Dinko Horkaš 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.
Careers are supposed to plateau and then decline, and the players who ignore that are always the ones who were listening on the training ground. 3 points of it, over months, at an age where the direction normally only goes one way.
“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 The request is on a desk at Las Palmas, and it is not being withdrawn.
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Jeremía Recoba is 23, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Las Palmas this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
“I have given everything here and I need a new challenge.” The request is formal, and the relationship will never be quite the same again.
Squad5 Jul 2027
Words at Las Palmas training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Enrique Clemente 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.
Manu Fuster 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.
26 games, 1 goals, and a squad option that has arrived without a fee attached. The interesting question at Las Palmas now is not whether he plays but who he displaces.
None of them will be seen by anybody outside the training ground for three years, most of them will never play a senior match, and one of them might change the club. That is the whole proposition, and it is why academies exist.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Las Palmas can pretend not to have heard.
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 23 he is doing things at this level he could not do at the start of the season, and the coaching staff will tell you exactly which of them.
“I remember the meeting. I remember exactly what was promised in it.” Las Palmas may remember it differently, which is precisely the problem.
Squad28 Jun 2027
Words at Las Palmas training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Sergio Barcia 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.
Careers are supposed to plateau and then decline, and the players who ignore that are always the ones who were listening on the training ground. 3 points of it, over months, at an age where the direction normally only goes one way.
26 appearances and 1 goals away from here, and a player the manager did not have in August. Loans are sent out hoping for exactly this and most of them do not deliver it.
Paris Saint-Germain paid $24.0M and Las Palmas took it, which is the whole story in one sentence. The longer version involves a wage budget and will be told all season.
He is going to Paris Saint-Germain, the club has $24.0M 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.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Las Palmas this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad21 Jun 2027
Enzo Loiodice has improved at 26, which nobody expected
Careers are supposed to plateau and then decline, and the players who ignore that are always the ones who were listening on the training ground. 3 points of it, over months, at an age where the direction normally only goes one way.
The phone has started ringing about Iñaki González again, and this time the name on the line is Deportivo La Coruña. Las Palmas are listening politely and promising nothing.
There are footballers who have a good season and footballers a season is remembered for, and the second kind get their names read out in a hall in the summer. Las Palmas will be quietly delighted and privately nervous.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Las Palmas this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Nobody at Las Palmas will say this on the record and the team sheets have been saying it for weeks. There is a small group in every squad who get picked when the fixture is difficult, and he has joined it.
The hardest thing about being 21 in a senior side is that nobody makes allowances. Zino Sneijer did not need any: 7.74, and he looked the most comfortable man on the pitch.
Add another name to the list: Paris Saint-Germain have asked the question everybody in the game has been asking about Kirian. The answer from Las Palmas 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 Las Palmas, and it is not being withdrawn.
137 appearances across 8 seasons in one shirt. Nobody builds a career like that on purpose any more; it happens to a certain kind of footballer at a certain kind of club.
“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 Las Palmas hears a sentence like that exactly as it was built.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Las Palmas this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Two goals and a mark of 9.39 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Las Palmas this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
There is a particular helplessness in conceding 2 times before the twentieth minute. Real Sociedad B tried to reorganise, Las Palmas did not allow it, and the result was written long before it was confirmed.
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.
In brief
The terracesThe press have found their man in Enzo Loiodice
Dinko Horkaš was at the centre of it, and by the time it was pulled apart there were three or four others involved. Training grounds are small places and long seasons make them smaller.
Squad24 May 2027
Sergio Barcia falls out with a teammate over standards
The oldest argument in any dressing room and the only one that is genuinely about football: one man thinks another is not putting enough in. It is also the row a manager privately does not mind having happened.
There is a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 23-year-old it feels ownership of. Estanis Pedrola 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.
Player ratings24 May 2027
Kirian was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.82. 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.
12 goals and a season average of 7.50 will do that. The space he used to find has gone; he keeps scoring anyway, which is the mark of the real thing.
Squad17 May 2027
Words at Las Palmas training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Sergio Barcia 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.
Headers, blocks, tackles, interceptions — 20 of them, and not one goal behind him. The sort of performance that never makes a highlight reel and wins football matches.
17 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.
Two goals and a mark of 9.01 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the team. 6 saves, several of them the sort nobody expects to see stopped, and a scoreline that flatters everybody in front of him.
Cultural Leonesa made Las Palmas work for it, but the scoreboard read 3‑1 at the end and the table does not ask how.
Player ratings10 May 2027
Sergio Barcia was on a different afternoon to everybody else
9.09. 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.
10 goals and a season average of 7.43. Form like that gets noticed well beyond this town.
Squad3 May 2027
Words at Las Palmas training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Sergio Barcia 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 22-year-old it feels ownership of. Iker Bravo 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.
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.
Enrique Clemente 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.
Squad26 Apr 2027
Sergio Barcia 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 Las Palmas this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
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.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Las Palmas this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad12 Apr 2027
Words at Las Palmas training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Sergio Barcia 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.
Marked 8.04 — 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.
Dinko Horkaš 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. Zino Sneijer is 21, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
Squad5 Apr 2027
Sergio Barcia 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.
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.
19 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.
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Kirian, and the manager let it.
Squad29 Mar 2027
Álvaro Lemos 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.
8.08. There are performances a supporter describes to somebody who was not there and cannot quite convey; this was one, and the number does not help either.
Nobody will confirm this and nothing else explains the last month of selections. A costly error buys a player a period of being second choice that is always longer than the error was.
“I watch every Las Palmas game from here. That says everything about where my head is.” The loan at Málaga runs its course, but his heart never made the trip.
There was one mistake and it ended in the net. Defenders are judged on the worst thing they did rather than on the eighty-nine minutes either side of it, which is unfair and is also the job.
Successful dribbles: 29. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Squad22 Mar 2027
Sergio Barcia 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.
8.25. 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.
Zino Sneijer 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.
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.
27 times he got in the way of something. Centre-halves get written about when they make mistakes and ignored when they do not, so an afternoon like this needs saying out loud: he is the reason the scoreline reads as it does.
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.
Squad15 Mar 2027
Words at Las Palmas training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Sergio Barcia 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 22-year-old it feels ownership of. Iker Bravo 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.
Nobody at Las Palmas will say this on the record and the team sheets have been saying it for weeks. There is a small group in every squad who get picked when the fixture is difficult, and he has joined it.
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.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Las Palmas this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
7 attempts, none of them in. He got into the right places all afternoon, which is the hard part, and did the easy part badly — and that is the version of a bad day a manager can live 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 Las Palmas can pretend not to have heard.
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.
Sergio Barcia 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 am grateful for the games, but I did not become a footballer to be somebody else's spare part.” He wants to be at Las Palmas, and 2 appearances in 6 say he has earned the hearing.
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.
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.
Dinko Horkaš 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.
Squad22 Feb 2027
Sergio Barcia 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.
Sergio Barcia 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 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.
Shots: 9. Goals: none. The chances were there and they were good ones, and they went into the stand, the goalkeeper's arms and the side netting in roughly that order.
Las Palmas spent the window trying to move Viti Rozada on and nobody came. He trains with a squad that has already told him he is not part of it, and both sides now wait for the next one.
10 goals and a season average of 7.49. Form like that gets noticed well beyond this town.
Squad8 Feb 2027
Sergio Barcia 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.
“Nobody here is above being told.” It was not said with a name attached, but the dressing room can count, and so can everybody who was listening.
Player ratings8 Feb 2027
Kirian was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.77. 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.
“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 Las Palmas hears a sentence like that exactly as it was built.
6 games unbeaten now. Some were earned and some were survived, but a habit is forming — and habits are the hardest thing in football to play against.
Squad1 Feb 2027
Words at Las Palmas training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Sergio Barcia 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.
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.
Headers, blocks, tackles, interceptions — 31 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. 7 saves, several of them the sort nobody expects to see stopped, and a scoreline that flatters everybody in front of him.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Las Palmas can pretend not to have heard.
26 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.
24 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.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Las Palmas this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Player ratings25 Jan 2027
Iker Bravo was on a different afternoon to everybody else
9.30. 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.
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.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Las Palmas this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
9 goals and a season average of 7.45 will do that. The space he used to find has gone; he keeps scoring anyway, which is the mark of the real thing.
Squad18 Jan 2027
Words at Las Palmas training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Sergio Barcia 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.
Enrique Clemente 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.
Squad11 Jan 2027
Sergio Barcia 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.
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.
17 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.
He has had enough of the noise. Whether Las Palmas can be a quieter place for him, or whether the only cure is a move somewhere the phone-ins are gentler, is a question for the next few months.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the team. 11 saves, several of them the sort nobody expects to see stopped, and a scoreline that flatters everybody in front of him.
There are footballers who have a good season and footballers a season is remembered for, and the second kind get their names read out in a hall in the summer. Las Palmas will be quietly delighted and privately nervous.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Las Palmas this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Iker Bravo, 21, plays like he has been here for years — 8.30
A mark of 8.30 means one thing beside a twenty-nine-year-old's name and something else entirely beside a 21-year-old's. Nobody at the ground needed telling which this was.
Dinko Horkaš 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 a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 22 he is doing things at this level he could not do at the start of the season, and the coaching staff will tell you exactly which of them.
Squad28 Dec 2026
Sergio Barcia 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.
Two or more conceded in each of the last 4 matches. It is not one mistake repeating itself, which would be the easier thing to fix; it is a different one every week.
There is a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 21-year-old it feels ownership of. Iker Bravo 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.
1 for Sergio Barcia, marked 7.74, and a centre-half's name in the part of the report he normally only reaches by mistake. He will not be allowed to forget it in the dressing room for a month.
Marked 9.39 — 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.
9 home matches unbeaten. Visiting sides arrive already talking about the atmosphere, which is usually the sign that they have half-lost before kickoff.
There is a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 23-year-old it feels ownership of. Ale García 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.
Marked 8.63 — 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.
2 goals inside twenty minutes with Sergio Barcia in the middle of it, and Cultural Leonesa unable to get near the ball long enough to change anything. Some matches are won before the first drink.
6 matches now without a victory, and the excuses have worn thinner than the patience. Somebody at Las Palmas has to find a result from somewhere.
The terraces7 Dec 2026
The boos come down from three sides
“We pay for this every fortnight. The least we want is somebody who looks like he cares.” 6 of the 26 senior players walked off into it; the rest were not playing.
Successful dribbles: 23. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
Squad7 Dec 2026
Words at Las Palmas training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Sergio Barcia 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 Las Palmas this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Enrique Clemente 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 without defeat on their own grass. The pitch has not changed; the crowd has — louder earlier, and quicker to sense when the opposition would rather be somewhere else.
5 goals and a season average of 7.31 will do that. The space he used to find has gone; he keeps scoring anyway, which is the mark of the real thing.
Squad30 Nov 2026
Álex Suárez 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.
8 attempts, none of them in. He got into the right places all afternoon, which is the hard part, and did the easy part badly — and that is the version of a bad day a manager can live with.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the team. 12 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.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Las Palmas this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
7 goals and a season average of 7.45 will do that. The space he used to find has gone; he keeps scoring anyway, which is the mark of the real thing.
Player ratings23 Nov 2026
Enzo Loiodice was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.95. 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.
Marked 8.73. Players have careers without a single afternoon like this in them, and he has just had one in front of everybody at Las Palmas.
Squad23 Nov 2026
The manager has not finished forgetting Enrique Clemente'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.
2 goals to the good, and then a slow surrender of everything that had been earned. Manu Fuster will not be the one blamed for it, but nobody at Las Palmas escapes the conversation that follows a collapse like this.
Dinko Horkaš 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.
Squad16 Nov 2026
Sergio Barcia 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.
A defender's mistake gets tidied up by somebody else; a goalkeeper's ends up in the net. He knew before the ball crossed the line, and so did everybody in the ground.
Marked 8.27 — 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.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Las Palmas this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
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.
8.36. 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.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Las Palmas have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
“I have ambitions, and I would like the club to share them.” Nobody has asked to leave and nobody has been shown the door — but a player chooses that sentence carefully, and a boardroom hears it exactly as it was meant.
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Kirian. 5‑3 against Andorra, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
Marked 10.00 — 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.
Defending was optional and nobody took up the option. 8 goals between Las Palmas and Andorra, and not one of the people who paid to be there will ask for the money back.
Marked 9.25 — 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.
Marked 9.02 — 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.
There is a version of this player everybody suspected was in there, and on this evidence it is. 8.82, and no argument anywhere in the ground.
Squad26 Oct 2026
Words at Las Palmas training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Sergio Barcia 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 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.
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Kirian. 3‑2 against Gijón, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Las Palmas this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Marked 9.14. Players have careers without a single afternoon like this in them, and he has just had one in front of everybody at Las Palmas.
Player ratings19 Oct 2026
Enzo Loiodice was on a different afternoon to everybody else
9.00. 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.
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.
The words a physio says slowly. 20 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 Las Palmas this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Adrián Suárez is 21, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
28 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Las Palmas lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 22 he is doing things at this level he could not do at the start of the season, and the coaching staff will tell you exactly which of them.
Enrique Clemente 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.
It finished 1‑0, and it was Kirian’s afternoon: on the scoresheet when it mattered, and the reason the points belong to Las Palmas.
Boardroom5 Oct 2026
129% of the income goes out in wages at Las Palmas
Every club in football pays most of what it earns to its players. Paying nearly all of it is a different arrangement, and it has ended the same way every time somebody has tried it.
35 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Las Palmas lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Las Palmas this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Sergio Barcia. 2‑1 against Málaga, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
Marked 8.43. Players have careers without a single afternoon like this in them, and he has just had one in front of everybody at Las Palmas.
Squad28 Sep 2026
Words at Las Palmas training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Álex Suárez 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.
42 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Las Palmas lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
A shoot-out is remembered by its ending, and this one ends with Dinko Horkaš: 1 kept out, and a set of supporters who will describe every one of them for the next twenty years.
At 33 he is supposed to be managing his minutes. Instead he was marked 7.83 and looked, for ninety minutes, exactly like the player everybody remembers.
Dinko Horkaš 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.
23 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.
49 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Las Palmas lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
The 86th minute, half the ground already edging towards the exits, and Sebastián Cocimano decided nobody was going anywhere. Ceuta had no time left to answer.
Ceuta made Las Palmas work for it, but the scoreboard read 2‑1 at the end and the table does not ask how.
Squad14 Sep 2026
Words at Las Palmas training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Sergio Barcia 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 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
MarketThe window shut and Iñaki González is still in the building
The terracesThe press have found their man in Enzo Loiodice
56 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Las Palmas lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Everything was agreed until it was not, and Adrián Suárez reports back to Las Palmas with a summer to forget. Neither club is saying who walked away from the table.
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Adrián Suárez is 21, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
“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 Las Palmas, and it is not being withdrawn.
Sergio Barcia 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.
Castellón made Las Palmas work for it, but the scoreboard read 2‑0 at the end and the table does not ask how.
Player ratings31 Aug 2026
Manu Fuster was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.31. 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.
“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 Las Palmas, and it is not being withdrawn.
Enrique Clemente 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.
A performance of 8.43 does not come along often, and when it does the rest of the team becomes scenery. He was magnificent.
Squad24 Aug 2026
Sergio Barcia 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.
Footballers are asked about their boyhood club so often that nobody listens to the answer. Álvaro Lemos has just signed for Las Palmas, 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 Las Palmas this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
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.
Boardroom17 Aug 2026
1 academy players handed senior numbers at Las Palmas
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.
There is no fee, no unveiling and no agent on the steps. David Santana 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.
Footballers are asked about their boyhood club so often that nobody listens to the answer. Sebastián Cocimano has just signed for Las Palmas, and for once the answer mattered.
This is not cover and nobody is pretending it is. $660.0K has been paid because Sebastián Cocimano is straightforwardly better than what was already here, and the club has decided to stop waiting.
127 appearances across 8 seasons in one shirt. Nobody builds a career like that on purpose any more; it happens to a certain kind of footballer at a certain kind of club.
“I have ambitions, and I would like the club to share them.” Nobody has asked to leave and nobody has been shown the door — but a player chooses that sentence carefully, and a boardroom hears it exactly as it was meant.