That creeping suspicion, the repeating dread of looming disasters, no longer holds power here. Everything feels raw, honest, and even brutal. Hercules gazes into the void, tremoring, scared, and unmoving. The fear gnaws, it presses in, it traps you in a hollow misstep. It neither starts nor ends; you sink into your own suffering and there is no solid ground beneath you. And that is precisely why moving forward becomes so exhausting.
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When the dreadful certainty sinks in that the solution is not the solution, two paths emerge. If one is mistaken and the plan fails—no matter how—the option is to yield to someone with different motives and methods of persuasion, to give space to a new approach. To stay with a broken idea is to invite downfall.
Only Ángel Rodríguez seems unequivocal about this: after arriving in Alicante, he commits to his role even while acknowledging that his mark on the team remains elusive. Add the emphasis on players to explain defeats, and the most sensible option is to close one eye, grit the teeth, and brace for an expected blow that could harm rather than kill a team.
The Leonese coach has every right to defend what is his, and survival becomes a brutal imperative. Yet what’s harder to digest is the notion that someone above would silently approve it. When a team becomes transparent, or when actions are taken to stop it or vanish, the responsibility falls on no one else but the manager.
The decision to remove the Leonese player would gain value only if it could endure beyond January without fail.
Where a balance of good and bad days once upheld the coach’s reputation and his take on football, now two good days (one truly brilliant) and ten bad days paint a bleaker picture, leaving little room for doubt about the trajectory.
Hercules remains trapped in a flawless storm. Escape seems impossible. This has been the state since the end of the player’s professional career, though the signs were clearer lately than they had ever been.
meaningless
After the stadium incident on Sunday, the first time such an event has been seen in twenty years, the only sensible conclusion was that the coach would stay for one more week. A seven-day grace period. In other words, it feels like a superficial gesture. Why? Why? Because the coach’s future, tethered to the squad’s turmoil and the club’s own state, rests in the hands of dramatic players who must carry the burden of judgement.
If bench permanence is chosen, it should last until the final results confirm or deny the plan. This notion rings through the wounded wardrobe of authority, granting that power to decide the coach’s fate to those far from the cameras while forcing everyone to defend their seat—sometimes swallowing unpalatable truths. Any other move risks wasting time and courage, a poor trade-off that could lead to ruin.
Three days after the most solemn event in twenty years at the stadium, the impulse to improvise remains
Clearly, Ángel Rodríguez bears much of the responsibility, but he is not alone. The development of 22 players hinges on him. If only two showed promise and one of them, the goalkeeper, coordinated with the rest, it would be obvious that the vaccination of tactics failed, regardless of the pep talks. The math here is straightforward, not a flaw-finding exercise.
The numbers Hercules points to are disheartening, a breakdown that is untenable. Either belief in the coach hides deeper issues, or a colossal error is staring everyone in the face. No one bothered to run a simple loss estimate.
Who is managing?
In the current state of Hercules, clarity on who made the final call is scarce. Only one year has surfaced in the last nine, and even that belongs to the distant past. Something went wrong, the most visible error, yet instead of leveraging what was built, the team leaned on what has repeatedly proven futile. A sporting director change is sensible given basic sports logic, but the model itself does not support it. The opportunity should have been seized.
Aligning with a football man like Paco Pick as technical secretary without granting him full powers, a move Carmelo Del Pozo publicly signaled, sent a clear message. Suddenly a host of ideas formed around the team, and a different persona emerged. Those pursuing wealth may have good intentions, but an approach devoid of solid sporting criteria and without bold signings tends to invite many headaches.
Some focused on price, others on future talent, some on inevitable commitments. A false defense in disguise.
Time headed toward the winter market, with agents aware of the urgency to reinforce the squad and push for contracts that reflect demand. The pace was quick, the plan aggressive, aiming to reverse momentum and connect with the top through strategic payments. The situation looks daunting, and the analysis is bleak.