Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Getafe will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
The board had gone up, the arguing had started, and then the ball was in the net in the 90th minute. Mallorca will replay every second of the added time for a week.
“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 The request is on a desk at Getafe, and it is not being withdrawn.
29 times he got in the way of something. Centre-halves get written about when they make mistakes and ignored when they do not, so an afternoon like this needs saying out loud: he is the reason the scoreline reads as it does.
At 35 he is supposed to be managing his minutes. Instead he was marked 7.90 and looked, for ninety minutes, exactly like the player everybody remembers.
Djéné Dakonam was at the centre of it, and by the time it was pulled apart there were three or four others involved. Training grounds are small places and long seasons make them smaller.
In brief
SquadDavid Soria falls out with a teammate over standards
38 defensive actions and a clean sheet at the end of them. A defender's afternoon can only be told by what did not happen, which is why nobody makes a highlights package out of one and every manager in the division would take it.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 57 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
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 chances are being made and something is happening between the making and the finishing. 6 matches now, and the anxiety in the ground arrives a little earlier every week.
Defensive actions: 22, and a clean sheet at the end of it. A centre-half's best afternoons look like nothing happening, which is precisely the point.
Squad2 Nov 2026
Words at Getafe training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. David Soria is at the centre of it, and the squad will now find out whether the standard rises or the pair of them simply stop speaking.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Getafe this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
38 times he got in the way of something. Centre-halves get written about when they make mistakes and ignored when they do not, so an afternoon like this needs saying out loud: he is the reason the scoreline reads as it does.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 66 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Getafe can pretend not to have heard.
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.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the team. 6 saves, several of them the sort nobody expects to see stopped, and a scoreline that flatters everybody in front of him.
The chances are being made and something is happening between the making and the finishing. 5 matches now, and the anxiety in the ground arrives a little earlier every week.
25 times he got in the way of something. Centre-halves get written about when they make mistakes and ignored when they do not, so an afternoon like this needs saying out loud: he is the reason the scoreline reads as it does.
Djéné Dakonam 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 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.
Squad19 Oct 2026
Words at Getafe training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. David Soria 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.
Abdelkabir Abqar 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.
46 defensive actions and a clean sheet at the end of them. A defender's afternoon can only be told by what did not happen, which is why nobody makes a highlights package out of one and every manager in the division would take it.
The run now stands at 4, and the questions being asked around Getafe are no longer polite ones.
Squad12 Oct 2026
David Soria 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.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Getafe this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
3 matches, no goals, and a training ground that has tried everything. It will end — droughts always do — but nobody at Getafe can tell you which week it ends in.
20 defensive actions and a clean sheet at the end of them. A defender's afternoon can only be told by what did not happen, which is why nobody makes a highlights package out of one and every manager in the division would take it.
David Soria 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.
Squad5 Oct 2026
Óscar Aranda 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.
“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 Getafe know it.
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Aranha is 21, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
Squad28 Sep 2026
David Soria 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.
Manuel Lazzari 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.
At 22 he is being sung about by people twice his age, which is an affection a signing has to earn over years and a local kid gets for turning up. It is also the hardest thing in football to live up to.
The general version of this complaint is that a player wants more. The specific version names the thing: he wants to walk out under floodlights against clubs from other countries, and he has stopped pretending otherwise.
Beaten 0‑1, and beaten fairly. The manager kept his words short afterwards, which was probably wise.
Player ratings28 Sep 2026
Mario Martín was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.00. 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.
There is an age at which every good afternoon gets described as a throwback, which is unfair and also accurate. 8.47 at 34, and nobody on the pitch was better.
The terraces21 Sep 2026
The ground has had enough
“We travel everywhere and we get this.” 6 of the 28 senior players heard it walking off, and the ones who did not hear it were not playing.
David Soria 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.
Squad21 Sep 2026
Óscar Aranda 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.
At 34 he is supposed to be managing his minutes. Instead he was marked 9.11 and looked, for ninety minutes, exactly like the player everybody remembers.
A performance of 9.47 does not come along often, and when it does the rest of the team becomes scenery. He was magnificent.
Squad14 Sep 2026
Words at Getafe training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Óscar Aranda 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.
Manuel Lazzari was at the centre of it, and by the time it was pulled apart there were three or four others involved. Training grounds are small places and long seasons make them smaller.
There is a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 23-year-old it feels ownership of. Christantus Uche 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.
14 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 fee was agreed and the flight was looked at — and then the phone stopped ringing. Espanyol moved on, Djéné Dakonam reports back to Getafe, and everybody pretends Monday is just Monday.
“I want to be playing for trophies while my legs still let me.” Nothing in that sentence is a transfer request, and nobody at Getafe heard it as anything else.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Getafe this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad7 Sep 2026
Words at Getafe training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. David Soria is at the centre of it, and the squad will now find out whether the standard rises or the pair of them simply stop speaking.
It is the most legitimate ambition in the sport and the hardest for most clubs to satisfy. Santiago González wants continental football; whether Getafe can provide it is a question about the next two seasons, not about him.
Marked 8.54 — the sort of number a correspondent writes down twice to be sure. Everything he tried came off, and what he did not try was not worth trying.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the team. 13 saves, several of them the sort nobody expects to see stopped, and a scoreline that flatters everybody in front of him.
Djéné Dakonam was at the centre of it, and by the time it was pulled apart there were three or four others involved. Training grounds are small places and long seasons make them smaller.
Marked 8.68 — the sort of number a correspondent writes down twice to be sure. Everything he tried came off, and what he did not try was not worth trying.
Squad31 Aug 2026
Words at Getafe training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Óscar Aranda is at the centre of it, and the squad will now find out whether the standard rises or the pair of them simply stop speaking.
The chase for Yoshan Valois ended with $3.6M changing hands and Lanús out of reasons to say no. The supporters will judge the fee the only way that matters: on Saturdays.
28 defensive actions and a clean sheet at the end of them. A defender's afternoon can only be told by what did not happen, which is why nobody makes a highlights package out of one and every manager in the division would take it.
There is an age at which every good afternoon gets described as a throwback, which is unfair and also accurate. 7.87 at 34, and nobody on the pitch was better.
Footballers are asked about their boyhood club so often that nobody listens to the answer. Yoshan Valois has just signed for Getafe, and for once the answer mattered.
Abdelkabir Abqar was at the centre of it, and by the time it was pulled apart there were three or four others involved. Training grounds are small places and long seasons make them smaller.
Nobody sells a season ticket on a signing like this. Every manager who has been through a bad October wants one anyway, and Getafe have gone and got theirs early.
There is a version of every career where the player ends up somewhere he chose rather than somewhere that chose him. Lucas is living that version at Getafe, and it tends to show in the first month.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Getafe this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
4 boys move up, and somewhere in the building the people who coached them at twelve are quietly having the best morning of their working year. Nothing about this shows up in a result and it is why the academy exists.
Clubs spend fortunes looking for players and occasionally find one down the corridor. Ricardo Serrano is that, and the reception he gets on his first appearance will be different in kind from the one any signing receives.
Clubs spend fortunes looking for players and occasionally find one down the corridor. Enrique González is that, and the reception he gets on his first appearance will be different in kind from the one any signing receives.
Clubs spend fortunes looking for players and occasionally find one down the corridor. Eduardo Medina is that, and the reception he gets on his first appearance will be different in kind from the one any signing receives.
Squad17 Aug 2026
Words at Getafe training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Lucas 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.
Squad17 Aug 2026
9 new faces, and Getafe 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.
There is a version of every career where the player ends up somewhere he chose rather than somewhere that chose him. Diego Rico is living that version at Getafe, and it tends to show in the first month.
The offer from TSG Hoffenheim for Martín Satriano 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.
He left as a boy and has come back still knowing where the away end is. Most signings have to be explained to a town; this one needed a photograph and nothing else.
The general version of this complaint is that a player wants more. The specific version names the thing: he wants to walk out under floodlights against clubs from other countries, and he has stopped pretending otherwise.
Squad10 Aug 2026
David Soria 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.
David Soria was at the centre of it, and by the time it was pulled apart there were three or four others involved. Training grounds are small places and long seasons make them smaller.
The general version of this complaint is that a player wants more. The specific version names the thing: he wants to walk out under floodlights against clubs from other countries, and he has stopped pretending otherwise.
“We keep meeting, and we keep leaving the room with the same numbers we walked in with.” Another round of talks at Getafe, another week without a signature from David Soria.