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.
“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.
Two hours a week with a tutor, which is the least glamorous thing at Botafogo and the one that decides whether a foreign signing is still here in two years.
17 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Botafogo lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
21 goals in 14 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.
Bastos 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.
“We were not good enough today and I am not going to dress it up.” Márcio Souza after 1‑2, in the tone of a man who knows the next question and does not intend to answer it.
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.
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.
In brief
SquadA Botafogo teenager takes the young player award
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 27 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
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.
14 goals in 10 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.
It happens to all of them and it is still the hardest paragraph a local paper has to write. 34 years old, 3 points down on where he was, and a body that has started charging interest on a career.
Something was said to Kaio Pantaleão and then it happened. In this industry that passes for remarkable, and the dressing room noticed faster than any supporter could.
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 Álvaro Montoro is on it.
There is an age at which every good afternoon gets described as a throwback, which is unfair and also accurate. 8.07 at 34, and nobody on the pitch was better.
4 wins on the spin now, and the question has changed from whether the run ends to who ends it. Confidence like this cannot be bought; it has to be earned exactly this way.
10 matches unbeaten here. Every visiting manager is asked about it in the week before, which is precisely why it keeps going.
Squad28 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.
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.
Cup ties wait for somebody to seize them, and Mateo Ponte obliged against Ferroviária. 1‑0 on the night, and the name in the next round’s hat is Botafogo.
“I know what people will say. I know what I want, and it is here.” Bunyodkor had the fee agreed and the shirt ready; they did not have the player, and now they will not.
There is an age at which every good afternoon gets described as a throwback, which is unfair and also accurate. 7.99 at 34, and nobody on the pitch was better.
“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.
“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.
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.
A brace, and Anselmo Ramon takes the afternoon — 8.71
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Anselmo Ramon provided it, and the 8.71 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
“I know what people will say. I know what I want, and it is here.” Ittihad had the fee agreed and the shirt ready; they did not have the player, and now they will not.
He is 21 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.
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.
Player ratings17 Aug 2026
A brace, and Kadir Barría takes the afternoon — 8.68
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Kadir Barría provided it, and the 8.68 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
“It was not right for me. I am not going to explain why to anybody except the people I owe an explanation to.” A deal agreed between two clubs, and a player who declined to be part of it.
Successful dribbles: 28. 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.
At 36 he is supposed to be managing his minutes. Instead he was marked 8.23 and looked, for ninety minutes, exactly like the player everybody remembers.
The offer from Shooting Stars for Domingos Andrade 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.
3 wins on the spin now, and the question has changed from whether the run ends to who ends it. Confidence like this cannot be bought; it has to be earned exactly this way.
The rules permit it and it stings anyway. Rafael Porfírio has agreed terms with Juazeirense for the summer, and until then he pulls on this shirt as a player who has already chosen his next one.
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.
Álvaro Montoro, 19, plays like he has been here for years — 7.97
A mark of 7.97 means one thing beside a twenty-nine-year-old's name and something else entirely beside a 19-year-old's. Nobody at the ground needed telling which this was.
Footballers are asked about their boyhood club so often that nobody listens to the answer. Pablo has just signed for Botafogo, and for once the answer mattered.
“I want to be playing for trophies while my legs still let me.” Nothing in that sentence is a transfer request, and nobody at Botafogo heard it as anything else.
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.
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.
There is a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 19-year-old it feels ownership of. Álvaro Montoro 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.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Juan Pablo Zuluaga was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
36 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.
“We were not good enough today and I am not going to dress it up.” Fábio Pereira after 2‑3, in the tone of a man who knows the next question and does not intend to answer it.