Guilherme Marques 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.
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.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Marrony 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: Gustavo Coutinho. 1‑0 against Santa Cruz, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
Four or five weekends of consistency, judged against everybody in the division doing his job. Léo Jacó has come out of that comparison in the side, and Atletico Goianiense have had the benefit of every one of those afternoons.
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Guilherme Marques provided it, and the 8.29 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
Marked 8.40 — 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.
Marked 8.13 — 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.
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.
The shape wanted a different profile against this opponent, which is a real football answer and no comfort at all to the man it is about. He did nothing wrong and he did not play.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Marrony 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.