The board’s statement ran to three sentences and one of them mentioned results. Raúl Sanz has managed long enough to translate: win soon, or the next statement is shorter.
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.
Squad8 Feb 2027
Words at Oviedo training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Santi Cazorla 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.
Oviedo ran out of time with Deportivo La Coruña. The paperwork was open when the deadline passed, and a transfer that was almost done is now a transfer that never 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.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Oviedo this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
The dugout8 Feb 2027
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 0‑1 Raúl Sanz left the room before anybody could ask which.
A change in the dugout is not one story, it is twenty-five of them. This is David Carmo's: he was somebody's player, and now he has to be somebody else's, starting from nothing.
It has stopped being a mood in the stands and started being something organised. Boards can ignore a bad atmosphere for a long time; they cannot ignore this stage of it for very long at all.
Deportivo La Coruña have accepted the money. What Oviedo do not yet have is the man, and between here and the photograph is a conversation about wages that both sides are dreading.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Oviedo can pretend not to have heard.
The run now stands at 5, and the questions being asked around Oviedo are no longer polite ones.
Boardroom1 Feb 2027
Oviedo close the window on a squad of their own making
2 in and 1 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.
The clubs had agreed and the player had not. A snub, and a public one: Torino keep him, and the supporters here are left wondering what he had heard about the place.
Santi Cazorla 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 nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Oviedo can pretend not to have heard.
Successful dribbles: 27. 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 offer from Valladolid for Kwasi Sibo 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.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Oviedo have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
The deal with Torino 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.
David Carmo 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.
Squad25 Jan 2027
Santi Cazorla 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.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Andorra have kept their man, and Oviedo go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
Oviedo had done everything except persuade the man himself. He stays at Estoril Praia, and the manager goes back to the drawing board with the money still in the bank.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and David Carmo was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
1‑2 to Osasuna, and no complaints worth printing. The performance asked for nothing more than it got.
The dugout18 Jan 2027
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 1‑2 Raúl Sanz left the room before anybody could ask which.
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 Aarón Escandell is on 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 Oviedo this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Oviedo asked and Lecce said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
There is no fee, no unveiling and no agent on the steps. Marc Vera 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. Ibai Cabrera 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.
Squad11 Jan 2027
Words at Oviedo training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Santiago Colombatto 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 supporters are entitled to be angry. So am I. We will put it right.” 0‑2, a manager saying the necessary things, and a dressing room that heard a different version of them.
21 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Oviedo lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
Position 19 and 11 points, and the table gets read bottom-up in this part of town. The calendar has stopped being a schedule and started being a countdown.
David Carmo 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 Santi Cazorla 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.” Raúl Sanz after 0‑2, in the tone of a man who knows the next question and does not intend to answer it.
28 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Oviedo lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
Santi Cazorla 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.
Squad28 Dec 2026
David Carmo 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.
36 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Oviedo lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
A bone, which is the one injury with a calendar attached. Oviedo will name a return date and, unusually for this business, will probably be right about it.
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.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Santiago Colombatto was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
The dugout21 Dec 2026
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 Raúl Sanz left the room before anybody could ask which.
43 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Oviedo lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
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.
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 Oviedo this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
4 matches, no goals, and a training ground that has tried everything. It will end — droughts always do — but nobody at Oviedo can tell you which week it ends in.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Santi Cazorla was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
The academy exists for exactly this morning. Roberto Cano 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.
The academy exists for exactly this morning. José Romero 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.
52 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Oviedo lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 37 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
0‑4 to Real Madrid, 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.
3 matches, no goals, and a training ground that has tried everything. It will end — droughts always do — but nobody at Oviedo can tell you which week it ends in.
59 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Oviedo lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 44 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Oviedo have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Santi Cazorla 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.
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 team at the top of the table next, and the honest measure of where this side actually is. Anybody can beat the club below them; the question is what happens against Real Madrid.
The words a physio says slowly. 68 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.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Santi Cazorla was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
“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.
The dugout23 Nov 2026
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 Raúl Sanz to a room that had heard them before.
5 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.
Something was said to Mikel Goti and then it happened. In this industry that passes for remarkable, and the dressing room noticed faster than any supporter could.
The words a physio says slowly. 77 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 Oviedo this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad16 Nov 2026
Words at Oviedo training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. David Carmo 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 8.03 — 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.
“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 dugout16 Nov 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.” Raúl Sanz kept it short after the 1‑0 win, which is what managers do when they are happy.
85 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Oviedo lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Out, 0‑5 to Atlético Madrid, and the long argument about which of the small moments decided it. The league is all there is now, and everybody knows it.
Santi Cazorla 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 won it back and then made something of it, which is two jobs and the reason the scoreline looks the way it does. 12 combined actions and a mark of 6.99, and not one of them will make a highlights package.
There is no fee, no unveiling and no agent on the steps. Jesús Sánchez 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.
Clubs spend fortunes looking for players and occasionally find one down the corridor. Álvaro Núñez is that, and the reception he gets on his first appearance will be different in kind from the one any signing receives.
Squad9 Nov 2026
Words at Oviedo training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Nacho Vidal 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. 93 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.
David Carmo 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 Santiago Colombatto was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Successful dribbles: 17. 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.
It is not much of a headline and it is the reason players believe the next promise. Oviedo told Santi Cazorla something would happen and then it happened, which in this industry passes for remarkable.
“A point is a point and I will take it, but we should have had all three.” Raúl Sanz after the 0‑0 draw, and the sentence every manager in the country said at some stage this weekend.
The words a physio says slowly. 100 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.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Santi Cazorla was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Youness Lachhab 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.
Squad26 Oct 2026
22 new faces, and Oviedo 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.
A 1‑1 draw with Getafe leaves the dressing room somewhere between relief and regret.
The dugout26 Oct 2026
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.” Raúl Sanz chose the glass-half-full version of 1‑1; the supporters left with the other one.
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.
In brief
The dugoutIlyas Chaira knocks on the manager’s door
108 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Oviedo lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
10 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.
6 games without scoring. Strikers stop looking up, midfielders take the extra touch, and every shot that clears the bar is followed by a groan that has been building since the last goal.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Oviedo this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Successful dribbles: 21. There was always a defender in front of him and there was never a defender in front of him for long.
Squad19 Oct 2026
Words at Oviedo training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Santiago Colombatto 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 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 Aarón Escandell is on it.
115 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Oviedo lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
5 matches, no goals, and a training ground that has tried everything. It will end — droughts always do — but nobody at Oviedo can tell you which week it ends in.
Santi Cazorla 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.
Clubs spend fortunes looking for players and occasionally find one down the corridor. Gabriel Méndez is that, and the reception he gets on his first appearance will be different in kind from the one any signing receives.
The academy exists for exactly this morning. José Navarro 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.
Squad12 Oct 2026
Words at Oviedo training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Santiago Colombatto 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.
8 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.
Aarón Escandell 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.
4 matches, no goals, and a training ground that has tried everything. It will end — droughts always do — but nobody at Oviedo can tell you which week it ends in.
Squad5 Oct 2026
Words at Oviedo training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Santi Cazorla 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 club 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 it has been tried.
The dugout5 Oct 2026
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 Raúl Sanz to a room that had heard them before.
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.
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.
200 games in the shirt. Nobody sets out to build a record like that; it happens to a certain kind of player at a certain kind of club, and this town knows what it has.
20 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.
“We were not good enough today and I am not going to dress it up.” Raúl Sanz after 0‑2, in the tone of a man who knows the next question and does not intend to answer it.
A shoot-out is remembered by its ending, and this one ends with Aarón Escandell: 2 kept out, and a set of supporters who will describe every one of them for the next twenty years.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Oviedo this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Successful dribbles: 24. 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 run now stands at 4, and the questions being asked around Oviedo are no longer polite ones.
Squad14 Sep 2026
Words at Oviedo training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Santi Cazorla 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 fee, no unveiling and no agent on the steps. Víctor Medina 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.
There is no fee, no unveiling and no agent on the steps. Rubén Castillo 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 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.
In brief
The dugoutÓscar Whalley knocks on the manager's door
Almería wanted more than $14.9M and the board would not go there. Walked away, for now, which in a transfer window means until somebody blinks.
Boardroom7 Sep 2026
Deadline passes with 21 signed and 0 gone
That is the business done at Oviedo until the window opens again. Whether it was enough will be answered on Saturdays rather than in a column, and the first Saturday is close.
The offer from Stade Brestois for Leo González 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.
Oviedo ran out of time with Talleres. The paperwork was open when the deadline passed, and a transfer that was almost done is now a transfer that never happened.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Santi Cazorla was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Almería have kept their man, and Oviedo go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
Oviedo have gone to Almería 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 clubs have shaken hands with Talleres; the player has not yet. Personal terms are next, and personal terms are where more deals die than anybody prints.
Successful dribbles: 28. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
Squad31 Aug 2026
David Carmo 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 phone has started ringing about Leo González again, and this time the name on the line is Stade Brestois. Oviedo are listening politely and promising nothing.
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 Oviedo this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad24 Aug 2026
Words at Oviedo training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Santi Cazorla 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.” Raúl Sanz after 0‑4, in the tone of a man who knows the next question and does not intend to answer it.
Santi Cazorla 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 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.
He used to wear the other shirt. On Saturday he plays against Barcelona in this one, and whatever he says this week about it being just another game will be untrue.
Numbers do not stay secret in a dressing room and never have. He is not asking for more than he is worth; he is asking why somebody beside him is worth more, and at Oviedo that is a harder question to answer.
The offer from Málaga for Ovie Ejaria 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 no fee, no unveiling and no agent on the steps. Leo González 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. Héctor Torres 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. Biel Rubio is that, and the reception he gets on his first appearance will be different in kind from the one any signing receives.
Squad10 Aug 2026
A muscle injury sidelines Álvaro Lemos for 16 days
Nobody makes a documentary about a hamstring and everybody in the game fears one. Oviedo will be careful with the return date, because the second one is always worse than the first.
Aarón Escandell 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 Santi Cazorla was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Arsenal have kept their man, and Oviedo go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
“We keep meeting, and we keep leaving the room with the same numbers we walked in with.” Another round of talks at Oviedo, another week without a signature from Santi Cazorla.
36 months left and silence from upstairs — no offer, no talks, nothing for his people to answer. Clubs that let a calendar do their negotiating usually end up negotiating with the calendar.
13 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.