Almada Eyes Next Season After Defeat: 'Preparation Starts Now!'

The final whistle against Mallorca stung. Another loss, another wound to lick before the curtain falls on yet another frustrating campaign for Real Oviedo. But Guillermo Almada wasn’t standing in the mixed zone drowning in self-pity. Instead, the Asturian club’s manager was already thinking ahead, already plotting, already convinced that the machinery of renewal was turning behind the scenes at the Estadio Carlos Tartiere.

In the immediate aftermath of defeat, Almada spoke to the press with the kind of measured optimism that separates the pragmatists from the panic merchants. Yes, the result hurt. Yes, another season of underperformance gnawed at the soul. But there was steel in his voice when he addressed the future: the board, he insisted, was already preparing the next campaign. The work begins now. Not in July. Not after a summer of introspection. Now.

That’s the mentality you need in Spanish football when things go wrong. It’s not enough to accept failure passively, to nod and accept your station in the lower reaches of La Liga. Almada understands something fundamental about institutional football: momentum, even the momentum of recovery, must be built while the wound is still fresh. The pain of this season remains sharp enough to drive change. Wait too long, and it becomes nostalgia. Wait too long, and complacency creeps in.

For Oviedo, a club with genuine historical pedigree but recent years defined by mediocrity and near-misses, this moment represents something critical. The structure needs overhauling. The squad needs reinforcing. The mentality needs recalibrating. These are not things that happen overnight, and they certainly don’t happen if you wait until August to start thinking about them. Almada’s insistence that preparation is already underway suggests the club has finally grasped this fundamental truth.

The confidence he expressed wasn’t the hollow bravado of a man in denial. It was the conviction of someone who has seen the conversations happening behind closed doors, who understands the commitment being made at board level. In Spain, where football clubs often operate with the speed of a regional bureaucracy, this kind of proactive planning is genuinely noteworthy. Too many struggling sides wait for the season to end, conduct a postmortem in August, and wonder why they’re still fighting the same battles come September.

Almada’s words also carry weight because they acknowledge the harsh reality without surrendering to it. Oviedo lost to Mallorca. The season is effectively over. But the future? The future is not written yet. The narrative of next season hasn’t been penned. The squad list hasn’t been finalized. The tactical approach hasn’t been set in stone. All of that remains malleable, improvable, fixable—provided the work starts immediately.

For the supporters—and Oviedo’s fanbase is as passionate and long-suffering as any in Spanish football—this message is crucial. It’s not an apology for failure, but it is a commitment to action. It says: we see the problems, we’re not ignoring them, and we’re not waiting passively for next season to arrive. We’re building it now, in May, while the scars are still visible and the motivation to change is at its highest.

In La Liga, where the gap between the elite and the rest narrows and widens with each transfer window, where a single summer can transform a relegation-form side into a playoff contender, this kind of forward planning matters enormously. Almada’s confidence in future preparations isn’t naive optimism. It’s the sound of a club finally recognizing that the time for reactive management has passed. The preparation starts now. Not tomorrow. Not in June. Now. That’s the only way Oviedo escapes the cycle it’s been trapped in.