“I have ambitions, and I would like the club to share them.” Nobody has asked to leave and nobody has been shown the door — but a player chooses that sentence carefully, and a boardroom hears it exactly as it was meant.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Bahia this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
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.
“I watch every Bahia game from here. That says everything about where my head is.” The loan at Criciuma runs its course, but his heart never made the trip.
5 signings in three months. Every one of them may be an upgrade and the team can still be worse for a while, which is the part of a rebuild that never appears in the transfer-window verdicts.
A month is long enough that nobody gets in by accident. Ruan Pablo is in the division's best eleven for it, which is a quieter compliment than an award and a more reliable one.
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.
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Bahia, and both men came out saying it was fine.
In brief
The dugoutThe manager makes an example of Arthur Jampa
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Bahia can pretend not to have heard.
1 for Jean Lucas, marked 7.71, and a centre-half's name in the part of the report he normally only reaches by mistake. He will not be allowed to forget it in the dressing room for a month.
Jean Lucas 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.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Michel Araújo 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 board was up, the win was priced in, and then Cruzeiro scored. There is no worse minute to concede in and the ground emptied in the silence that follows one.
The offer went to Juventude this week and it is theirs to answer. First bids are rarely meant to succeed; they are meant to find out how loud the door closes.
The deadline has passed and the squad is the squad. 4 arrived, 9 left, and everything else printed about this club last month was a rumour that stayed one.
The number the board signed off was not enough. It has been asked again and raised its own offer to $2.0M — a club that wants Alisson Safira enough to be asked twice.
Jean Lucas 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.
Position 3, 37 points, and every result so far reduced to one line. The second half of the season starts with the same squad and a different set of expectations.
Squad26 Jul 2027
5 new faces, and Bahia 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.
In brief
The dugoutJean Lucas has become a man the manager trusts
The dugoutBahia pick somebody else ahead of Everaldo
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Fluminense will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Fluminense this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
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.
He asked about his future and was given an answer with minutes in it. The manager has now made a promise in a building where promises are remembered, and the clock on it has started.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Fluminense this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
13 goals in 23 games at Pafos — numbers that travel home faster than he does. Somebody at Fluminense updates a spreadsheet every Monday, and it makes better reading each week.
Squad22 Feb 2027
9 new faces, and Fluminense 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.
A conversation in the manager’s office, and a commitment that came out of it. Promises like that are cheap to make and expensive to break, and Luciano Acosta has written the date down.
4 goals in 15 games at Bahia — numbers that travel home faster than he does. Somebody at Fluminense updates a spreadsheet every Monday, and it makes better reading each week.
In brief
The dugoutSamuel Xavier knocks on the manager's door
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Fluminense this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
The name of Rubén Lezcano has come up in conversations Fluminense were not part of. Nothing formal, nothing signed — but nothing about it accidental either.
“Nobody here is above being told.” It was not said with a name attached, but the dressing room can count, and so can everybody who was listening.
Squad25 Jan 2027
9 new faces, and Fluminense 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.
Squad25 Jan 2027
Words at Fluminense training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Santiago Moreno 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.
In brief
Loan watchThe goals keep arriving from Everaldo’s exile
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Fluminense can pretend not to have heard.
The offer went to Bragantino this week and it is theirs to answer. First bids are rarely meant to succeed; they are meant to find out how loud the door closes.
$2.3M was the most the club would pay and Botafogo were asking for more. Deals like this are revived in the last week of a window roughly half the time, and everybody involved knows it.
Fluminense asked and Botafogo said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
Bragantino paid $1.4M and Fluminense took it, which is the whole story in one sentence. The longer version involves a wage budget and will be told all season.
Vissel Kobe have accepted the money. What Bahia do not yet have is the man, and between here and the photograph is a conversation about wages that both sides are dreading.
$1.0M on the table at Criciuma. The manager wanted him, the board agreed a number, and the only voices still to be heard are the ones at the other club.
The offer went to Mirassol this week and it is theirs to answer. First bids are rarely meant to succeed; they are meant to find out how loud the door closes.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Bahia this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Bahia asked and Criciuma said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
Squad7 Dec 2026
Jean Lucas 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.
1‑2 against Central Córdoba SdE. Continental football is unforgiving about the things a domestic league lets a side get away with, and this was a night spent finding out which of those the club still has.
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 7.95 for the rest of it.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Jean Lucas 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.
“I have tried. I have really tried, and every day I wake up in the wrong place.” Nobody at Bahia can coach that out of a man, and nobody there is pretending to.
Clubs make promises constantly and the page usually only hears about them when they are broken. This one was honoured, and the dressing room noticed that faster than any supporter did.
Warm-up bib, ninety minutes of watching, and a handshake at the end that fooled nobody. Big matches tell you who a manager trusts; this one told Willian José.
In brief
The dugoutEveraldo dropped after a run of poor form
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Fluminense this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Jefferson Savarino was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Another week, another link, another denial nobody quite believes. Fluminense know the market decides these things, not the back pages — but the back pages are louder.
Atlético Mineiro next, and one man in the Fluminense dressing room knows their training ground better than his own. The reception will tell him what they thought of him.
5 goals in 9 games at Pafos — numbers that travel home faster than he does. Somebody at Fluminense updates a spreadsheet every Monday, and it makes better reading each week.
Nothing in writing and nothing in public: a word about playing time, given face to face at Fluminense. The team sheets over the next month will show whether it was worth having.
3 goals in 13 games at Bahia — numbers that travel home faster than he does. Somebody at Fluminense updates a spreadsheet every Monday, and it makes better reading each week.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Bahia this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Everton Ribeiro 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 academy exists for exactly this morning. Matheus Nogueira has come through every age group the club runs and has now been handed a senior number, and the people who coached him at twelve will be the proudest in the building.
The academy exists for exactly this morning. Lucas Costa has come through every age group the club runs and has now been handed a senior number, and the people who coached him at twelve will be the proudest in the building.
The academy exists for exactly this morning. Caio Figueiredo has come through every age group the club runs and has now been handed a senior number, and the people who coached him at twelve will be the proudest in the building.
Clubs spend fortunes looking for players and occasionally find one down the corridor. Vitor Araujo is that, and the reception he gets on his first appearance will be different in kind from the one any signing receives.
18 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.
In brief
Player ratingsNobody on the pitch touched Caio Alexandre
The dugoutThe team sheet said everything about Erick
The dugoutSomebody else is better right now than Everaldo
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Bahia have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
“I want to win things, and I would like to do it here.” Nothing has been demanded and nothing has been threatened — but a boardroom at Bahia hears a sentence like that exactly as it was built.
A 1‑0 win over Internacional, earned rather than given, and the sort of afternoon that sends everyone home talking about next week instead of this one.
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.
At 21 he was better than everybody his age in the division for four weeks running, which is harder than one good afternoon. Bahia will try not to make too much of it.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Cristian Olivera 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.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Bahia this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
At 18 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.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Cristian Olivera was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Every manager keeps a short list in his head of the men he wants on the pitch when the stakes rise, and it is never published. The team sheets for the big afternoons say Everaldo is on it.
Clubs make promises constantly and the page usually only hears about them when they are broken. This one was honoured, and the dressing room noticed that faster than any supporter did.
1‑1 against La Equidad, and a performance that will be described to people who were not there for the rest of the season. Willian José was at the centre of the description.
Successful dribbles: 31. He went past people as if he had been told there was a prize for it, and by the end the full-back had stopped pretending to try.
There is an age at which every good afternoon gets described as a throwback, which is unfair and also accurate. 7.94 at 34, and nobody on the pitch was better.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Jean Lucas 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.
“Some mornings you wake up and you are still a long way from everything you know.” It is not the football and it never was; Bahia are dealing with a man who wants a different country.
“I was told straight, and I would rather have it straight.” The manager at Bahia has been clear about where Kanu stands, which is more than many ever get.
In brief
The dugoutEveraldo dropped after a run of poor form
A brace, and Erick Pulga takes the afternoon — 8.44
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Erick Pulga provided it, and the 8.44 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
Jean Lucas 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.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Everton Ribeiro was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Successful dribbles: 18. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Player ratings28 Sep 2026
Luciano Juba was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.07. 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.
6 new signings in one window. Every one may be an upgrade and the side can still be worse for a while, which is the part of a rebuild the verdicts never mention.
3‑0 against Central Córdoba SdE, on a night that will be replayed at this club for a generation. Continental reputations are made in single evenings and this was the evening.
There is an age at which every good afternoon gets described as a throwback, which is unfair and also accurate. 7.95 at 35, and nobody on the pitch was better.
7.98, 1 on the scoresheet, and the specific comedy of a back-four player celebrating like somebody who does this every week. He does not, and that is exactly why the ground reacted the way it did.
Jean Lucas 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.
Player ratings21 Sep 2026
Erick Pulga was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.25. 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.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Cristian Olivera was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Bahia this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
“I never wanted to be anywhere else. There is unfinished business here.” Michel Araújo commits to Bahia for another 4 years.
Squad14 Sep 2026
Jean Lucas 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.
Conceding is one thing; the response is what tells you about a dressing room. Everaldo had Bahia level again within 1 minutes, and Corinthians never got to play with a lead at all.
There is no complaint available here and everybody involved knows it, which does not make the walk to the bench any shorter. Form is the only currency in football that cannot be borrowed against.
“A point is a point and I will take it, but we should have had all three.” Vinícius Machado after the 1‑1 draw, and the sentence every manager in the country said at some stage this weekend.
Successful dribbles: 29. He went past people as if he had been told there was a prize for it, and by the end the full-back had stopped pretending to try.
The offer from Persija for Mateo Sanabria was heard out and sent back the same day. First bids are rarely meant to succeed; they are meant to find out how loudly the door closes.
Caio Alexandre 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.
The unbeaten run reaches 7. Some of them were wins and some were escapes, but a side that refuses to lose is a side other dressing rooms talk about.
Squad24 Aug 2026
Jean Lucas 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.
Every run ends on an afternoon somebody had marked down as routine. This one went 4 matches, which is long enough that a town had stopped counting, and short enough that it will remember exactly who stopped it.