“I have tried. I have really tried, and every day I wake up in the wrong place.” Nobody at Mingachevir can coach that out of a man, and nobody there is pretending to.
Lenon Farías de Souza Leite 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.
Squad19 Oct 2026
Words at Mingachevir training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Wendel Bahia 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 39, 3 points below where he was, and a body that has started charging interest. It happens to all of them and it is still the hardest paragraph on this page.
“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 Mingachevir, and 1 appearances in 10 say he has earned the hearing.
The dugout19 Oct 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 0‑2 Shahriyar Huseynov left the room before anybody could ask which.
Successful dribbles: 13. 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.
Talisson 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.
Sporting Baku next, and the two sides the division is watching meet each other. Whoever wins will be told nothing is decided in the same breath as being congratulated.
Everybody at Mingachevir saw it before anybody said it, which is how this always goes. At 36 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.
It is not much of a headline and it is the reason players believe the next promise. Mingachevir told Chriso something would happen and then it happened, which in this industry passes for remarkable.
One weekend, judged against everybody else's. Lenon Farías de Souza Leite has come out on top of it, and for most footballers a weekly award is the only silverware a career ever produces.
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Dener signs something — a contract at Mingachevir or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
Nobody at Mingachevir 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 deadline has passed and the squad is the squad. 23 arrived, 9 left, and everything else printed about this club last month was a rumour that stayed one.
The clubs had agreed and the player had not. A snub, and a public one: Goianésia keep him, and the supporters here are left wondering what he had heard about the place.
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 most common injury in the game and the most rushed back from. Mingachevir will quote 16 days and will be careful with it, because the second one is always worse than the first.
Mingachevir had done everything except persuade the man himself. He stays at Sumgayit, and the manager goes back to the drawing board with the money still in the bank.
Lenon Farías de Souza Leite 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.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Goianésia have kept their man, and Mingachevir go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
Squad31 Aug 2026
Words at Mingachevir training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Wendel Bahia 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 version of every career where the player ends up somewhere he chose rather than somewhere that chose him. Dener is living that version at Mingachevir, and it tends to show in the first month.
“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 Mingachevir, and it is not being withdrawn.
The number the board signed off was not enough. It has been asked again and raised its own offer to $16.1K — a club that wants Kənan Feyziyev enough to be asked twice.
Everything agreed with Goianésia, everything agreed with the player; a doctor is the only person left to persuade. The photograph is a day or two away.
The clubs had agreed and the player had not. A snub, and a public one: APOEL keep him, and the supporters here are left wondering what he had heard about the place.
Lenon Farías de Souza Leite 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 offer went to Sumgayit 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 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.
Felipe Laurindo 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.
“It is not the end of the world and it is not good enough. Both of those are true.” The manager, after a 1‑1 draw, said the honest thing and then went to say it again inside.
24 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.