knows what the next bad result costs.
“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.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Eibar they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Eibar can pretend not to have heard.
Adu Ares 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 thought about how hard another man trains, and Cucho Hernández was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
The bill for the sacking has arrived. Santiago Márquez leaves with $72.1K for the time left on his deal, and that money buys the club nothing it can put on the pitch.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Eibar can pretend not to have heard.
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 21 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.
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Cucho Hernández. 2‑0 against Granada, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
Lander Olaetxea 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.
17 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Eibar lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Léo Derik 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. Unai Elgezabal 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.
7 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 dugout19 Mar 2029
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 Márquez chose the glass-half-full version of 0‑0; the supporters left with the other one.
Shots: 6. 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.
The crowd waited for a goal that never came. Oviedo defended in numbers and left with what they came for, and the two sides could be playing still without troubling a scorer.
The words a physio says slowly. 24 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 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.
He won it back and then made something of it, which is two jobs and the reason the scoreline looks the way it does. 10 combined actions and a mark of 6.85, and not one of them will make a highlights package.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Eibar this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
The dugout12 Mar 2029
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 1‑2 defeat, delivered by Santiago Márquez to a room that had heard them before.
31 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Eibar lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Diego González will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Eibar the goodbyes have quietly begun.
The rules permit it and it stings anyway. Diego González has agreed terms with Racing Ferrol for the summer, and until then he pulls on this shirt as a player who has already chosen his next one.
Adu Ares 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 thought about how hard another man trains, and Cucho Hernández was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
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.
The words a physio says slowly. 38 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 Eibar can pretend not to have heard.
One scored and one made, which is a different afternoon from scoring twice and an easier one to overlook. Marked 7.75, and involved in 2 of his side's goals.
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Mario Cantero. 2‑0 against Cultural Leonesa, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Unai Elgezabal 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.
9 combined actions and 7.19. 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.
45 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Eibar lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Eibar this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Eibar asked and Athletic Bilbao said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
“The supporters are entitled to be angry. So am I. We will put it right.” 1‑2, a manager saying the necessary things, and a dressing room that heard a different version of them.
In brief
The dugoutLéo Derik asks for a word with the manager
Loan watchPablo Valencia’s loan is measured in nothing happening
52 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Eibar lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
Adu Ares 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. Cucho Hernández 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.
Nothing happens for months and then he simply arrives, at no cost, having signed a pre-contract while still turning out for somebody else. It is the least dramatic way to sign a footballer and frequently the shrewdest.
There is a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 21-year-old it feels ownership of. Davinchi 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 words a physio says slowly. 59 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 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.
Match3 Feb 2029
Adu Ares wins it after the whistle should have gone
90 minutes played. Adu Ares found the finish in time that only existed because of earlier delays, and Almería went from a point to nothing inside one movement.
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.
The phone has started ringing about Cucho Hernández again, and this time the name on the line is Club Brugge. Eibar are listening politely and promising nothing.
The deadline has passed and the squad is the squad. 5 arrived, 3 left, and everything else printed about this club last month was a rumour that stayed one.
The words a physio says slowly. 66 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.
“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 Eibar, and it is not being withdrawn.
7 without a win is the sort of run that changes how a town talks about its club, and Castellón were the afternoon it stopped. Nothing is fixed by one result and everything feels different by one.
6 goals in one match, Cucho Hernández on the scoresheet, and a scoreline that will look like a misprint. Neutrals could not have asked more of Eibar and Castellón.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Cucho Hernández was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
74 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Eibar lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
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.
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.
7 goals in one match, Aleix Garrido on the scoresheet, and a scoreline that will look like a misprint. Neutrals could not have asked more of Eibar and Elche.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Cucho Hernández 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.
Every footballer has an answer to the question about his boyhood club, and most of them never get to act on it. João Freitas has, at Eibar, and the first month will show what that does to a man.
82 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Eibar lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Eibar and Brasil de Pelotas have settled on $870.0K. 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.
Adu Ares 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.
3 matches, no goals, and a training ground that has tried everything. It will end — droughts always do — but nobody at Eibar can tell you which week it ends in.
Eibar asked and Barcelona said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
90 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Eibar lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
The chase for Mario Cantero ended with $4.3M changing hands and Burgos out of reasons to say no. The supporters will judge the fee the only way that matters: on Saturdays.
Eibar asked and Tenerife said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
Adu Ares 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. Cucho Hernández 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 words a physio says slowly. 97 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.
Jon Magunazelaia had done his part in building a 2-goal cushion. What happened after that was collective, and Las Palmas were allowed back into a match that had been finished with.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Eibar can pretend not to have heard.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Cucho Hernández was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
“I watch every Eibar game from here. That says everything about where my head is.” The loan at Zaragoza runs its course, but his heart never made the trip.
The words a physio says slowly. 107 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 Eibar this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
“We were not good enough today and I am not going to dress it up.” Santiago Márquez after 1‑2, in the tone of a man who knows the next question and does not intend to answer it.
Ninety specific minutes wanted a different sort of player, and the manager picked one. He is not out of form and he is not in the side, and both are true.
115 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Eibar lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Cucho Hernández 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 goal that put Burgos ahead was still being replayed on the concourse when Eibar equalised, 1 minutes later. Leads are only worth what you do with them.
“We keep meeting, and we keep leaving the room with the same numbers we walked in with.” Another round of talks at Eibar, another week without a signature from Léo Derik.
1‑1, and both dressing rooms will call it two points lost. A draw that asked plenty of questions and answered none of them.
The dugout18 Dec 2028
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 Márquez chose the glass-half-full version of 1‑1; the supporters left with the other one.
122 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Eibar lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
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.
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Cucho Hernández. 1‑0 against Ceuta, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
Some games turn on a moment; this one turned on a man. 7.87 on the card, and the Eibar support went home talking about one name.
The dugout11 Dec 2028
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 Márquez, on a 1‑0 win that he was already picking apart on the walk to the press room.
It is not much of a headline and it is the reason players believe the next promise. Eibar told Ángel Troncho something would happen and then it happened, which in this industry passes for remarkable.
Successful dribbles: 25. 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.
At 21 he was better than everybody his age in the division for four weeks running, which is harder than one good afternoon. Eibar will try not to make too much of it.
Clubs make promises constantly and the page usually only hears about them when they are broken. This one was honoured, and the dressing room noticed that faster than any supporter did.
Èric Monjonell 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.
“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 Eibar, and 11 appearances in 12 say he has earned the hearing.
“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 Eibar, 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 Eibar this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Daijiro Chirino 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 players deserve the credit. My job was easy today.” It was not, and everybody in the room knew it; after 1‑0, Santiago Márquez could afford to be generous.
It is not much of a headline and it is the reason players believe the next promise. Eibar told Ángel Troncho something would happen and then it happened, which in this industry passes for remarkable.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Eibar have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Adu Ares 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.
“I was told straight, and I would rather have it straight.” The manager at Eibar has been clear about where Marcelo Estigarribia stands, which is more than many ever get.
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.
4 shut-outs in 6 games. A goalkeeper’s loan is judged on the afternoons when nothing happened at all, and Pablo Valencia has been having a lot of them.
Adu Ares 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.
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.
“We were not good enough today and I am not going to dress it up.” Santiago Márquez 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 Jon Magunazelaia trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
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.
6 without a win is the sort of run that changes how a town talks about its club, and Granada were the afternoon it stopped. Nothing is fixed by one result and everything feels different by one.
The demotion a club never announces and a dressing room always notices. Hodei Arrillaga is further from the side than he was, and the reason will not be given until he asks.
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.
“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 Eibar, and it is not being withdrawn.
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.
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.
3 matches, no goals, and a training ground that has tried everything. It will end — droughts always do — but nobody at Eibar can tell you which week it ends in.
11 combined actions and 6.53. 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.
Joaquín Leites 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.
Something was said to Kaj de Rooij and then it happened. In this industry that passes for remarkable, and the dressing room noticed faster than any supporter could.
0‑4 to Valladolid, 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.
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 dugout23 Oct 2028
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 0‑4 defeat, delivered by Santiago Márquez to a room that had heard them before.
Successful dribbles: 14. 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.
“The manager did not use many words, and he did not need to.” Jeremías Mercuri has his answer from Eibar; what he does with it is the next window’s story.
Beaten 4 times, 3 saves, and an afternoon that will go on his record whether it was his fault or the defence’s. It is the quiet unfairness of the position.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Cucho Hernández 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.
He used to wear the other shirt. On Saturday he plays against Valladolid in this one, and whatever he says this week about it being just another game will be untrue.
What was a back-page story is now a matter for the terraces, and the terraces do not do nuance. Eibar would like it dealt with before it becomes the only question anybody asks.
Nothing in writing and nothing in public: a word about playing time, given face to face at Eibar. The team sheets over the next month will show whether it was worth having.
Two goals and a mark of 8.74 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.” Eibar have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Daijiro Chirino 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.
2‑2, and both dressing rooms will call it two points lost. A draw that asked plenty of questions and answered none of them.
Squad9 Oct 2028
6 new faces, and Eibar are still learning each other
A squad rebuilt inside one window pays for it in a currency nobody budgets for. The football is not worse than the sum of the players; it is worse than the sum of the players who have played together before.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Eibar this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
The manager has re-ordered his thinking and Unai Eguíluz 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 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.
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.
“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 Eibar, and it is not being withdrawn.
40 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.
Adu Ares 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 Cucho Hernández was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Adu Ares 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. Cucho Hernández 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 a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 20-year-old it feels ownership of. Davinchi 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 players deserve the credit. My job was easy today.” It was not, and everybody in the room knew it; after 1‑0, Santiago Márquez could afford to be generous.
In brief
The dugoutJuan Bernat knocks on the manager's door
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Villarreal have kept their man, and Eibar go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
Joaquín Leites 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.
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.
11 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 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.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Juan Bernat trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
The clubs have settled the fee and he has settled his wages. What remains is a medical and a photograph, and around Eibar people have started saying his name in the past tense.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Eibar can pretend not to have heard.
Boardroom4 Sep 2028
Eibar close the window on a squad of their own making
17 in and 15 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.
Eibar have gone to Granada with a bid, and the supporters have gone to the internet with an opinion about it. Whether either changes anything is up to the selling club.
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.
Eibar asked and River Plate said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Eibar they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
The deal with Celta is done in every sense but the one that puts him on the pitch. Nothing goes wrong at this stage, except on the occasions when it does.
Terms were offered and declined. Whether it was the wages, the role or the town, nobody at Celta is saying, and nobody at Eibar is enjoying the guessing.
Eibar asked and Rayo Vallecano said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Adu Ares 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.
Day 12 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.
Add another name to the list: Girona have asked the question everybody in the game has been asking about Thiago Balbuena. The answer from Eibar has not changed — yet.
“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 Eibar, and it is not being withdrawn.
“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.
7.73, 1 on the scoresheet, and the specific comedy of a back-four player celebrating like somebody who does this every week. He does not, and that is exactly why the ground reacted the way it did.
The clubs had agreed and the player had not. A snub, and a public one: another club keep him, and the supporters here are left wondering what he had heard about the place.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. CE Europa have kept their man, and Eibar go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
Fee agreed, wages agreed, and Juventud Torremolinos waiting with a shirt. Nobody at Eibar is pretending otherwise, and the supporters have stopped asking whether and started asking when.
Eibar asked and Arenteiro said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Eibar 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.
Add another name to the list: Andorra have asked the question everybody in the game has been asking about Calyl. The answer from Eibar has not changed — yet.
9 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.
What was said behind closed doors has now been said in front of a microphone. Everybody at Eibar can do the arithmetic, including the man it is aimed at.
Eibar asked and Osasuna said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
9 seasons and 546 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.
Everything agreed with Ponferradina, everything agreed with the player; a doctor is the only person left to persuade. The photograph is a day or two away.
“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 Eibar, and it is not being withdrawn.
The clubs have settled the fee and he has settled his wages. What remains is a medical and a photograph, and around Eibar people have started saying his name in the past tense.
The offer from Espanyol for Jon Bautista 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.
Terms were offered and declined. Whether it was the wages, the role or the town, nobody at Sevilla is saying, and nobody at Eibar is enjoying the guessing.
Adu Ares 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. Unai Elgezabal 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.
Eibar asked and Villarreal said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
“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 Eibar, and it is not being withdrawn.
The last thing about a transfer that is still about the player is his signature on his own terms, and it is there. Eibar have lost him in all but the paperwork.
The fee is $360.0K, the contract is signed, and the argument about whether he is worth it can begin. Ponferradina drove a hard bargain; time will say who won it.
Adu Ares 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 asked and Ibiza said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
“The manager did not use many words, and he did not need to.” Sergio Álvarez has his answer from Eibar; what he does with it is the next window’s story.
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 Ángel Troncho is on it.
In brief
The terracesThe stands have heard the Iván Gil talk too
“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 Eibar, and it is not being withdrawn.
The chase for Kaj de Rooij ended with $2.4M changing hands and Valladolid out of reasons to say no. The supporters will judge the fee the only way that matters: on Saturdays.
The fee is $2.0M, the contract is signed, and the argument about whether he is worth it can begin. Ibiza drove a hard bargain; time will say who won it.
Léo Derik 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 Adu Ares was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
The phone has started ringing about Pablo Valencia again, and this time the name on the line is Guadalajara. Eibar are listening politely and promising nothing.
Squad17 Jul 2028
6 new faces, and Eibar are still learning each other
A squad rebuilt inside one window pays for it in a currency nobody budgets for. The football is not worse than the sum of the players; it is worse than the sum of the players who have played together before.
20 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Eibar lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
The offer went to Osasuna 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.
Everything agreed with Valladolid, everything agreed with the player; a doctor is the only person left to persuade. The photograph is a day or two away.
“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 Eibar, 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.” Eibar have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
The clubs had agreed and the player had not. A snub, and a public one: Oldham Athletic keep him, and the supporters here are left wondering what he had heard about the place.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Adu Ares 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.
Lander Olaetxea 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.
27 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Eibar lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
“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 Eibar, and it is not being withdrawn.
Eibar asked and Villarreal said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
Adu Ares 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 words a physio says slowly. 34 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 offer from Alianza Lima for Adu Ares 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.
Eibar have gone to Osasuna with a bid, and the supporters have gone to the internet with an opinion about it. Whether either changes anything is up to the selling club.
The number the board signed off was not enough. It has been asked again and raised its own offer to $1.7M — a club that wants Luciano Villalva 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 Eibar this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Aleix Garrido 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.
Eibar asked and Getafe said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
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.
$19.6M was the most the club would pay and Osasuna 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.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Eibar can pretend not to have heard.
The phone has started ringing about Adu Ares again, and this time the name on the line is Alianza Lima. Eibar are listening politely and promising nothing.
A medical, a signature, a shirt held up in front of a sponsor’s board. Eibar have done the hard part with Athletic Bilbao, and the part that remains is the part supporters actually see.
Eibar had done everything except persuade the man himself. He stays at Celta, and the manager goes back to the drawing board with the money still in the bank.
Eibar asked and Teruel said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Eibar this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad19 Jun 2028
Aleix Garrido 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 offer went to Osasuna 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.
42 days since the seat came open, a list of names doing the rounds, and nobody has signed anything. Every week this drags on the shortlist gets shorter.
The clubs had agreed and the player had not. A snub, and a public one: Sevilla keep him, and the supporters here are left wondering what he had heard about the place.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Unai Elgezabal was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Eibar asked and Cartagena said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Eibar, and both men came out saying it was fine.
The last league game has been played and the table has stopped moving: 57 points. The summer begins on Monday, and so does the argument about what it all meant.
The offer went to Pontevedra 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.
“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 Eibar, and it is not being withdrawn.
7.76, 1 on the scoresheet, and the specific comedy of a back-four player celebrating like somebody who does this every week. He does not, and that is exactly why the ground reacted the way it did.
Adu Ares 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.
$250.0K was the most the club would pay and Sanluqueño 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.
In brief
SquadUnai Elgezabal falls out with a teammate over standards
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.
Adu Ares 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.
There is no complaint available here and everybody involved knows it, which does not make the walk to the bench any shorter. Form is the only currency in football that cannot be borrowed against.
It finished 1‑1, and it somehow always looked like it would. One of those afternoons where the table moves less than the tempers.
The dugout29 May 2028
The manager’s verdict
“I am frustrated, honestly. We did enough to win and we did not win.” Daniel Rojas was not hiding it after 1‑1, and nobody in the Eibar dressing room was either.
Nobody at Eibar 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.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Eibar 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.
“We keep meeting, and we keep leaving the room with the same numbers we walked in with.” Another round of talks at Eibar, another week without a signature from Jon Magunazelaia.
“There are things I liked and things we will be doing on Tuesday until they are right.” 1‑1, and a manager who had already decided what Tuesday looked like.
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.
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.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Unai Elgezabal 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.
“We were not good enough today and I am not going to dress it up.” Daniel Rojas after 0‑1, in the tone of a man who knows the next question and does not intend to answer it.
“I was told straight, and I would rather have it straight.” The manager at Eibar has been clear about where Santiago Díaz stands, which is more than many ever get.
Cucho Hernández had done his part in building a 2-goal cushion. What happened after that was collective, and Las Palmas were allowed back into a match that had been finished with.
“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; Daniel Rojas recited it perfectly.
Adu Ares 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 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 34 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.
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 7.67 for the rest of it.
Adu Ares 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.
There is a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 22-year-old it feels ownership of. Léo Derik 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.
Léo Derik 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.
Player ratings24 Apr 2028
Cucho Hernández was on a different afternoon to everybody else
9.64. 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.
6 without a win is the sort of run that changes how a town talks about its club, and Almería were the afternoon it stopped. Nothing is fixed by one result and everything feels different by one.
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.
It is not much of a headline and it is the reason players believe the next promise. Eibar told Cucho Hernández something would happen and then it happened, which in this industry passes for remarkable.
“We earned that. I asked them for a reaction and I got one, and now I want the same again on Saturday.” Alejandro Rojas on a 3‑0 afternoon that pleased him more than he was prepared to show.
In brief
The dugoutLéo Derik asks for a word with the manager
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Álvaro Rodríguez 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 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 Eibar know it.
“The supporters are entitled to be angry. So am I. We will put it right.” 0‑1, a manager saying the necessary things, and a dressing room that heard a different version of them.
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.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Eibar 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 Unai Elgezabal was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
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.
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Eibar, and both men came out saying it was fine.
“We keep meeting, and we keep leaving the room with the same numbers we walked in with.” Another round of talks at Eibar, another week without a signature from Jon Guruzeta.
Successful dribbles: 14. 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.
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.
The chances are being made and something is happening between the making and the finishing. 4 matches now, and the anxiety in the ground arrives a little earlier every week.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Unai Elgezabal was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
There is no complaint available here and everybody involved knows it, which does not make the walk to the bench any shorter. Form is the only currency in football that cannot be borrowed against.
In brief
The dugoutCucho Hernández loses the manager who believed in him
The dugoutJuan Bernat knocks on the manager’s door
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Eibar this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Álvaro Rodríguez 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.
Something was said to Dani Requena and then it happened. In this industry that passes for remarkable, and the dressing room noticed faster than any supporter could.
Every squad has one of these fixtures for somebody every season. This one is Pejiño’s: the club that knew him first, the supporters who will decide in the first minute whether to applaud, and Eibar needing him to play as if none of it matters.
A conversation in the manager’s office, and a commitment that came out of it. Promises like that are cheap to make and expensive to break, and Léo Derik has written the date down.
Dani Requena 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.
The chances are being made and something is happening between the making and the finishing. 3 matches now, and the anxiety in the ground arrives a little earlier every week.
Clubs make promises constantly and the page usually only hears about them when they are broken. This one was honoured, and the dressing room noticed that faster than any supporter did.
The dugout20 Mar 2028
The manager’s verdict
“That is on me. I pick the team and I picked wrong.” Managers say that when they mean it and when they need to be seen to, and after 0‑2 Alejandro Rojas left the room before anybody could ask which.
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.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Unai Elgezabal 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.
Beaten 0‑2, and beaten fairly. The manager kept his words short afterwards, which was probably wise.
The dugout13 Mar 2028
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 Alejandro Rojas to a room that had heard them before.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Jon Magunazelaia trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
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.
Another week, another link, another denial nobody quite believes. Eibar know the market decides these things, not the back pages — but the back pages are louder.
Every squad has one of these fixtures for somebody every season. This one is Cucho Hernández’s: the club that knew him first, the supporters who will decide in the first minute whether to applaud, and Eibar needing him to play as if none of it matters.
0‑4 to Valladolid, 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.
“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 Eibar, and it is not being withdrawn.
Adu Ares 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. Álvaro Rodríguez 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.
Dani Requena 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 thought about how hard another man trains, and Unai Elgezabal was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Beñat Gerenabarrena. 3‑1 against Albacete, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
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.
Dani Requena 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 Unai Elgezabal was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
“There are things I liked and things we will be doing on Tuesday until they are right.” 0‑0, and a manager who had already decided what Tuesday looked like.
“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.
“The manager did not use many words, and he did not need to.” Jeremías Mercuri has his answer from Eibar; what he does with it is the next window’s story.
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.
Nobody at Eibar 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.
Ninety minutes, no goals, and the argument started before the car park emptied: a point gained, or two thrown away against Cultural Leonesa? Both sides of it will still be going on Thursday.
Adu Ares 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. Álvaro Rodríguez 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 mornings you wake up and you are still a long way from everything you know.” It is not the football and it never was; Eibar are dealing with a man who wants a different country.
Clubs make promises constantly and the page usually only hears about them when they are broken. This one was honoured, and the dressing room noticed that faster than any supporter did.
There is an age at which every good afternoon gets described as a throwback, which is unfair and also accurate. 7.98 at 34, and nobody on the pitch was better.
7.91, 1 on the scoresheet, and the specific comedy of a back-four player celebrating like somebody who does this every week. He does not, and that is exactly why the ground reacted the way it did.
Boardroom7 Feb 2028
Eibar close the window on a squad of their own making
3 in and 3 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.
100 for the club now, each one filed in somebody’s memory with a date and a scoreline. Numbers like this are what supporters argue about in twenty years.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Unai Elgezabal 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.
Eibar asked and Osasuna said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
Eibar offered $8.9M; Barcelona 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.
“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 Eibar, 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.” Eibar have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Successful dribbles: 23. 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.
Léo Derik 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.
Eibar asked and Villarreal 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: Andrea Belotti. 1‑0 against Castellón, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
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.
“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 Eibar, and it is not being withdrawn.
It is the rarest sequence in football: supporters ask for something, and the club goes and does it. $23.1M for Cucho Hernández, and for one week nobody is complaining about anything.
The chances are being made and something is happening between the making and the finishing. 3 matches now, and the anxiety in the ground arrives a little earlier every week.
Real Madrid have accepted the money. What Eibar do not yet have is the man, and between here and the photograph is a conversation about wages that both sides are dreading.
The offer went to Osasuna 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.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Sevilla have kept their man, and Eibar go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Adu Ares was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
In brief
The dugoutThe manager makes an example of John Victor
Eibar asked and Real Madrid said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
The last thing about a transfer that is still about the player is his signature on his own terms, and it is there. Eibar have lost him in all but the paperwork.
The offer went to Sevilla 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.
The offer from Real Avilés for Marcelo Estigarribia 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.
“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 Eibar, 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 Eibar 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 Adu Ares was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Eibar can pretend not to have heard.
Add another name to the list: Real Avilés have asked the question everybody in the game has been asking about Marcelo Estigarribia. The answer from Eibar has not changed — yet.
Adu Ares 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.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Villarreal have kept their man, and Eibar go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
5 without a win is the sort of run that changes how a town talks about its club, and Gijón were the afternoon it stopped. Nothing is fixed by one result and everything feels different by one.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Álvaro Rodríguez was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Eibar have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Adu Ares 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 thought about how hard another man trains, and Imanol was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
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.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Eibar have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Unai Elgezabal was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
“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.
The dugout20 Dec 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 0‑1 defeat, delivered by Alejandro Rojas to a room that had heard them before.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and John Victor trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
Sevilla go through and Eibar go home, 0‑7 the scoreline that did it. The dressing room will call the league the priority now, because that is what dressing rooms say.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the whole of the defence. 8 saves, several of them the kind nobody expects to see made, and ten outfield players who owe him a drink.
The terraces13 Dec 2027
A cup hiding at Sevilla leaves Eibar explaining themselves
0-7, and long before the end the away end had switched from encouragement to something considerably more pointed. Nobody rings a phone-in about losing narrowly.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Eibar this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Match8 Dec 2027
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 Eibar and Sevilla in equal measure; everybody else had a wonderful time.
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.
10 combined actions and 6.72. 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.
The board was up, the win was priced in, and then Cartagena scored. There is no worse minute to concede in and the ground emptied in the silence that follows one.
There is an age at which every good afternoon gets described as a throwback, which is unfair and also accurate. 7.84 at 33, and nobody on the pitch was better.
Adu Ares 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.
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.
3 goals inside twenty minutes with Andrea Belotti in the middle of it, and Almería unable to get near the ball long enough to change anything. Some matches are won before the first drink.
Andrea Belotti wins it after the whistle should have gone
92 minutes played. Andrea Belotti found the finish in time that only existed because of earlier delays, and Tenerife went from a point to nothing inside one movement.
Two goals and a mark of 9.12 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. 7 saves, several of them the sort nobody expects to see stopped, and a scoreline that flatters everybody in front of him.
Adu Ares 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 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.
Marked 6.98 on 13 actions at both ends of the pitch. Midfielders like this get described as unspectacular by people who have never tried to play against one.
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.
There is an age at which every good afternoon gets described as a throwback, which is unfair and also accurate. 7.84 at 33, and nobody on the pitch was better.
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.
100 times in these colours, in all weathers and under four or five different managers. That kind of service is quietly disappearing from the game.
The dugout22 Nov 2027
Somebody else is better right now than John Victor
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.
“A point is a point and I will take it, but we should have had all three.” Alejandro Rojas after the 1‑1 draw, and the sentence every manager in the country said at some stage this weekend.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Eibar 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.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Álvaro Rodríguez trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Jon Bautista signs something — a contract at Eibar or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
A conversation in the manager’s office, and a commitment that came out of it. Promises like that are cheap to make and expensive to break, and Jon Magunazelaia has written the date down.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the team. 16 saves, several of them the sort nobody expects to see stopped, and a scoreline that flatters everybody in front of him.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Eibar have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Adu Ares 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.
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.