Marc Cucurella 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 rules permit it and it stings anyway. Bruno Brígido has agreed terms with Real Sociedad for the summer, and until then he pulls on this shirt as a player who has already chosen his next one.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Valencia is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Hugo Duro 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.
Squad8 Oct 2029
5 new faces, and Valencia 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.
“I want to be playing for trophies while my legs still let me.” Nothing in that sentence is a transfer request, and nobody at Valencia heard it as anything else.
Marc Cucurella 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.
10 combined actions and 7.17. The job he did is the one that shows up as other people looking good, and the only reliable way to notice it is to watch what happens on the afternoons he is missing.
The dugout1 Oct 2029
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 Interim Coach to a room that had heard them before.
“I have given this everything, but my family is not here and neither am I, not really.” A footballer can be coached out of bad form. Nobody has ever been coached out of this, and Valencia know it.
“I was told straight, and I would rather have it straight.” The manager at Valencia has been clear about where Luciano Gómez stands, which is more than many ever get.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Valencia is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Valencia this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad24 Sep 2029
Words at Valencia training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Marc Cucurella 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 approach has gone in and the answer belongs to El-Kanemi Warriors. Business like this is done quietly and reported loudly, and rarely in that order.
The injury that keeps coming back, keeps being rushed back from, and quietly costs more careers than the dramatic ones. 19 days is the estimate; the honest figure depends on whether anybody is patient.
The dugout24 Sep 2029
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 Interim Coach left the room before anybody could ask which.
17 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Valencia lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
0‑3 against Real Madrid, and no complaints that would survive the replay. The manager spoke about character afterwards; the terraces used shorter words.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Valencia is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Valencia this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Hugo Duro was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
26 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Valencia lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Fee agreed, wages agreed, and Real Sociedad waiting with a shirt. Nobody at Valencia is pretending otherwise, and the supporters have stopped asking whether and started asking when.
There is an age at which every good afternoon gets described as a throwback, which is unfair and also accurate. 8.20 at 35, and nobody on the pitch was better.
“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 Valencia, and it is not being withdrawn.
Marc Cucurella 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.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Valencia they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
Valencia offered $110.0K; Ceuta 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.
35 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Valencia lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
$6.5M was the most the club would pay and Girona 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.
“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 Valencia, and it is not being withdrawn.
“I was told what my role would be, and I signed on that basis. It has not happened.” A grievance with a date attached is the hardest kind to settle.
Boardroom3 Sep 2029
Valencia close the window on a squad of their own making
16 in and 14 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 deal that would have taken Florián Monzón to Real Madrid has collapsed at the last stage, and he reports back to Valencia with a summer to forget and a season still to play. Nobody is saying which side walked away.
Valencia had done everything except persuade the man himself. He stays at Betis, and the manager goes back to the drawing board with the money still in the bank.
Pablo Torre 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.
In brief
SquadMarc Cucurella falls out with a teammate over standards
42 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Valencia lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
The clubs have settled the fee and he has settled his wages. What remains is a medical and a photograph, and around Valencia people have started saying his name in the past tense.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Valencia is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Valencia can pretend not to have heard.
The chances are being made and something is happening between the making and the finishing. 4 matches now, and the anxiety in the ground arrives a little earlier every week.
51 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Valencia lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
The coaching staff has emptied out entirely and there was nobody internal to promote, so the club has appointed a name almost none of its supporters will recognise. Clubs recover from this; none of them enjoy explaining it.
“Somebody has to pick the team on Saturday, and this week that is me.” An interim appointment with no promises attached, which is how most of them start.
“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 Valencia, and it is not being withdrawn.
The offer from Real Madrid for Florián Monzón 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.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Valencia this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Boardroom20 Aug 2029
5 academy players handed senior numbers at Valencia
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.
59 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Valencia lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Fee agreed, wages agreed, and Real Sociedad waiting with a shirt. Nobody at Valencia is pretending otherwise, and the supporters have stopped asking whether and started asking when.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Valencia can pretend not to have heard.
Footballers are asked about their boyhood club so often that nobody listens to the answer. Mario Cantero has just signed for Valencia, and for once the answer mattered.
Marc Cucurella 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.
Valencia asked and Betis 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 Hugo Duro was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
68 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Valencia lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
The board’s statement ran to three sentences and one of them mentioned results. Interim Coach has managed long enough to translate: win soon, or the next statement is shorter.
“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 Valencia, and it is not being withdrawn.
The offer from Betis for Juan Ignacio Barbieri 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.
Marc Cucurella 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 Duro was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
A change in the dugout is not one story, it is twenty-five of them. This is Marc Cucurella's: he was somebody's player, and now he has to be somebody else's, starting from nothing.
77 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Valencia lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
Valencia asked and Elche 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 clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Valencia is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
“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 Valencia, and it is not being withdrawn.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Valencia have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Add another name to the list: Betis have asked the question everybody in the game has been asking about Juan Ignacio Barbieri. The answer from Valencia has not changed — yet.
In brief
SquadWords at Valencia training over how hard people work
Squad9 new faces, and Valencia are still learning each other
The words a physio says slowly. 86 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.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Florián Monzón will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Valencia the goodbyes have quietly begun.
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Gonzalo Petit is 22, 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 Valencia this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad23 Jul 2029
Hugo Duro 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 has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Dani Vivian signs something — a contract at Valencia or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
95 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Valencia lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
The offer went to Castellón 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.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Valencia have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Fee agreed, wages agreed, and Celta waiting with a shirt. Nobody at Valencia is pretending otherwise, and the supporters have stopped asking whether and started asking when.
$5.8M was the most the club would pay and Celta 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.
Marc Cucurella 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.
Valencia asked and Betis said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
Squad16 Jul 2029
Words at Valencia training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Hugo Duro 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.
103 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Valencia lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
The clubs have settled the fee and he has settled his wages. What remains is a medical and a photograph, and around Valencia people have started saying his name in the past tense.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Valencia can pretend not to have heard.
Marc Cucurella 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 easiest signature of my career.” Christian Carracedo and Valencia agree another 3 years, and the manager can plan around him rather than about him.
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.
“We keep meeting, and we keep leaving the room with the same numbers we walked in with.” Another round of talks at Valencia, another week without a signature from Stole Dimitrievski.
The words a physio says slowly. 112 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.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Real Sociedad have kept their man, and Valencia go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Valencia is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
“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 Valencia hears a sentence like that exactly as it was built.
Marc Cucurella and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Squad2 Jul 2029
Hugo Duro 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 words a physio says slowly. 121 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.
Valencia have gone to Elche 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 have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Valencia can pretend not to have heard.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Valencia is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Valencia this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
At 20 he is doing things this season that he could not do last season, and doing them every week. Form comes and goes; this has stayed long enough to be called something else.
Every footballer has an answer to the question about his boyhood club, and most of them never get to act on it. Jeremías Rodríguez Puch has, at Valencia, and the first month will show what that does to a man.
$79.0K was the most the club would pay and Castellón 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.
130 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Valencia lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
The last thing about a transfer that is still about the player is his signature on his own terms, and it is there. Valencia have lost him in all but the paperwork.
The fee is $39.1M, the contract is signed, and the argument about whether he is worth it can begin. Real Madrid drove a hard bargain; time will say who won it.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Valencia can pretend not to have heard.
There is a version of every career where the player ends up somewhere he chose rather than somewhere that chose him. Jari Vlak is living that version at Valencia, and it tends to show in the first month.
Marc Cucurella 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 fee is $400.0K, the contract is signed, and the argument about whether he is worth it can begin. Castellón drove a hard bargain; time will say who won it.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Levante have kept their man, and Valencia go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
The words a physio says slowly. 137 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.
Real Madrid have accepted the money. What Valencia do not yet have is the man, and between here and the photograph is a conversation about wages that both sides are dreading.
The offer from Slavia Prague for Cucho Hernández 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.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Elche have kept their man, and Valencia go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Valencia they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
The deal with Castellón 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.
41 days since the seat came open, a list of names doing the rounds, and nobody has signed anything. Every week this drags on the shortlist gets shorter.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Valencia they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
“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 Valencia, and it is not being withdrawn.
Add another name to the list: Slavia Prague have asked the question everybody in the game has been asking about Cucho Hernández. The answer from Valencia has not changed — yet.
Cucho Hernández 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.
“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.
Squad4 Jun 2029
Alexis Castro 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.
“I was told straight, and I would rather have it straight.” The manager at Valencia has been clear about where Aliou Dieng stands, which is more than many ever get.
He asked about his future and was given an answer with minutes in it. The manager has now made a promise in a building where promises are remembered, and the clock on it has started.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Valencia they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Valencia this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
The target is the manager, the approach is real, and the compensation clause is the whole conversation. Clubs deny this kind of story right up until the photograph.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Alexis Castro was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
“I have given this everything, but my family is not here and neither am I, not really.” A footballer can be coached out of bad form. Nobody has ever been coached out of this, and Valencia know it.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Alexis Castro trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
16 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Valencia lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Valencia can pretend not to have heard.
Cucho Hernández 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.
Squad21 May 2029
Words at Valencia training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Alexis Castro 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 has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Dani Vivian signs something — a contract at Valencia or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
“We keep meeting, and we keep leaving the room with the same numbers we walked in with.” Another round of talks at Valencia, another week without a signature from Christian Carracedo.
He asked about his future and was given an answer with minutes in it. The manager has now made a promise in a building where promises are remembered, and the clock on it has started.
24 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Valencia lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Valencia is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
Cucho Hernández 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.
Day 13 of the vacancy. Candidates have been priced, sounded out and quietly ruled out — and the caretaker’s win ratio is becoming an argument all by itself.
“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.
Squad14 May 2029
Words at Valencia training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Aliou Dieng 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. 34 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.
Not an interim appointment — an institution with an empty coaching office. Somebody unfamiliar will run the sessions this week, and the question of how a club gets into this state is one the board will be asked and will not answer.
Position 13 on 49 points. Every season is a story and this is the last line of it, and now the club has three months to decide what the next one is about.
Nothing has been announced and everybody understands what it means. A board that summons the whole football department on a Tuesday morning is a board that has stopped believing the problem will fix itself.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. José Copete will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Valencia the goodbyes have quietly begun.
“Somebody has to pick the team on Saturday, and this week that is me.” An interim appointment with no promises attached, which is how most of them start.
43 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Valencia lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Florián Monzón will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Valencia the goodbyes have quietly begun.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Valencia this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
52 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Valencia lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Two goals and a mark of 8.38 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Valencia can pretend not to have heard.
Cucho Hernández 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 Alexis Castro was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
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.
It is never announced and it is entirely visible: the biggest afternoons of the season keep containing him. A press box works this out long before anybody at the club confirms a word of it.
The words a physio says slowly. 61 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.
“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 Valencia, and it is not being withdrawn.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Valencia have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Christian Carracedo will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Valencia the goodbyes have quietly begun.
Cucho Hernández 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.
Successful dribbles: 17. There was always a defender in front of him and there was never a defender in front of him for long.
Squad16 Apr 2029
Alexis Castro 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 supporters are entitled to be angry. So am I. We will put it right.” 0‑1, a manager saying the necessary things, and a dressing room that heard a different version of them.
69 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Valencia lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Valencia is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
“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 Valencia, and it is not being withdrawn.
A 1‑0 win over Rayo Vallecano, earned rather than given, and the sort of afternoon that sends everyone home talking about next week instead of this one.
Marked 8.36 — 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.
A performance of 8.14 does not come along often, and when it does the rest of the team becomes scenery. He was magnificent.
Squad9 Apr 2029
Alexis Castro 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.
In brief
The dugoutDani Vivian has become a man the manager trusts
80 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Valencia lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
The board’s statement ran to three sentences and one of them mentioned results. Ricardo Morales has managed long enough to translate: win soon, or the next statement is shorter.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Valencia is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Valencia this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Real Madrid left with the points after a 0‑1 defeat that will take some explaining on the terraces.
Squad2 Apr 2029
Words at Valencia training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Alexis Castro 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.
88 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Valencia lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
Cucho Hernández 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 Dani Vivian was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
“I have tried. I have really tried, and every day I wake up in the wrong place.” Nobody at Valencia can coach that out of a man, and nobody there is pretending to.
It is never announced and it is entirely visible: the biggest afternoons of the season keep containing him. A press box works this out long before anybody at the club confirms a word of it.
97 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Valencia lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Christian Carracedo will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Valencia the goodbyes have quietly begun.
Cucho Hernández 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.
Squad19 Mar 2029
Words at Valencia training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Kévin Appin 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.” Ricardo Morales after 0‑2, in the tone of a man who knows the next question and does not intend to answer it.
In brief
The dugoutArnau Martínez has become a man the manager trusts
The words a physio says slowly. 105 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.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Valencia is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
It is the most legitimate ambition in the sport and the hardest for most clubs to satisfy. Gonzalo Petit wants continental football; whether Valencia can provide it is a question about the next two seasons, not about him.
Nothing about the week ahead is ordinary. Villarreal on Saturday, a town that has already started talking about it, and a dressing room that does not need telling what it means.
Squad12 Mar 2029
Alexis Castro 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 words a physio says slowly. 114 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.
“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 Valencia, and it is not being withdrawn.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Valencia they have already started talking about him 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 Valencia 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 Valencia this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
121 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Valencia lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
“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 Valencia, and it is not being withdrawn.
Cucho Hernández 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 matches, no goals, and a training ground that has tried everything. It will end — droughts always do — but nobody at Valencia can tell you which week it ends in.
Barcelona left with the points after a 0‑2 defeat that will take some explaining on the terraces.
Squad26 Feb 2029
Words at Valencia training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Alexis Castro 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.
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.
Warm-up bib, ninety minutes of watching, and a handshake at the end that fooled nobody. Big matches tell you who a manager trusts; this one told Arnaut Danjuma.
128 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Valencia lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Valencia can pretend not to have heard.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Valencia they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
Cucho Hernández 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.
Successful dribbles: 18. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Squad19 Feb 2029
Words at Valencia training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Alexis Castro 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 ambition story running the other way, and the one nobody tells: a footballer asking for a smaller stage, fewer cameras and a crowd that does not turn. It is not weakness and it is very rarely reported as anything else.
“We were not good enough today and I am not going to dress it up.” Ricardo Morales after 0‑1, in the tone of a man who knows the next question and does not intend to answer it.
The words a physio says slowly. 136 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.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Valencia is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Valencia can pretend not to have heard.
There is no worse way to lose a footballer. Christian Carracedo has pre-agreed a move away, which means every appearance between now and June is made by a man the club can no longer sell, and somebody upstairs will be asked why the contract was allowed to get here.
Every footballer has an answer to the question about his boyhood club, and most of them never get to act on it. Ezequiel González has, at Valencia, and the first month will show what that does to a man.
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.
Every dressing room knows how to read a signing like this one. Ezequiel González is not here to sit and wait indefinitely, and the man whose place he has been bought to take knows it better than anyone.
The fee was agreed and the flight was looked at — and then the phone stopped ringing. Granada moved on, Cucho Hernández reports back to Valencia, and everybody pretends Monday is just Monday.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Valencia can pretend not to have heard.
The deadline has passed and the squad is the squad. 0 arrived, 0 left, and everything else printed about this club last month was a rumour that stayed one.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Valencia they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Valencia this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Hugo Duro was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Hugo Duro. 1‑0 against Racing Santander, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
Marked 8.06. Players have careers without a single afternoon like this in them, and he has just had one in front of everybody at Valencia.
Player ratings5 Feb 2029
Hugo Duro was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.01. 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.
16 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Valencia lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
The clubs have settled the fee and he has settled his wages. What remains is a medical and a photograph, and around Valencia people have started saying his name in the past tense.
“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 Valencia, and it is not being withdrawn.
Cucho Hernández 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.
Squad29 Jan 2029
Words at Valencia training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Hugo Duro 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.
24 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Valencia lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
Fee agreed, wages agreed, and Granada waiting with a shirt. Nobody at Valencia is pretending otherwise, and the supporters have stopped asking whether and started asking when.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Valencia can pretend not to have heard.
Cucho Hernández 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 clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Valencia is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Hugo Duro was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
31 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Valencia lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
The offer from Barcelona for Cucho Hernández 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.
Some goals win a match and some take one off somebody else. Pablo Torre scored in the 87th minute, Almería had already begun thinking about the journey home, and Valencia took the lot.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Valencia can pretend not to have heard.
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Pablo Torre. 1‑0 against Almería, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
A performance of 8.24 does not come along often, and when it does the rest of the team becomes scenery. He was magnificent.
Squad15 Jan 2029
Alexis Castro 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.
39 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Valencia lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
“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 Valencia, and it is not being withdrawn.
Fee agreed, wages agreed, and Getafe waiting with a shirt. Nobody at Valencia is pretending otherwise, and the supporters have stopped asking whether and started asking when.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Valencia this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Hugo Duro was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
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.
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 Pablo Torre is on it.
In brief
SquadA place in the month's best eleven for Marc Bernal
The words a physio says slowly. 18 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.
There is no crueller way to lose a football match. Valencia scored in the 91th minute, the restart barely happened, and the away end was still standing when the whistle went.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Valencia can pretend not to have heard.
Cucho Hernández 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.
Squad1 Jan 2029
Hugo Duro 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.
6 without a win is the sort of run that changes how a town talks about its club, and Cádiz were the afternoon it stopped. Nothing is fixed by one result and everything feels different by one.
25 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Valencia lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Valencia can pretend not to have heard.
Cucho Hernández 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.
Half the programme played, position 10, 26 on the board. Doubling it is the sum every supporter has done and the only one nobody at the club will do out loud.
Squad25 Dec 2028
Words at Valencia training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Alexis Castro 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.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Umar Sadiq trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
The dugout25 Dec 2028
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.” Ricardo Morales chose the glass-half-full version of 0‑0; the supporters left with the other one.
“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 Valencia, and it is not being withdrawn.
Cucho Hernández and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Squad18 Dec 2028
Words at Valencia training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Hugo Duro 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.
Successful dribbles: 21. 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.
Nobody at Valencia 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.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Valencia 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 Valencia this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
The chances are being made and something is happening between the making and the finishing. 4 matches now, and the anxiety in the ground arrives a little earlier every week.
Squad11 Dec 2028
Words at Valencia training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Hugo Duro 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.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Valencia can pretend not to have heard.
“I want to be playing for trophies while my legs still let me.” Nothing in that sentence is a transfer request, and nobody at Valencia heard it as anything else.
Cucho Hernández 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 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 is not much of a headline and it is the reason players believe the next promise. Valencia told Hugo Duro something would happen and then it happened, which in this industry passes for remarkable.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Alexis Castro was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Cucho Hernández 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.
Squad27 Nov 2028
Hugo Duro 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.
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 is not the end of the world and it is not good enough. Both of those are true.” The manager, after a 0‑0 draw, said the honest thing and then went to say it again inside.
A clause somebody insisted on years ago, in a negotiation nobody remembers, has just paid Valencia $320.0K. Ignacio Perruzzi left a long time ago; the paperwork stayed.
It is never announced and it is entirely visible: the biggest afternoons of the season keep containing him. A press box works this out long before anybody at the club confirms a word of it.
“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 Valencia, and it is not being withdrawn.
Cucho Hernández and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Squad20 Nov 2028
Hugo Duro 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.
“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; Valencia are dealing with a man who wants a different country.
Nobody at Valencia 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.
“A point is a point and I will take it, but we should have had all three.” Ricardo Morales after the 0‑0 draw, and the sentence every manager in the country said at some stage this weekend.
There is no crueller way to lose a football match. Valencia scored in the 93th minute, the restart barely happened, and the away end was still standing when the whistle went.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Valencia 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 Valencia this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
2‑1 against Villarreal, and the songs went on long after the whistle. League positions come and go; days like this get retold at family dinners for years.
There is no crueller way to lose a football match. Valencia scored in the 91th minute, the restart barely happened, and the away end was still standing when the whistle went.
“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 Valencia, and it is not being withdrawn.
Score against anybody else and it is a goal. Score against them and it is a story with your name in it for a decade, and Valencia supporters have already started telling it.
Cucho Hernández 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.
Squad6 Nov 2028
Hugo Duro 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 is the most legitimate ambition in the sport and the hardest for most clubs to satisfy. Gonzalo Petit wants continental football; whether Valencia can provide it is a question about the next two seasons, not about him.
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.
Cucho Hernández 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 Duro was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
The fixture the calendar is arranged around. Form goes out of the window, the table is not consulted, and for ninety minutes Valencia will be judged on one thing only.
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.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Valencia will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
“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 Valencia, and it is not being withdrawn.
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 chances are being made and something is happening between the making and the finishing. 4 matches now, and the anxiety in the ground arrives a little earlier every week.
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.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Alexis Castro was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
A bone, which is the one injury with a calendar attached. Valencia will name a return date and, unusually for this business, will probably be right about it.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Valencia have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
“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 Valencia, 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 Valencia this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad16 Oct 2028
Words at Valencia training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Hugo Duro 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.
3 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.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 35 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
“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 Valencia, and it is not being withdrawn.
Cucho Hernández 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 Hugo Duro was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Valencia can pretend not to have heard.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Valencia will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
Cucho Hernández 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.
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Kévin Appin, and the manager let it.
Squad2 Oct 2028
Alexis Castro 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.
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.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Valencia will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Valencia have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Cucho Hernández and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Squad25 Sep 2028
Words at Valencia training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Hugo Duro 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 mornings you wake up and you are still a long way from everything you know.” It is not the football and it never was; Valencia are dealing with a man who wants a different country.
Marked 8.11 — 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.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 57 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.” Valencia have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Valencia 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 Valencia this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Footballers are asked about their boyhood club so often that nobody listens to the answer. Santiago Martínez has just signed for Valencia, and for once the answer mattered.
Squad18 Sep 2028
Words at Valencia training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Hugo Duro 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.
Mallorca will keep picking him until June and will get nothing for him after it. Alberto Moreno has pre-agreed a move to Valencia, and the only people who lose in that arrangement are the ones who let the contract run down.
3 matches, no goals, and a training ground that has tried everything. It will end — droughts always do — but nobody at Valencia can tell you which week it ends in.
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 dugoutUmar Sadiq asks for a word with the manager
A bone, which is the one injury with a calendar attached. Valencia will name a return date and, unusually for this business, will probably be right about it.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Valencia can pretend not to have heard.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the whole of the defence. 6 saves, several of them the kind nobody expects to see made, and ten outfield players who owe him a drink.
Cucho Hernández 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.
Squad11 Sep 2028
Words at Valencia training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Alexis Castro 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.
Successful dribbles: 14. 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 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.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 76 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
The deadline has passed and the squad is the squad. 25 arrived, 7 left, and everything else printed about this club last month was a rumour that stayed one.
“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.
Cucho Hernández 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.
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.
Squad4 Sep 2028
Hugo Duro 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 is the most legitimate ambition in the sport and the hardest for most clubs to satisfy. Gonzalo Petit wants continental football; whether Valencia can provide it is a question about the next two seasons, not about him.
He is not being dropped. There is simply nowhere in the formation Valencia are playing to put a man who does what he does, which is a harder thing to be told than any team sheet.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 86 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
Ninety minutes of very little, and then everything at once. The winner arrived in the 86th, and Girona spent what remained of the match appealing to the referee rather than chasing the ball.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Valencia can pretend not to have heard.
There is a version of every career where the player ends up somewhere he chose rather than somewhere that chose him. Kévin Appin is living that version at Valencia, and it tends to show in the first month.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Valencia this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad28 Aug 2028
Hugo Duro 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.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Valencia will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Valencia can pretend not to have heard.
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Gonzalo Petit is 21, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
Arnau Martínez 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.
At 25 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.
Senior shirt numbers handed to boys the coaches have known since they were twelve. Most will not make it and all of them have already done the hard part.
There is no fee, no unveiling and no agent on the steps. Alberto Ruiz 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. Francisco Sosa 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.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Valencia will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Gijón have kept their man, and Valencia go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
The phone has started ringing about Cucho Hernández again, and this time the name on the line is Granada. Valencia are listening politely and promising nothing.
At 21 he is doing things this season that he could not do last season, and doing them every week. Form comes and goes; this has stayed long enough to be called something else.
Cucho Hernández 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 offer went to Almería 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.
Squad14 Aug 2028
Javi Guerra has improved at 25, 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.
“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 Valencia, and 0 appearances in 5 say he has earned the hearing.
What was said behind closed doors has now been said in front of a microphone. Everybody at Valencia can do the arithmetic, including the man it is aimed at.
A bone, which is the one injury with a calendar attached. Valencia will name a return date and, unusually for this business, will probably be right about it.
Fee agreed, wages agreed, and Orebro waiting with a shirt. Nobody at Valencia is pretending otherwise, and the supporters have stopped asking whether and started asking when.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Granada have kept their man, and Valencia go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
Cucho Hernández 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 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.
At 25 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.
“I was told straight, and I would rather have it straight.” The manager at Valencia has been clear about where José Matos stands, which is more than many ever get.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 117 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Burgos have kept their man, and Valencia go back to a list with one name crossed off 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 Valencia this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Valencia, and both men came out saying it was fine.
A bone, which is the one injury with a calendar attached. Valencia will name a return date and, unusually for this business, will probably be right about it.
The last thing about a transfer that is still about the player is his signature on his own terms, and it is there. Valencia have lost him in all but the paperwork.
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.
At 25 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.
Another week, another link, another denial nobody quite believes. Valencia know the market decides these things, not the back pages — but the back pages are louder.
It is not much of a headline and it is the reason players believe the next promise. Valencia told Bruno Brígido something would happen and then it happened, which in this industry passes for remarkable.
The clubs have shaken hands with Elche; the player has not yet. Personal terms are next, and personal terms are where more deals die than anybody prints.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Valencia will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
“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 Valencia, and it is not being withdrawn.
At 21 he is doing things this season that he could not do last season, and doing them every week. Form comes and goes; this has stayed long enough to be called something else.
Cucho Hernández 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.
Squad17 Jul 2028
Words at Valencia training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Hugo Duro 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.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Aimar Rojas trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Valencia have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
The offer went to Celta 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.
Cucho Hernández 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 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.
At 23 he is doing things this season that he could not do last season, and doing them every week. Form comes and goes; this has stayed long enough to be called something else.
At 26 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.
The last thing about a transfer that is still about the player is his signature on his own terms, and it is there. Valencia have lost him in all but the paperwork.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Valencia can pretend not to have heard.
The most awkward business a club does is signing tomorrow's answer while today's is still in the building. Álex Calvo comes from Andorra for exactly that purpose, and the handover will not be discussed publicly by anybody.
Arnau Martínez 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.
$180.0K was the most the club would pay and Getafe 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.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Hugo Duro was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Valencia asked and Manchester United said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
Elche wanted more than $760.0K and the board would not go there. Walked away, for now, which in a transfer window means until somebody blinks.
Squad26 Jun 2028
Words at Valencia training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Hugo Duro 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 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.
Another week, another link, another denial nobody quite believes. Valencia know the market decides these things, not the back pages — but the back pages are louder.
The speculation has reached the stands, and the stands have answered. Valencia would like this settled before it becomes the only thing anybody asks about.
Valencia interviewed the field and appointed the corridor: Ricardo Morales keeps the job he had been doing in all but title. Sometimes the safest pair of hands is the one already holding the wheel.
The most awkward business a club does is signing tomorrow's answer while today's is still in the building. Gonzalo Petit comes from Betis for exactly that purpose, and the handover will not be discussed publicly by anybody.
Nobody at the club will say out loud who this signing is for, which is how you know exactly who it is for. Mikel Rodríguez has been brought in to take a shirt somebody is still wearing.
Valencia offered $1.8M; Oviedo 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.
Cucho Hernández 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.
“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; Valencia are dealing with a man who wants a different country.
10 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 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.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Valencia can pretend not to have heard.
$14.6M was the most the club would pay and Espanyol 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.
The last thing about a transfer that is still about the player is his signature on his own terms, and it is there. Valencia have lost him in all but the paperwork.
Valencia asked and Cádiz said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
42 days since the seat came open, a list of names doing the rounds, and nobody has signed anything. Every week this drags on the shortlist gets shorter.
Cucho Hernández 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.
$250.0K on the table at Oviedo. The manager wanted him, the board agreed a number, and the only voices still to be heard are the ones at the other club.
Valencia and Rayo Vallecano have settled on $26.6M. The rest belongs to the player and his agent, and a supporter who has watched one of these before knows not to buy the shirt yet.
The offer went to Valladolid 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.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Rayo Vallecano have kept their man, and Valencia go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
Valencia have gone to Burgos 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 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 Valencia this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Levante will keep picking him until June and will get nothing for him after it. Joaquín Leites has pre-agreed a move to Valencia, and the only people who lose in that arrangement are the ones who let the contract run down.
Add another name to the list: Excelsior have asked the question everybody in the game has been asking about Juan Ignacio Barbieri. The answer from Valencia has not changed — yet.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Hugo Duro was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Another week, another link, another denial nobody quite believes. Valencia know the market decides these things, not the back pages — but the back pages are louder.
Nothing in writing and nothing in public: a word about playing time, given face to face at Valencia. The team sheets over the next month will show whether it was worth having.
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.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Valencia this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Hugo Duro was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Something was said to Ethan Degny and then it happened. In this industry that passes for remarkable, and the dressing room noticed faster than any supporter could.
He asked about his future and was given an answer with minutes in it. The manager has now made a promise in a building where promises are remembered, and the clock on it has started.
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Valencia, and both men came out saying it was fine.
A year in and the city has not opened up, the language has not come, and lunch is eaten alone more often than anybody at Valencia would admit. It shows on Saturdays.
14 days with the chair empty, a list of names that grows and shrinks by the day, and not one signature on anything. Every week that passes takes the best candidates off it.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Hugo Duro 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.
Squad15 May 2028
7 new faces, and Valencia 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.
“I have tried. I have really tried, and every day I wake up in the wrong place.” Nobody at Valencia can coach that out of a man, and nobody there is pretending to.
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Dani Vivian signs something — a contract at Valencia or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Arnaut Danjuma trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
It is not much of a headline and it is the reason players believe the next promise. Valencia told Alessandro Pellegrino something would happen and then it happened, which in this industry passes for remarkable.
The end came on a Tuesday, as these things usually do: a short meeting, a shorter statement, and Tomás Gutiérrez clearing his office by noon. Football’s cruellest ritual, performed to schedule.
Position 12 on 42 points. Every season is a story and this is the last line of it, and now the club has three months to decide what the next one is about.
Nothing has been announced and everybody understands what it means. A board that summons the whole football department on a Tuesday morning is a board that has stopped believing the problem will fix itself.
“I am not thinking past Saturday, and I would advise nobody else to.” The caretaker’s first rule is to pretend the job is small; Ricardo Morales recited it perfectly.
The hardest thing about being 20 in a senior side is that nobody makes allowances. Marc Bernal did not need any: 7.71, and he looked the most comfortable man on the pitch.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Valencia this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
At 20 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.
“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.
7 without a win is the sort of run that changes how a town talks about its club, and Elche were the afternoon it stopped. Nothing is fixed by one result and everything feels different by one.
There is a version of every career where the player ends up somewhere he chose rather than somewhere that chose him. Ben Knight is living that version at Valencia, and it tends to show in the first month.
Nothing happens for months and then he simply arrives, at no cost, having signed a pre-contract while still turning out for somebody else. It is the least dramatic way to sign a footballer and frequently the shrewdest.
Squad1 May 2028
Words at Valencia training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Hugo Duro 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.
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Diego López. 1‑0 against Elche, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
Cucho Hernández 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.
Beaten 1‑2, and beaten fairly. The manager kept his words short afterwards, which was probably wise.
Squad24 Apr 2028
Words at Valencia training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Hugo Duro 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 dugout24 Apr 2028
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 1‑2 defeat, delivered by Tomás Gutiérrez to a room that had heard them before.
Ethan Degny is 19, and Valencia have signed him for the player he will be rather than the one he is. The first team can wait; the point of a deal like this is the years it buys.
Cucho Hernández 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.
Successful dribbles: 16. 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.
“I could talk about decisions and I could talk about luck. I will not. We lost.” The manager, 1‑3, and a press conference that lasted four minutes.
Squad17 Apr 2028
6 new faces, and Valencia 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.
It is never announced and it is entirely visible: the biggest afternoons of the season keep containing him. A press box works this out long before anybody at the club confirms a word of it.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 20 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
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.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Valencia this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Hugo Duro was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Marked 8.08 — 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.
Player ratings10 Apr 2028
Pablo Torre was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.07. 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.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 29 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
“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 Valencia hears a sentence like that exactly as it was built.
The paperwork is done long before the player is. Jorge Cardona has agreed terms to come here when his current deal runs out, which means Valencia have spent a summer's transfer budget on a phone call.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Hugo Duro was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 40 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Valencia this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
The paperwork is done long before the player is. Fali has agreed terms to come here when his current deal runs out, which means Valencia have spent a summer's transfer budget on a phone call.
Beaten 0‑2, and beaten fairly. The manager kept his words short afterwards, which was probably wise.
The dugout27 Mar 2028
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 0‑2 defeat, delivered by Tomás Gutiérrez to a room that had heard them before.
“I have tried. I have really tried, and every day I wake up in the wrong place.” Nobody at Valencia can coach that out of a man, and nobody there is pretending to.
It is never announced and it is entirely visible: the biggest afternoons of the season keep containing him. A press box works this out long before anybody at the club confirms a word of it.
A bone, which is the one injury with a calendar attached. Valencia will name a return date and, unusually for this business, will probably be right about it.
2 in front and in complete control, and it finished with Villarreal the happier side. There is no version of this afternoon that Valencia will enjoy reviewing.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Valencia can pretend not to have heard.
Cucho Hernández 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.
Nothing happens for months and then he simply arrives, at no cost, having signed a pre-contract while still turning out for somebody else. It is the least dramatic way to sign a footballer and frequently the shrewdest.
“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.
Squad20 Mar 2028
Words at Valencia training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Hugo Duro 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 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.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Valencia will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the whole of the defence. 9 saves, several of them the kind nobody expects to see made, and ten outfield players who owe him a drink.
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.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Valencia this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad13 Mar 2028
Hugo Duro 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 fixture the calendar is arranged around. Form goes out of the window, the table is not consulted, and for ninety minutes Valencia will be judged on one thing only.
“We were not good enough today and I am not going to dress it up.” Tomás Gutiérrez after 0‑1, in the tone of a man who knows the next question and does not intend to answer it.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Valencia will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
The board have said in public what they had been saying in private. Results between now and the next meeting decide it, and everybody in the building knows the arithmetic.
There is no crueller way to lose a football match. Valencia scored in the 90th minute, the restart barely happened, and the away end was still standing when the whistle went.
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 7.26 for the rest of it.
18 combined actions and 7.25. The job he did is the one that shows up as other people looking good, and the only reliable way to notice it is to watch what happens on the afternoons he is missing.
“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: Cucho Hernández. 2‑1 against Atlético Madrid, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Valencia will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
The board had gone up, the arguing had started, and then the ball was in the net in the 95th minute. Deportivo La Coruña will replay every second of the added time for a week.
Every footballer has an answer to the question about his boyhood club, and most of them never get to act on it. Alexis Castro has, at Valencia, and the first month will show what that does to a man.
Cucho Hernández 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.
Nothing happens for months and then he simply arrives, at no cost, having signed a pre-contract while still turning out for somebody else. It is the least dramatic way to sign a footballer and frequently the shrewdest.
It finished 2‑1, and it was Cucho Hernández’s afternoon: on the scoresheet when it mattered, and the reason the points belong to Valencia.
Player ratings28 Feb 2028
Cucho Hernández was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.74. 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.
Squad28 Feb 2028
Words at Valencia training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Hugo Duro 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.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 81 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
Cucho Hernández 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.
Footballers are asked about their boyhood club so often that nobody listens to the answer. Mattia Ciancaglini has just signed for Valencia, and for once the answer mattered.
Espanyol will keep picking him until June and will get nothing for him after it. Tomás Lingua has pre-agreed a move to Valencia, and the only people who lose in that arrangement are the ones who let the contract run down.
Squad21 Feb 2028
Hugo Duro 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.
Every dressing room knows how to read a signing like this one. Mattia Ciancaglini 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 afternoons a goalkeeper is the whole of the defence. 14 saves, several of them the kind nobody expects to see made, and ten outfield players who owe him a drink.
A bone, which is the one injury with a calendar attached. Valencia will name a return date and, unusually for this business, will probably be right about it.
Villarreal go through and Valencia go home, 0‑1 the scoreline that did it. The dressing room will call the league the priority now, because that is what dressing rooms say.
A deal that was a phone call from completion at lunchtime was dead by midnight. Valencia will try again when the window opens; Betis may not be selling by then.
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.
Arnau Martínez 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.
100 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.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Valencia will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
The deadline has passed and the squad is the squad. 4 arrived, 2 left, and everything else printed about this club last month was a rumour that stayed one.
Arnau Martínez 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.
9 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.
Squad7 Feb 2028
Hugo Duro 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 bone, which is the one injury with a calendar attached. Valencia will name a return date and, unusually for this business, will probably be right about it.
A medical, a signature, a shirt held up in front of a sponsor’s board. Valencia have done the hard part with Betis, and the part that remains is the part supporters actually see.
Cucho Hernández 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 phone has started ringing about Juan Ignacio Barbieri again, and this time the name on the line is Gil Vicente. Valencia are listening politely and promising nothing.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Defensa y Justicia have kept their man, and Valencia go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
Betis left with the points after a 1‑2 defeat that will take some explaining on the terraces.
Squad31 Jan 2028
Words at Valencia training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Hugo Duro 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.” Tomás Gutiérrez after 1‑2, in the tone of a man who knows the next question and does not intend to answer it.
A bone, which is the one injury with a calendar attached. Valencia will name a return date and, unusually for this business, will probably be right about it.
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 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.
The most awkward business a club does is signing tomorrow's answer while today's is still in the building. Ibrahima Koné comes from Almería for exactly that purpose, and the handover will not be discussed publicly by anybody.
Cucho Hernández 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.
$760.0K was the most the club would pay and Elche 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.
A bone, which is the one injury with a calendar attached. Valencia will name a return date and, unusually for this business, will probably be right about it.
Some transfers need a press campaign. This one needed a shirt with the old number on it. Arnaut Danjuma is a Valencia player again, and the town has its story of the summer.
Valencia 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.
Footballers are asked about their boyhood club so often that nobody listens to the answer. Arnaut Danjuma has just signed for Valencia, and for once the answer mattered.
It is not a grievance and it is not a demand: he wants to play continental football, and he has stopped hiding it. Whether Valencia can give him that is a question about the club, not about 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 Valencia this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Hugo Duro was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Valencia and Granada have settled on $14.7M. The rest belongs to the player and his agent, and a supporter who has watched one of these before knows not to buy the shirt yet.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 15 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
“I listened, I thought about it, and I am staying. That is the whole story.” The clubs had agreed a fee. Juan Ignacio Barbieri had not agreed to go, which turned out to be the part that mattered.
The chase for Francho Serrano ended with $5.0M changing hands and Getafe out of reasons to say no. The supporters will judge the fee the only way that matters: on Saturdays.
A bone, which is the one injury with a calendar attached. Valencia will name a return date and, unusually for this business, will probably be right about it.
Valencia have gone to Betis 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 offer went to Getafe 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.
“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 Valencia 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. Imanol González wants continental football; whether Valencia can provide it is a question about the next two seasons, not about him.
A bone, which is the one injury with a calendar attached. Valencia will name a return date and, unusually for this business, will probably be right about it.
2 in front and in complete control, and it finished with Alavés the happier side. There is no version of this afternoon that Valencia will enjoy reviewing.
Arnau Martínez 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 paperwork is done long before the player is. Marcos Cuenca has agreed terms to come here when his current deal runs out, which means Valencia have spent a summer's transfer budget on a phone call.
There is a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 20-year-old it feels ownership of. Miguel Almeida 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.
A bone, which is the one injury with a calendar attached. Valencia will name a return date and, unusually for this business, will probably be right about it.
Luis Rioja 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.
Player ratings20 Dec 2027
Hugo Duro was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.16. 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.
“There are things I liked and things we will be doing on Tuesday until they are right.” 1‑1, and a manager who had already decided what Tuesday looked like.
A bone, which is the one injury with a calendar attached. Valencia will name a return date and, unusually for this business, will probably be right about it.
Cucho Hernández 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.
Add another name to the list: Estudiantes de Caracas have asked the question everybody in the game has been asking about Nicolás García. The answer from Valencia has not changed — yet.
The dugout13 Dec 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 Tomás Gutiérrez left the room before anybody could ask which.
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.
“We keep meeting, and we keep leaving the room with the same numbers we walked in with.” Another round of talks at Valencia, another week without a signature from Imanol González.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Valencia will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
“I want to be playing for trophies while my legs still let me.” Nothing in that sentence is a transfer request, and nobody at Valencia heard it as anything else.
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.
Four or five weekends of consistency, measured against everybody else in the division. A quieter compliment than an award and a more reliable one.
The dugout6 Dec 2027
The view from the dugout
“We controlled it. There were spells I did not like and we will look at them, but the group showed me something.” Tomás Gutiérrez, on a 1‑0 win that he was already picking apart on the walk to the press room.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Valencia will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Valencia this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
“We earned that. I asked them for a reaction and I got one, and now I want the same again on Saturday.” Tomás Gutiérrez on a 1‑0 afternoon that pleased him more than he was prepared to show.
Mallorca next, and one man in the Valencia dressing room knows their training ground better than his own. The reception will tell him what they thought of him.
The manager wanted a different profile for this opponent, which is a real football reason and no consolation. He did nothing wrong and he did not play.
In brief
The dugoutJavi Guerra wants a proper job in this side
Cucho Hernández 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 mark of 7.47, and nobody in the ground would argue with it. He was involved in everything that mattered and most of what did not.
The dugout22 Nov 2027
The manager’s verdict
“I am frustrated, honestly. We did enough to win and we did not win.” Tomás Gutiérrez was not hiding it after 0‑0, and nobody in the Valencia dressing room was either.
Nobody at Valencia is suggesting he is out of form. The manager simply wanted somebody with a different set of qualities for ninety specific minutes, and there is nothing a player can train to fix that.
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Pablo Torre signs something — a contract at Valencia or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
He used to wear the other shirt. On Saturday he plays against Rayo Vallecano in this one, and whatever he says this week about it being just another game will be untrue.
A conversation in the manager’s office, and a commitment that came out of it. Promises like that are cheap to make and expensive to break, and André Almeida has written the date down.
Cucho Hernández 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 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.
It is not much of a headline and it is the reason players believe the next promise. Valencia told José Copete something would happen and then it happened, which in this industry passes for remarkable.
Successful dribbles: 13. 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.
He used to wear the other shirt. On Saturday he plays against Real Madrid in this one, and whatever he says this week about it being just another game will be untrue.