The road to freedom does not pass through Alicante. There is no route. Persistent introversion feels like the only constant, and signs of improvement vanish into the air as if disbelief itself could bend reality. A bad year is followed by a worse one, and this isn’t subjective feeling—it’s arithmetic. In his second year in the fourth tier, Hercules, by matchday 28, has nine points fewer than expected. He finished third, eight places behind the leader, twelve months earlier than the prior campaign. He now sits eighth and trails Teruel by eighteen points.
not all better
Inferiority complex
The status of a historic club around Hercules is often used as a shield for signing big contracts, yet it swallows most who sign and chase prestige. Rarely does it work against a blue-and-white project. He has seldom acted this way. The fear that lies in unequal coaching sets off alarms, and those who know where the fault line will break first are rarely wrong. No coach has lifted the locker room; most fold under the simple, fatal line that says the results aren’t good enough because the group seems to lack presence due to personal shortcomings.
Lolo Escobar remains yet another name on the list of coaches who forget their job is not to name a culprit when tempers flare, but to find a solution while avoiding veiled accusations that burn everything down. Every person has a way to sing their own part, but they all point to a shared truth: misfortune. In football, the impact touches more than one room.
Only two teams have set worse records than the Blue and Whites in the last eight days.
Blaming a footballer for unprofessionalism or for not giving his all helps no one. Actions will matter, not words in a press room. If a player does not stand out on the field, off the pitch, and in the offices, the only escape route left is a public tantrum that ultimately harms the group. Being a coach means more than tactics. It means proving to twenty-two men that you are someone they can rely on and believe in.
Rankings in the league over the last eight days reflect a rough period for the team, with the team’s standing echoing the struggles visible on the field and in the locker room.
weight of fear
Shaking off the pain is key
A coach, like anyone in a position of responsibility, must accept that his choices will have consequences beyond his own tenure. Decisiveness is always tough and often thankless, yet there is no option but to choose with the understanding that not everyone will fit. Hercules is a difficult opponent; it is a harsh reality and a serious mistake to ignore it.
The problem this year is not a shortage of quality players. What sinks the team is the way they avoid taking risks, even when two goals come easily. With Angel Rodriguez, the pattern is clear, the inertia and flaws echoing across Leonese and Extremaduran sides and hinting at a bleaker outcome.
Emotionally, the optimism that came with the bench change has faded. The team remains at a fragile emotional and productive point, riddled with the regret that everything that could go wrong has gone wrong. The core issue is the right wing. Ignoring that issue may soon become a cancer that spreads through the squad.
All late changes circle back to the same problem: the wing shares a natural space with Míchel Herrero, Sergio Marcos, and Artiles. None of them shines there, and none are driving Valencia’s move forward. The team wants to distance itself from the area without offering a clear reason to anyone, especially the coach.
salvageable distance
terrible feelings
Hercules is closer to promotion than his field performance suggests. It is a sidestep, really. Yet he plays with fear and limited faith in his own strengths, and the sight of him thriving amid mismanagement is hard to watch.
The club has plenty of volatile strikers, and the plan to progress does not always fit. In the fourth tier, Hercules players often outshine their peers; when they fail to shine, it isn’t solely their fault, and if anyone believes otherwise they will miss the bigger picture—self-reflection is needed.