The end came on a Tuesday, as these things usually do: a short meeting, a shorter statement, and Pedro Correia clearing his office by noon. Football’s cruellest ritual, performed to schedule.
The coaching staff has emptied out entirely and there was nobody internal to promote, so the club has appointed a name almost none of its supporters will recognise. Clubs recover from this; none of them enjoy explaining it.
“Somebody picks the team on Saturday. This week it is me, and that is as far as I have thought.” No promises were made in either direction, which is how these usually begin.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Nacional can pretend not to have heard.
Zeno Debast 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.
Squad3 Jul 2028
Words at Nacional training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Chiheb Labidi 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.
Daniel Costa is 20, and Nacional have signed him for the player he will be rather than the one he is. The first team can wait; the point of a deal like this is the years it buys.
What was said behind closed doors has now been said in front of a microphone. Everybody at Nacional can do the arithmetic, including the man it is aimed at.
“This is not anger. I have thought about it for months, and nothing that has happened lately changed my mind.” The request is on a desk at Nacional, and it is not being withdrawn.
Footballers are asked about their boyhood club so often that nobody listens to the answer. Caleb Sanders has just signed for Nacional, and for once the answer mattered.
Squad5 Jun 2028
Words at Nacional training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Bernardo Fontes 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.
Caio Secco 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.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Nacional can pretend not to have heard.
Squad24 Apr 2028
Words at Nacional training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Bernardo Fontes 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.
The offer was not close and it was refused without much discussion. Whether the second one is refused as quickly is another matter.
Player ratings10 Jan 2028
A brace, and Chiheb Labidi takes the afternoon — 8.91
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Chiheb Labidi provided it, and the 8.91 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
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.
9 days with the chair empty, a list of names that grows and shrinks by the day, and not one signature on anything. Every week that passes takes the best candidates off it.
The board’s statement ran to three sentences and one of them mentioned results. Miguel Martins has managed long enough to translate: win soon, or the next statement is shorter.
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 22 he is doing things at this level he could not do at the start of the season, and the coaching staff will tell you exactly which of them.
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.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Nacional this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
100 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Nacional lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
The board have said in public what they had been saying in private. Results between now and the next meeting decide it, and everybody in the building knows the arithmetic.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Nacional this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
At 28 the improving is meant to be over. It is not: 3 points better than the mark taken at the start of the year, which is the sort of thing that happens to players who take the boring parts of the job seriously.
7 arrivals, an average age nobody would call a squad, and a set of parents being shown around a building their sons will spend more time in than at home. The scouting has already happened; today is only the paperwork.
“The manager did not use many words, and he did not need to.” Ignacio Juárez has his answer from Nacional; what he does with it is the next window’s story.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the team. 7 saves, several of them the sort nobody expects to see stopped, and a scoreline that flatters everybody in front of him.
A defender on the scoresheet, which happens rarely enough that everybody in the ground remembers who took the corner. 1 for him, and a mark of 7.48 for the rest of it.
Squad15 Feb 2027
Words at Nacional training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Bernardo Fontes 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.
There is a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 22-year-old it feels ownership of. Andreas Schjelderup has it now, and everything he does for the rest of his time here will be measured against the goodwill he was handed for free.
8.39. There are performances a supporter describes to somebody who was not there and cannot quite convey; this was one, and the number does not help either.
Caio Secco 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.
2 kept out in the shoot-out, and a stadium that will still be describing them in twenty years. A goalkeeper only needs one of these to be remembered forever.
5 without a win now, and the ground has developed the special quiet of a crowd that expects the worst. One scrappy 1-0 would cure most of it; that is the maddening part.
5 matches, no goals, and a training ground that has tried everything. It will end — droughts always do — but nobody at Nacional can tell you which week it ends in.
It is the most legitimate ambition in the sport and the hardest for most clubs to satisfy. Matheus Dias wants continental football; whether Nacional can provide it is a question about the next two seasons, not about him.
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.
21 times he got in the way of something. Centre-halves get written about when they make mistakes and ignored when they do not, so an afternoon like this needs saying out loud: he is the reason the scoreline reads as it does.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Nacional this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
A brace, and Daniel Júnior takes the afternoon — 9.20
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Daniel Júnior provided it, and the 9.20 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Nacional this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 23 he is doing things at this level he could not do at the start of the season, and the coaching staff will tell you exactly which of them.
Squad11 Jan 2027
Words at Nacional training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Miguel Baeza 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.
Académico de Viseu will keep picking him until June and will get nothing for him after it. Rodrigo Guedes has pre-agreed a move to Nacional, and the only people who lose in that arrangement are the ones who let the contract run down.
3 kept out in the shoot-out, and a stadium that will still be describing them in twenty years. A goalkeeper only needs one of these to be remembered forever.
4 without a win now, and the ground has developed the special quiet of a crowd that expects the worst. One scrappy 1-0 would cure most of it; that is the maddening part.
Bernardo Fontes 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.
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 21 he is doing things at this level he could not do at the start of the season, and the coaching staff will tell you exactly which of them.
Squad21 Dec 2026
Miguel Baeza 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.
There is a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 21-year-old it feels ownership of. Markus Jensen has it now, and everything he does for the rest of his time here will be measured against the goodwill he was handed for free.
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 8.17 — 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.
Conceding is one thing; the response is what tells you about a dressing room. Daniel Júnior had Nacional level again within 4 minutes, and AVS never got to play with a lead at all.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Nacional this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
17 defensive actions and a clean sheet at the end of them. A defender's afternoon can only be told by what did not happen, which is why nobody makes a highlights package out of one and every manager in the division would take it.