“I want to be playing for trophies while my legs still let me.” Nothing in that sentence is a transfer request, and nobody at Gijón heard it as anything else.
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.
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.
The goal that put Albacete ahead was still being replayed on the concourse when Gijón equalised, 3 minutes later. Leads are only worth what you do with them.
Manu Rodríguez 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.
22 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.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Jonathan Dubasin 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.
Player ratings26 Oct 2026
César Gelabert was on a different afternoon to everybody else
9.08. 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.
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.
It is the most legitimate ambition in the sport and the hardest for most clubs to satisfy. Facundo Pons wants continental football; whether Gijón can provide it is a question about the next two seasons, not about him.
Player ratings26 Oct 2026
Andrés Ferrari was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.32. 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.
Facundo Pons 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 was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Gijón this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 19 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.
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 24 the improving is meant to be over. It is not: 3 points better than the mark taken at the start of the year, which is the sort of thing that happens to players who take the boring parts of the job seriously.
“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 Gijón, and it is not being withdrawn.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Gijón this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
“Some mornings you wake up and you are still a long way from everything you know.” It is not the football and it never was; Gijón are dealing with a man who wants a different country.
Squad12 Oct 2026
Luca Moro 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 version of this player everybody suspected was in there, and on this evidence it is. 9.29, and no argument anywhere in the ground.
Player ratings12 Oct 2026
César Gelabert was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.66. 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.
Manu Rodríguez, 20, plays like he has been here for years — 8.74
A mark of 8.74 means one thing beside a twenty-nine-year-old's name and something else entirely beside a 20-year-old's. Nobody at the ground needed telling which this was.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Gijón this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
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 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.
There is a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 20-year-old it feels ownership of. Manu Rodríguez 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 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.
In brief
The terracesEverybody has an opinion about Àlex Corredera
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.
Headers, blocks, tackles, interceptions — 28 of them, and not one goal behind him. The sort of performance that never makes a highlight reel and wins football matches.
César Gelabert 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.
Squad28 Sep 2026
Luca Moro 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.
Cultural Leonesa go through and Gijón go home, 2‑2 the scoreline that did it. The dressing room will call the league the priority now, because that is what dressing rooms say.
It is a specific kind of quiet, a ground watching a winning position dissolve. Cultural Leonesa kept coming because nothing stopped them, and Gijón will be asked about the last half hour all 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 Gijón this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Two or more conceded in each of the last 5 matches. It is not one mistake repeating itself, which would be the easier thing to fix; it is a different one every week.
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Andrés Cuenca is 19, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Luca Moro 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.
Two goals and a mark of 9.12 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.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Jonathan Dubasin 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 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.
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.
Marked 8.87 — 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.
Manu Rodríguez 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.
It needed César Gelabert to find the net to bring anything home at all: 2‑2 against Deportivo La Coruña, and half the dressing room will call it a point won.
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. César Gelabert provided it, and the 9.01 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
1 for Lucas Perrin, marked 7.78, 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.
Defending was optional and nobody took up the option. 6 goals between Gijón and Granada, and not one of the people who paid to be there will ask for the money back.
It is the most legitimate ambition in the sport and the hardest for most clubs to satisfy. Facundo Pons wants continental football; whether Gijón can provide it is a question about the next two seasons, not about him.
Facundo Pons 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.
3‑3, and both dressing rooms will call it two points lost. A draw that asked plenty of questions and answered none of them.
Squad31 Aug 2026
The manager has not finished forgetting Rubén Yáñez'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.
An error at the back is a moment; an error in goal is a goal. Rubén Yáñez knows it, the crowd knew it instantly, and there was nobody behind him to make it anything else.
Àlex Corredera 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 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.
César Gelabert 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 had been thinking. Jonathan Dubasin 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.
2 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.
The academy exists for exactly this morning. Pablo Blanco 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. Diego Gil 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.
“I want to be playing for trophies while my legs still let me.” Nothing in that sentence is a transfer request, and nobody at Gijón heard it as anything else.
César Gelabert 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.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and César Gelabert trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
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.
“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.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Gijón this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.