Marked for Walace
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Match15 Feb 2027
Cruzeiro refuse to drop out of the race
Position 2, 55 points, and the result everyone checks first is now theirs. The word is still not being said around the ground, which is how you know everyone is thinking it.
Market15 Feb 2027
Cruzeiro say no — this time
The offer from Omiya Ardija for Rodriguinho 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.
Squad15 Feb 2027
A falling-out at Cruzeiro
Fabrício Bruno and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Market15 Feb 2027
“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.
Squad15 Feb 2027
“I never wanted to be anywhere else. There is unfinished business here.” Miguel Antonio commits to Cruzeiro for another 3 years.
The dugout15 Feb 2027
Gérson gets picked when it counts
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 Gérson is on it.
Loan watch15 Feb 2027
26 appearances away from home and 7 goals to show for them. Every one of them makes next summer's conversation a little more expensive.
Market15 Feb 2027
Gérson linked with a move away
The name of Gérson keeps appearing in other people's back pages. Cruzeiro say nothing, which says plenty.
The dugout15 Feb 2027
Wanderson has been promised minutes
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 Wanderson has written the date down.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Match26 Dec 2026
Chastening afternoon for Vitória
A 0‑4 beating by Fluminense was the sort of result that empties a stadium long before the final whistle.
Market28 Dec 2026
“I have given everything here and I need a new challenge.” The request is formal, and the relationship will never be quite the same again.
Squad28 Dec 2026
There were 6 saves in it, and at least three that had no business being saves at all. The ten outfield players owe him a drink and they know it.
Squad28 Dec 2026
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Vitória this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Boardroom28 Dec 2026
Nobody left the Vitória dressing room in a hurry
The door stayed shut a long time after the final whistle. What was said in there is between them; whether it worked is between them and Saturday.
The dugout28 Dec 2026
The view from the dugout
“We will look at it, we will learn from it, and we go again.” The three sentences every manager keeps for a 0‑4 defeat, delivered by Rafael Machado to a room that had heard them before.
The dugout28 Dec 2026
The manager makes an example of Zé Marcos
“If you cannot run for the shirt, somebody else will wear it.” No name was used and none was needed; every player in that room knew who it was for.
The dugout28 Dec 2026
Marinho knocks on the manager's door
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Vitória, and both men came out saying it was fine.
The dugout28 Dec 2026
Somebody else is better right now than Emanuel Brítez
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.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Squad9 Nov 2026
16 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Vitória lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
Match7 Nov 2026
Nowhere to hide for Vitória
0‑3 against Botafogo, and no complaints that would survive the replay. The manager spoke about character afterwards; the terraces used shorter words.
Squad9 Nov 2026
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the whole of the defence. 8 saves, several of them the kind nobody expects to see made, and ten outfield players who owe him a drink.
Squad9 Nov 2026
A falling-out at Vitória
Marinho and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Player ratings9 Nov 2026
Successful dribbles: 18. 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.
Boardroom9 Nov 2026
Nobody left the Vitória dressing room in a hurry
The door stayed shut a long time after the final whistle. What was said in there is between them; whether it worked is between them and Saturday.
Squad9 Nov 2026
Zé Marcos 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.
The dugout9 Nov 2026
Walace is still paying for one afternoon at Vitória
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.
The dugout9 Nov 2026
“We were not good enough today and I am not going to dress it up.” Rafael Machado after 0‑3, in the tone of a man who knows the next question and does not intend to answer it.
In brief
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Player ratings
A costly moment from Walace
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The dugout
Nathan gets it from the manager
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The dugout
Matheuzinho asks for a word with the manager
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Squad19 Oct 2026
Emanuel Brítez damages knee ligaments — 40 days out
The words a physio says slowly. 40 days is what the club will announce and everybody who has heard this diagnosis before knows the number is the least of it: the knee comes back before the player does.
Boardroom19 Oct 2026
The rules permit it and it stings anyway. Andrei has agreed terms with Atletico Goianiense for the summer, and until then he pulls on this shirt as a player who has already chosen his next one.
Squad19 Oct 2026
Words exchanged at Vitória
Marinho 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.
Market19 Oct 2026
Andrei has one foot out of the door
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Vitória they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
Squad19 Oct 2026
Emmanuel Martínez 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.
Match17 Oct 2026
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Emmanuel Martínez. 2‑0 against Grêmio, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
Player ratings19 Oct 2026
Ninety minutes of Pedro Henrique at his very best
Marked 8.16. Players have careers without a single afternoon like this in them, and he has just had one in front of everybody at Vitória.
Player ratings19 Oct 2026
There is a version of this player everybody suspected was in there, and on this evidence it is. 8.06, and no argument anywhere in the ground.
Player ratings19 Oct 2026
Nobody could get near Erick
Successful dribbles: 16. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad5 Oct 2026
A knee injury of the worst kind for Emanuel Brítez
55 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Vitória lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Squad5 Oct 2026
8 saves, and a scoreline the ten men in front of him had no right to. Goalkeepers only get noticed on the bad days; this was one of the other ones.
Squad5 Oct 2026
Marinho in a row with a teammate
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Vitória this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Player ratings5 Oct 2026
Erick beats them one at a time
Successful dribbles: 22. There was always a defender in front of him and there was never a defender in front of him for long.
Match3 Oct 2026
It needed Pedro Henrique to find the net to bring anything home at all: 1‑1 against Santos, and half the dressing room will call it a point won.
The dugout5 Oct 2026
“There are things I liked and things we will be doing on Tuesday until they are right.” 1‑1, and a manager who had already decided what Tuesday looked like.
The dugout5 Oct 2026
When it matters, Erick plays
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.
The dugout5 Oct 2026
The form table has caught Luan Cândido
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 dugout5 Oct 2026
Ninety specific minutes wanted a different sort of player, and the manager picked one. He is not out of form and he is not in the side, and both are true.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad10 Aug 2026
The medical room confirms 41 days on the sidelines for Baralhas, and a plan built around him now has to be rebuilt.
Boardroom10 Aug 2026
The rules permit it and it stings anyway. Alexsandro Faísca has agreed terms with Mirassol for the summer, and until then he pulls on this shirt as a player who has already chosen his next one.
Squad10 Aug 2026
“The easiest signature of my career.” Matheuzinho and Vitória agree another 4 years, and the manager can plan around him rather than about him.
Squad10 Aug 2026
Marinho 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 ratings10 Aug 2026
Successful dribbles: 21. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
The dugout10 Aug 2026
The manager makes an example of Renato Kayser
“If you cannot run for the shirt, somebody else will wear it.” No name was used and none was needed; every player in that room knew who it was for.
Market10 Aug 2026
One of our own: Tanque joins the Vitória first team
Clubs spend fortunes looking for players and occasionally find one down the corridor. Tanque is that, and the reception he gets on his first appearance will be different in kind from the one any signing receives.
Market10 Aug 2026
There is no fee, no unveiling and no agent on the steps. Rodrygo Fonseca 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.
Market10 Aug 2026
Clubs spend fortunes looking for players and occasionally find one down the corridor. Cristiano Figueiredo is that, and the reception he gets on his first appearance will be different in kind from the one any signing receives.