A bone, which is the one injury with a calendar attached. ASA will name a return date and, unusually for this business, will probably be right about it.
There is no crueller way to lose a football match. ASA scored in the 93th minute, the restart barely happened, and the away end was still standing when the whistle went.
Marked 7.90. There is a kind of forward whose value only shows up when you count what he was involved in rather than what he finished, and this is the day that argument makes itself.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at ASA this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad9 Nov 2026
Pablo Rossi 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.
Marked 8.05 — 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.
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Gerônimo, and the manager let it.
The dugout9 Nov 2026
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.” Felipe Tavares, on a 2‑1 win that he was already picking apart on the walk to the press room.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 60 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
Footballers are asked about their boyhood club so often that nobody listens to the answer. Tiba has just signed for ASA, and for once the answer mattered.
Rayan 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.
Squad26 Oct 2026
Pablo Rossi 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.
Beaten 0‑1, and beaten fairly. The manager kept his words short afterwards, which was probably wise.
The dugout26 Oct 2026
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 Felipe Tavares left the room before anybody could ask which.
Ninety specific minutes wanted a different sort of player, and the manager picked one. He is not out of form and he is not in the side, and both are true.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason ASA will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
At 19 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.
Keliton 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.
Squad19 Oct 2026
Pablo Rossi 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 point is a point and I will take it, but we should have had all three.” Felipe Tavares after the 0‑0 draw, and the sentence every manager in the country said at some stage this weekend.
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.
Every squad has one of these fixtures for somebody every season. This one is Gustavo Henrique’s: the club that knew him first, the supporters who will decide in the first minute whether to applaud, and ASA needing him to play as if none of it matters.
A bone, which is the one injury with a calendar attached. ASA will name a return date and, unusually for this business, will probably be right about it.
Keliton and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Squad5 Oct 2026
Pablo Rossi 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.
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Adenilson. 1‑0 against Juazeirense, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
There is a figure at which a wage bill stops being ambitious and becomes the reason nothing else is possible, and this club has reached it. Nothing is left over for a transfer, a stand or a rainy afternoon.
A bone, which is the one injury with a calendar attached. ASA will name a return date and, unusually for this business, will probably be right about it.
The goal that put Santa Cruz ahead was still being replayed on the concourse when ASA equalised, 3 minutes later. Leads are only worth what you do with them.
Squad21 Sep 2026
19 new faces, and ASA 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.
Rayan 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 bone, which is the one injury with a calendar attached. ASA 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. Rayan is a ASA player again, and the town has its story of the summer.
Ravel 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.
Four or five weekends of consistency, judged against everybody in the division doing his job. Sammuel has come out of that comparison in the side, and ASA have had the benefit of every one of those afternoons.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at CSA this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
“We were not good enough today and I am not going to dress it up.” Rodrygo Santos after 0‑2, in the tone of a man who knows the next question and does not intend to answer it.
24 months left and silence from upstairs — no offer, no talks, nothing for his people to answer. Clubs that let a calendar do their negotiating usually end up negotiating with the calendar.