Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Alemão. 2‑0 against Getafe, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
Marked 8.07 — 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.
The training ground goes quiet for a fortnight. 5 men have gone off to be somebody else’s players, and the manager is left with the ones nobody has called.
Santiago Sala 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.
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 dugout31 Aug 2026
The manager’s verdict
“I am not going to get carried away and I will not let them either. It was a good day. There will be harder ones.” Ibai Lorenzo kept it short after the 2‑0 win, which is what managers do when they are happy.
Successful dribbles: 12. 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.
Rayo Vallecano asked and Córdoba said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
Santiago Sala 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.
“We were not good enough today and I am not going to dress it up.” Ibai Lorenzo after 1‑2, in the tone of a man who knows the next question and does not intend to answer it.
The shape wanted a different profile against this opponent, which is a real football answer and no comfort at all to the man it is about. He did nothing wrong and he did not play.
“If we are going to be beaten, let it not be because somebody in here could not be bothered.” He stood up and said it in front of everybody, which is a thing a squad remembers about a man for years.
The offer went to Spartak Moscow 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.
$11.7M was the most the club would pay and Valencia 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.
Rayo Vallecano asked and Sevilla 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 plan went upstairs and came back down. Nothing about that will make a headline anywhere else, and everybody who works at the training ground will remember it for years.
Unai López has done the arithmetic and does not like the answer. Nothing corrodes a squad faster, and no club has ever solved it by explaining the wage structure to a footballer.
A year in and the language has not come, the city has not opened up, and he eats alone more often than anybody at Rayo Vallecano would like to admit. It is showing on Saturdays.
The offer from Villarreal for Augusto Batalla 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.
Rayo Vallecano offered $11.7M; Betis 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.
Rayo Vallecano asked and Braga said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
“I know what people will say. I know what I want, and it is here.” Unionistas had the fee agreed and the shirt ready; they did not have the player, and now they will not.
“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.
Every dressing room knows how to read a signing like this one. Santiago Sala is not here to sit and wait indefinitely, and the man whose place he has been bought to take knows it better than anyone.
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Andrei Raţiu and Rayo Vallecano agree another 4 years.
Florian Lejeune 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.
Rayo Vallecano asked and Wolverhampton said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
Rayo Vallecano have gone to Güemes 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.
“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 Rayo Vallecano hears a sentence like that exactly as it was built.
It is the most legitimate ambition in the sport and the hardest for most clubs to satisfy. Augusto Batalla wants continental football; whether Rayo Vallecano can provide it is a question about the next two seasons, not about him.
The phone has started ringing about Luiz Felipe again, and this time the name on the line is Andorra. Rayo Vallecano are listening politely and promising nothing.
Rayo Vallecano have made the call to Girona. No fee, a share of the wages, and a spare shirt in the position where the squad has been thinnest all season.
In brief
Squad5 new faces, and Rayo Vallecano are still learning each other
The dugoutAndrei Raţiu knocks on the manager's door
SquadIván Balliu retires from international football