Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 43 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
Deportivo La Coruña go through and Girona go home, 0‑1 the scoreline that did it. The dressing room will call the league the priority now, because that is what dressing rooms say.
Headers, blocks, tackles, interceptions — 30 of them, and not one goal behind him. The sort of performance that never makes a highlight reel and wins football matches.
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.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Girona this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
21 times he got in the way of something. Centre-halves get written about when they make mistakes and ignored when they do not, so an afternoon like this needs saying out loud: he is the reason the scoreline reads as it does.
There is a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 21-year-old it feels ownership of. Vladyslav Krapyvtsov 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.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 50 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
“I want to win things, and I would like to do it here.” Nothing has been demanded and nothing has been threatened — but a boardroom at Girona hears a sentence like that exactly as it was built.
Portu 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 9.19 — 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.
8.86. 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 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.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Girona will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
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.
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.
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.
Squad19 Oct 2026
Josías Palais 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.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 75 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the team. 8 saves, several of them the sort nobody expects to see stopped, and a scoreline that flatters everybody in front of him.
At 40 he is supposed to be managing his minutes. Instead he was marked 8.19 and looked, for ninety minutes, exactly like the player everybody remembers.
Bryan Gil 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.
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Ricard Artero is 23, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
15 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.
14 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. 84 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
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.
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.
Iván Martín 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.
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Vladyslav Krapyvtsov is 21, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 93 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 Girona this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Successful dribbles: 19. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
Squad28 Sep 2026
The manager has not finished forgetting Paulo Gazzaniga's mistake
Publicly it is behind everybody. It is not behind the man who picks the team, and the only place that shows is a team sheet. He will get another chance; he will get it in a match that matters less.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Girona will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
It is a specific kind of quiet, a ground watching a winning position dissolve. Rayo Vallecano kept coming because nothing stopped them, and Girona will be asked about the last half hour all week.
The hardest thing about being 20 in a senior side is that nobody makes allowances. Claudio Echeverri did not need any: 8.69, and he looked the most comfortable man on the pitch.
Viktor Tsygankov 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 ratings21 Sep 2026
Abel Ruiz was on a different afternoon to everybody else
9.18. 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 a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 20-year-old it feels ownership of. Claudio Echeverri 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.
Successful dribbles: 17. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Squad21 Sep 2026
Words at Girona training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Donny van de Beek 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.
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.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Girona will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
Footballers are asked about their boyhood club so often that nobody listens to the answer. Niklas Tauer has just signed for Girona, and for once the answer mattered.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Girona 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. 116 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
At 36 he is supposed to be managing his minutes. Instead he was marked 9.32 and looked, for ninety minutes, exactly like the player everybody remembers.
The offer from Levante for Vladyslav Krapyvtsov 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.
Headers, blocks, tackles, interceptions — 24 of them, and not one goal behind him. The sort of performance that never makes a highlight reel and wins football matches.
Player ratings7 Sep 2026
Abel Ruiz was on a different afternoon to everybody else
9.36. There are performances a supporter describes to somebody who was not there and cannot quite convey; this was one, and the number does not help either.
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.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 125 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
Add another name to the list: Andorra have asked the question everybody in the game has been asking about Vladyslav Krapyvtsov. The answer from Girona has not changed — yet.
The ambition story running the other way, and the one nobody tells: a footballer asking for a smaller stage, fewer cameras and a crowd that does not turn. It is not weakness and it is very rarely reported as anything else.
In brief
SquadWords at Girona training over how hard people work
The hardest thing about being 20 in a senior side is that nobody makes allowances. Claudio Echeverri did not need any: 8.25, and he looked the most comfortable man on the pitch.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Girona this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
There is a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 20-year-old it feels ownership of. Claudio Echeverri 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.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Girona 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.
There is no fee, no unveiling and no agent on the steps. Oihan Moya has been at this club since he was a boy and is now, formally, one of the first-team squad — which for a local readership beats any signing of any size.
The academy exists for exactly this morning. Pol Martínez has come through every age group the club runs and has now been handed a senior number, and the people who coached him at twelve will be the proudest in the building.
Clubs spend fortunes looking for players and occasionally find one down the corridor. Sergio Suárez is that, and the reception he gets on his first appearance will be different in kind from the one any signing receives.
“I watch every Girona game from here. That says everything about where my head is.” The loan at Real Madrid runs its course, but his heart never made the trip.
Squad17 Aug 2026
Words at Girona training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Josías Palais 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 quietest way a club tells you what its ambitions are. The money was asked for, the money was refused, and the people who work there every day now know exactly where they stand.
The offer from Mirandés for Vladyslav Krapyvtsov was heard out and sent back the same day. First bids are rarely meant to succeed; they are meant to find out how loudly the door closes.
There is a version of every career where the player ends up somewhere he chose rather than somewhere that chose him. Mateo Benegas is living that version at Girona, 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 Girona this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Josías Palais is 20, and Girona have signed him for the player he will be rather than the one he is. The first team can wait; the point of a deal like this is the years it buys.
Mateo Benegas is 20, and Girona have signed him for the player he will be rather than the one he is. The first team can wait; the point of a deal like this is the years it buys.
“I want to win things, and I would like to do it here.” Nothing has been demanded and nothing has been threatened — but a boardroom at Girona hears a sentence like that exactly as it was built.
Viktor Tsygankov 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.