Fee agreed, wages agreed, and Internacional waiting with a shirt. Nobody at Cuiabá is pretending otherwise, and the supporters have stopped asking whether and started asking when.
Cuiabá and Botafogo have settled on $92.0K. The rest belongs to the player and his agent, and a supporter who has watched one of these before knows not to buy the shirt yet.
Cuiabá have gone to Cruzeiro with a bid, and the supporters have gone to the internet with an opinion about it. Whether either changes anything is up to the selling club.
The offer went to Nova Iguaçu 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 Cuiabá this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Everybody at Cuiabá saw it before anybody said it, which is how this always goes. At 33 the decline is real and measurable — 3 points — and the only question left is how the club handles somebody it owes a great deal to.
Squad6 Dec 2027
Words at Cuiabá training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Eliel 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.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Cristian Medina was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
A player who expected to start watched it instead. The manager will call it a decision for the team; Gabriel Batista will call it something else in private.
27 appearances at Horizonte and the goals have stopped going in. Botafogo lent out a goalkeeper and are watching somebody else’s season get better every week.
The ambition story running the other way, and the one nobody tells: a footballer asking for a smaller stage, fewer cameras and a crowd that does not turn. It is not weakness and it is very rarely reported as anything else.
4 call-ups is a compliment to the squad and a headache for the man running it. He will get them back in a fortnight, tired, in various states of repair.
Words at Botafogo training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Cristian Medina 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 demotion a club never announces and a dressing room always notices. Gabriel Vasconcelos is further from the side than he was, and the reason will not be given until he asks.
Something was said to Allan and then it happened. In this industry that passes for remarkable, and the dressing room noticed faster than any supporter could.
“We keep meeting, and we keep leaving the room with the same numbers we walked in with.” Another round of talks at Botafogo, another week without a signature from Pedro Bicalho.
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 Bastos is on it.
7 goals in 27 games at Aguilas Doradas — numbers that travel home faster than he does. Somebody at Botafogo updates a spreadsheet every Monday, and it makes better reading each week.
“I know what people will say. I know what I want, and it is here.” CRB had the fee agreed and the shirt ready; they did not have the player, and now they will not.
The hardest thing about being 21 in a senior side is that nobody makes allowances. Alisson did not need any: 8.21, and he looked the most comfortable man on the pitch.
The deadline has passed and the squad is the squad. 0 arrived, 11 left, and everything else printed about this club last month was a rumour that stayed one.
The fee was agreed and the flight was looked at — and then the phone stopped ringing. Juazeirense moved on, Edenílson reports back to Botafogo, and everybody pretends Monday is just Monday.
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.
“I have given this everything, but my family is not here and neither am I, not really.” A footballer can be coached out of bad form. Nobody has ever been coached out of this, and Botafogo know it.
17 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Botafogo lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
The last thing about a transfer that is still about the player is his signature on his own terms, and it is there. Botafogo have lost him in all but the paperwork.
Botafogo offered $4.3M; Avaí said it was not close. The manager will be told the money is still there for the right player, which is what managers are told.
Botafogo asked and Cruzeiro said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Botafogo this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
The clubs had agreed and the player had not. A snub, and a public one: Legia keep him, and the supporters here are left wondering what he had heard about the place.
25 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Botafogo lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Cup ties wait for somebody to seize them, and Danilo obliged against América de Natal. 3‑0 on the night, and the name in the next round’s hat is Botafogo.
Two goals and a mark of 8.40 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
“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 Botafogo, and it is not being withdrawn.
Botafogo offered $14.8M; Fluminense said it was not close. The manager will be told the money is still there for the right player, which is what managers are told.
The clubs have settled the fee and he has settled his wages. What remains is a medical and a photograph, and around Botafogo people have started saying his name in the past tense.
6.93, 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.
The name of Matheus Martins has come up in conversations Botafogo were not part of. Nothing formal, nothing signed — but nothing about it accidental either.
The number the board signed off was not enough. It has been asked again and raised its own offer to $1.6M — a club that wants Leonel Pérez enough to be asked twice.
In brief
SquadCristian Medina falls out with a teammate over standards
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Botafogo can pretend not to have heard.
At 34 he is supposed to be managing his minutes. Instead he was marked 7.99 and looked, for ninety minutes, exactly like the player everybody remembers.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Cristian Medina was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
3 groups that do not mix, and 2 players belonging to none of them. Nothing here can be fined or dropped, which is why it lasts longer than any row that can.
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.
He has had enough of the noise. Whether Botafogo can be a quieter place for him, or whether the only cure is a move somewhere the phone-ins are gentler, is a question for the next few months.
Álvaro Montoro 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 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.
“I am grateful for the games, but I did not become a footballer to be somebody else's spare part.” He wants to be at Botafogo, and 3 appearances in 21 say he has earned the hearing.
The ambition story running the other way, and the one nobody tells: a footballer asking for a smaller stage, fewer cameras and a crowd that does not turn. It is not weakness and it is very rarely reported as anything else.
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 clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Botafogo is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Cristian Medina was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
At 23 he is being sung about by people twice his age, which is an affection a signing has to earn over years and a local kid gets for turning up. It is also the hardest thing in football to live up to.
There is a version of this player everybody suspected was in there, and on this evidence it is. 8.12, and no argument anywhere in the ground.
The dugout26 Apr 2027
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.” Daniel Araujo, on a 2‑0 win that he was already picking apart on the walk to the press room.
In brief
The dugoutThe manager has not finished forgetting Pedro Bicalho's mistake
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.
“I am grateful for the games, but I did not become a footballer to be somebody else's spare part.” He wants to be at Botafogo, and 0 appearances in 13 say he has earned the hearing.
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Botafogo, and both men came out saying it was fine.
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 has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Cristian Medina signs something — a contract at Botafogo or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
A year in and the language has not come, the city has not opened up, and he eats alone more often than anybody at Botafogo would like to admit. It is showing on Saturdays.
In brief
Loan watchThe goals keep arriving from Chris Ramos’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 Botafogo can pretend not to have heard.
“I listened, I thought about it, and I am staying. That is the whole story.” The clubs had agreed a fee. Mateo Ponte had not agreed to go, which turned out to be the part that mattered.
Footballers are asked about their boyhood club so often that nobody listens to the answer. Dean Phiri has just signed for Botafogo, and for once the answer mattered.
Botafogo offered $7.8M; Santos said it was not close. The manager will be told the money is still there for the right player, which is what managers are told.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Botafogo this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
It is the least glamorous business a club does and the reason seasons do not collapse in February. Dean Phiri is here for the weeks when three men are injured and somebody still has to play.
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.
27 goals in 23 games at Ludogorets — numbers that travel home faster than he does. Somebody at Botafogo updates a spreadsheet every Monday, and it makes better reading each week.
Botafogo asked and Coritiba said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
Botafogo have gone to Sarpsborg 08 with a bid, and the supporters have gone to the internet with an opinion about it. Whether either changes anything is up to the selling club.
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Botafogo, and both men came out saying it was fine.
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 Matheus Martins is on it.
The dugout25 Jan 2027
The manager has not finished forgetting Bastos's mistake
Publicly it is behind everybody. It is not behind the man who picks the team, and the only place that shows is a team sheet. He will get another chance; he will get it in a match that matters less.
Botafogo have gone to Ludogorets with a bid, and the supporters have gone to the internet with an opinion about it. Whether either changes anything is up to the selling club.
25 goals in 22 games at Ludogorets — numbers that travel home faster than he does. Somebody at Botafogo updates a spreadsheet every Monday, and it makes better reading each week.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Botafogo have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
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.
Nobody at Botafogo will say this on the record and the team sheets have been saying it for weeks. There is a small group in every squad who get picked when the fixture is difficult, and he has joined it.
The offer from Estudiantes for Cristian Medina 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.
This is not cover and nobody is pretending it is. $7.0M has been paid because Pedro Bicalho is straightforwardly better than what was already here, and the club has decided to stop waiting.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Botafogo can pretend not to have heard.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. New York City have kept their man, and Botafogo go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
Gimnasia La Plata pay $5.6M, and the deal is done. The number reads well on a balance sheet; whether it reads well on the pitch is next season's question.
20 goals in 19 games at Ludogorets — numbers that travel home faster than he does. Somebody at Botafogo updates a spreadsheet every Monday, and it makes better reading each week.
Alex Telles 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 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.
Two goals and a mark of 8.15 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
Kadir Barría 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 else has been better, the manager has said so with a team sheet, and there is no argument to be had. He will get the shirt back the only way it can be got back.
The dugout30 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.” Daniel Araujo, on a 3‑0 win that he was already picking apart on the walk to the press room.
Nobody will confirm this and nothing else explains the last month of selections. A costly error buys a player a period of being second choice that is always longer than the error was.
200 games in the shirt. Nobody sets out to build a record like that; it happens to a certain kind of player at a certain kind of club, and this town knows what it has.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Botafogo this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
The team sheet says it in public every week until it changes. The only version of being dropped a footballer cannot argue with, and the one he takes hardest.
“We earned that. I asked them for a reaction and I got one, and now I want the same again on Saturday.” Daniel Araujo on a 1‑0 afternoon that pleased him more than he was prepared to show.
Álvaro Montoro 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 thought about how hard another man trains, and Cristian Medina was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
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.
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Botafogo, and both men came out saying it was fine.
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.
Every squad has one of these fixtures for somebody every season. This one is Gustavo Silva’s: the club that knew him first, the supporters who will decide in the first minute whether to applaud, and Botafogo needing him to play as if none of it matters.
“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 Botafogo hears a sentence like that exactly as it was built.
Alex Telles 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.
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. Arthur Cabral had Botafogo level again within 3 minutes, and Flamengo never got to play with a lead at all.
“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.
The dugout9 Nov 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 2‑3 Daniel Araujo left the room before anybody could ask which.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the team. 6 saves, several of them the sort nobody expects to see stopped, and a scoreline that flatters everybody in front of him.
“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.
Successful dribbles: 20. 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 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 8.13 — 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.
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.
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.
The academy exists for exactly this morning. Marcos Borges 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. Fernando Gomes 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. Éder Porto is that, and the reception he gets on his first appearance will be different in kind from the one any signing receives.
The academy exists for exactly this morning. Fernando Freitas 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.
Everybody at Botafogo saw it before anybody said it, which is how this always goes. At 37 the decline is real and measurable — 3 points — and the only question left is how the club handles somebody it owes a great deal to.
Kadir Barría 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.
Squad12 Oct 2026
14 new faces, and Botafogo 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.
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Botafogo, and both men came out saying it was fine.
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 Kadir Barría is on it.
São Paulo next, and one man in the Botafogo dressing room knows their training ground better than his own. The reception will tell him what they thought of him.
Two goals and a mark of 8.44 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
There is no worse way to lose a footballer. Adriano has pre-agreed a move away, which means every appearance between now and June is made by a man the club can no longer sell, and somebody upstairs will be asked why the contract was allowed to get here.
7 goals in one match, Pedro Rocha on the scoresheet, and a scoreline that will look like a misprint. Neutrals could not have asked more of Botafogo and Goiás.
There is a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 23-year-old it feels ownership of. Mateo Ponte 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.
“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.
There is no worse way to lose a footballer. Rafael Porfírio has pre-agreed a move away, which means every appearance between now and June is made by a man the club can no longer sell, and somebody upstairs will be asked why the contract was allowed to get here.
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Kaio Pantaleão and Botafogo agree another 3 years.
Squad14 Sep 2026
Words at Botafogo training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Cristian Medina 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.
A 2‑0 win over Portuguesa, a place in the next round, and the quiet arithmetic every supporter does on the walk home: how many more until a final?
Player ratings31 Aug 2026
Kadu Santos, 21, plays like he has been here for years — 7.78
A mark of 7.78 means one thing beside a twenty-nine-year-old's name and something else entirely beside a 21-year-old's. Nobody at the ground needed telling which this was.
“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.
The dugout31 Aug 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 1‑2 Daniel Araujo left the room before anybody could ask which.
Successful dribbles: 15. 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.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Gabriel Vasconcelos trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
“I listened, I thought about it, and I am staying. That is the whole story.” The clubs had agreed a fee. Kadir Barría had not agreed to go, which turned out to be the part that mattered.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Cristian Medina was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
“The supporters are entitled to be angry. So am I. We will put it right.” 0‑1, a manager saying the necessary things, and a dressing room that heard a different version of them.
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.
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Eduardo Rodrigues and Botafogo agree another 3 years.
Cup ties wait for somebody to seize them, and Kadir Barría obliged against Independência. 3‑0 on the night, and the name in the next round’s hat is Botafogo.
The hardest thing about being 21 in a senior side is that nobody makes allowances. Kadu Santos did not need any: 7.84, and he looked the most comfortable man on the pitch.
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 23-year-old it feels ownership of. Matheus Martins 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.
A performance of 8.08 does not come along often, and when it does the rest of the team becomes scenery. He was magnificent.
Player ratings17 Aug 2026
Paulinho was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.04. 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.
Every footballer has an answer to the question about his boyhood club, and most of them never get to act on it. Pedro Rocha has, at Botafogo, and the first month will show what that does to a man.
“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.
Allan 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.
He is 23 and the ground already sings his name, which is a thing that happens to local boys and almost never to signings. Everything from here is measured against an affection he did nothing to earn except be from here.
There is no fee, no unveiling and no agent on the steps. Luiz Tavares has been at this club since he was a boy and is now, formally, one of the first-team squad — which for a local readership beats any signing of any size.
The academy exists for exactly this morning. Eduardo Rodrigues 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. Carlos Queiroz 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.