Two goals and a mark of 8.35 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 Gijón this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Hugo Guillamón 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 23-year-old it feels ownership of. Andrés Ferrari 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.
Conceding is one thing; the response is what tells you about a dressing room. César Gelabert had Gijón level again within 2 minutes, and Andorra never got to play with a lead at all.
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Àlex Corredera, and the manager let it.
Squad16 Nov 2026
7 new faces, and Gijón 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.
Successful dribbles: 32. There was always a defender in front of him and there was never a defender in front of him for long.
Player ratings9 Nov 2026
A brace, and Alejo Sarco takes the afternoon — 8.25
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Alejo Sarco provided it, and the 8.25 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the whole of the defence. 7 saves, several of them the kind nobody expects to see made, and ten outfield players who owe him a drink.
“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.
6 goals. Both benches spent the second half looking at each other rather than at the pitch. Purists will complain about Gijón and Girona in equal measure; everybody else had a wonderful time.
He won it back and then made something of it, which is two jobs and the reason the scoreline looks the way it does. 14 combined actions and a mark of 7.29, and not one of them will make a highlights package.
0‑3 to Albacete, 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.
“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.
Footballers are asked about their boyhood club so often that nobody listens to the answer. Manuel Monzeglio has just signed for Gijón, and for once the answer mattered.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Hugo Guillamón 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.” Javier Gallardo after 0‑3, in the tone of a man who knows the next question and does not intend to answer it.
Successful dribbles: 15. 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.
In brief
The dugoutSomebody else is better right now than Vicente Guaita
The dugoutThe manager has not finished forgetting Emanuel Gularte's mistake
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Hugo Guillamón 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 goals inside twenty minutes with César Gelabert in the middle of it, and Zaragoza unable to get near the ball long enough to change anything. Some matches are won before the first drink.
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.
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.
6 goals. Both benches spent the second half looking at each other rather than at the pitch. Purists will complain about Gijón and Las Palmas in equal measure; everybody else had a wonderful time.
It is the most legitimate ambition in the sport and the hardest for most clubs to satisfy. Alejo Sarco wants continental football; whether Gijón can provide it is a question about the next two seasons, not about him.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Emanuel Gularte was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
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.
It is not a grievance and it is not a demand: he wants to play continental football, and he has stopped hiding it. Whether Gijón can give him that is a question about the club, not about him.
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. Hugo Guillamón 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 academy exists for exactly this morning. Alejandro Castillo 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.
“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.
In brief
Squad19 new faces, and Gijón are still learning each other
The dugoutVicente Guaita dropped after a run of poor form
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 general version of this complaint is that a player wants more. The specific version names the thing: he wants to walk out under floodlights against clubs from other countries, and he has stopped pretending otherwise.
César Gelabert 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 had been thinking. Hugo Guillamón 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 team sheet says it in public every week until it changes. The only version of being dropped a footballer cannot argue with, and the one he takes hardest.
“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 dugout5 Oct 2026
The manager has not finished forgetting Emanuel Gularte'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.
The system has changed and his position has not. A footballer can improve his form; he cannot improve the manager’s formation, and that is the whole of the problem.
“A point is a point and I will take it, but we should have had all three.” Javier Gallardo after the 0‑0 draw, and the sentence every manager in the country said at some stage this weekend.
He is 23 and the ground already sings his name, which is a thing that happens to local boys and almost never to signings. Everything from here is measured against an affection he did nothing to earn except be from here.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Emanuel Gularte was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
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.
“The players deserve the credit. My job was easy today.” It was not, and everybody in the room knew it; after 1‑0, Javier Gallardo could afford to be generous.
A 2‑1 win over Cultural Leonesa, a place in the next round, and the quiet arithmetic every supporter does on the walk home: how many more until a final?
Player ratings21 Sep 2026
Alejo Sarco, 20, plays like he has been here for years — 8.27
A mark of 8.27 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.
At 35 he is supposed to be managing his minutes. Instead he was marked 8.37 and looked, for ninety minutes, exactly like the player everybody remembers.
“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 Gijón 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 Gijón this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Successful dribbles: 22. 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.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Hugo Guillamón was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
He is 20 and the ground already sings his name, which is a thing that happens to local boys and almost never to signings. Everything from here is measured against an affection he did nothing to earn except be from here.
A defender on the scoresheet, which happens rarely enough that everybody in the ground remembers who took the corner. 1 for him, and a mark of 7.19 for the rest of it.
1 for Nacho Martín, marked 7.50, 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.
“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.
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.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Hugo Guillamón 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. Iván Torres 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.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Pumas UNAM have kept their man, and Gijón go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
Boardroom7 Sep 2026
Deadline passes with 27 signed and 2 gone
That is the business done at Gijón 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.
César Gelabert 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.
A 1‑0 win over Deportivo La Coruña, earned rather than given, and the sort of afternoon that sends everyone home talking about next week instead of this one.
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.
This is not cover and nobody is pretending it is. $11.8M has been paid because Grady Diangana is straightforwardly better than what was already here, and the club has decided to stop waiting.
Successful dribbles: 31. 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.
1 for Nacho Martín, marked 7.79, 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.
Every footballer has an answer to the question about his boyhood club, and most of them never get to act on it. Gianluca Valdiviezo has, at Gijón, and the first month will show what that does to a man.
Gijón had done everything except persuade the man himself. He stays at Empoli, and the manager goes back to the drawing board with the money still in the bank.
Vicente Guaita 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.
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 kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Andrés Ferrari provided it, and the 8.85 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
Colón have accepted the money. What Gijón 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 Gijón can pretend not to have heard.
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.
Gijón have gone to Kashiwa Reysol 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.
Gijón had done everything except persuade the man himself. He stays at Bournemouth, and the manager goes back to the drawing board with the money still in the bank.
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.
Gijón offered $190.0K; Málaga 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.
Gijón asked and Club Brugge said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Emanuel Gularte was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
The clubs have settled the fee and he has settled his wages. What remains is a medical and a photograph, and around Gijón people have started saying his name in the past tense.
“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.
Terms were offered and declined. Whether it was the wages, the role or the town, nobody at Venezia is saying, and nobody at Gijón is enjoying the guessing.
The offer went to Málaga 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.
The academy exists for exactly this morning. Daniel Méndez 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 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.
Add another name to the list: Ludogorets have asked the question everybody in the game has been asking about Juan Otero. The answer from Gijón has not changed — yet.
César Gelabert 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 Hugo Guillamón was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Still no offer on the table, and Hugo Guillamón’s deal keeps shrinking. In boardroom language, silence this long stops being an oversight and starts being an answer.
6 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.
In brief
The dugoutCésar Gelabert asks for a word with the manager