Supporters organise against the Pouso Alegre board
A bad atmosphere can be waited out. A group of people meeting afterwards to decide what to do about it cannot, and everybody in the building knows which stage this is.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the whole of the defence. 7 saves, several of them the kind nobody expects to see made, and ten outfield players who owe him a drink.
Luverdense held the lead for 1 minutes, which is not long enough to enjoy it. Pouso Alegre answered before the celebration had properly finished, and the shape of the afternoon changed with it.
“The supporters are entitled to be angry. So am I. We will put it right.” 2‑3, a manager saying the necessary things, and a dressing room that heard a different version of them.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Pouso Alegre this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
In brief
The dugoutLucas Mendes dropped after a run of poor form
Supporters organise against the Pouso Alegre board
A bad atmosphere can be waited out. A group of people meeting afterwards to decide what to do about it cannot, and everybody in the building knows which stage this is.
Goiânia will want this one forgotten quickly: 3‑0, every duel lost, and a long ride home. Pouso Alegre were ruthless in the way good sides are ruthless.
At 34 he is supposed to be managing his minutes. Instead he was marked 8.14 and looked, for ninety minutes, exactly like the player everybody remembers.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Pouso Alegre have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Marked 9.25. Players have careers without a single afternoon like this in them, and he has just had one in front of everybody at Pouso Alegre.
Squad19 Apr 2027
Words at Pouso Alegre training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. César Fuentes 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.
“We earned that. I asked them for a reaction and I got one, and now I want the same again on Saturday.” Marcelo Alves on a 3‑0 afternoon that pleased him more than he was prepared to show.
91 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Pouso Alegre lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Boardroom1 Feb 2027
The silence upstairs is getting loud at Pouso Alegre
Nobody on the board has said anything against the manager, which is the point — they have stopped saying anything for him either.
Squad1 Feb 2027
César Fuentes 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.
Pouso Alegre asked and Atlético Mineiro said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
Every squad has men who were signed by a particular manager and men who were merely inherited. Oswaldo Valencia is in the first group, and the man who wanted him here is no longer in the building.
A year in and the language has not come, the city has not opened up, and he eats alone more often than anybody at Pouso Alegre would like to admit. It is showing on Saturdays.
In brief
The dugoutRenato Assis asks for a word with the manager
At 34 he is supposed to be managing his minutes. Instead he was marked 7.86 and looked, for ninety minutes, exactly like the player everybody remembers.
1‑1, and both dressing rooms will call it two points lost. A draw that asked plenty of questions and answered none of them.
The dugout9 Nov 2026
The view from the dugout
“We did not lose. Some weeks that is all you get, and I would rather have the point than not.” Marcelo Alves chose the glass-half-full version of 1‑1; the supporters left with the other one.
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.
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.
“I am not asking anybody to be better than they are. I am asking everybody to be as good as they are, every week.” Said out loud, in front of everybody, and the room at Pouso Alegre was different afterwards.
Successful dribbles: 5. 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.
5 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.
“We earned that. I asked them for a reaction and I got one, and now I want the same again on Saturday.” Marcelo Alves on a 2‑1 afternoon that pleased him more than he was prepared to show.
He wheeled away like a man who had been carrying it for months, because he had. Pouso Alegre have their signing off the mark and one press-conference question retired.
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.
Marked 5.80. Nothing he attempted worked and by the hour mark he had stopped attempting much, which is the part a manager notices rather than the mistakes.
The young player of the month award goes to a 14-year-old at Pouso Alegre who has looked like the finished article for four weekends running. The next four are the ones that decide whether he is.
There is a level at which a footballer stops being tested and starts being contained, and he reached it some time ago. Pouso Alegre know it, and so does everybody who watches him.
Nothing is announced when this happens and everybody knows. He is a bigger part of the plan at Pouso Alegre than he was a month ago, and the training ground worked that out before the team sheet said so.