Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 115 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
“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 The request is on a desk at Criciúma, and it is not being withdrawn.
Successful dribbles: 19. 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.
50 for the club now, each one filed in somebody’s memory with a date and a scoreline. Numbers like this are what supporters argue about in twenty years.
“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.
25 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Criciúma lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the whole of the defence. 6 saves, several of them the kind nobody expects to see made, and ten outfield players who owe him a drink.
It is the most legitimate ambition in the sport and the hardest for most clubs to satisfy. Eduardo wants continental football; whether Criciúma can provide it is a question about the next two seasons, not about him.
Marked 8.08 — 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.
“The players deserve the credit. My job was easy today.” It was not, and everybody in the room knew it; after 2‑0, Alex Porto could afford to be generous.
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.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Criciúma this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
At 21 he is doing things this season that he could not do last season, and doing them every week. Form comes and goes; this has stayed long enough to be called something else.
It is not a grievance and it is not a demand: he wants to play continental football, and he has stopped hiding it. Whether Criciúma can give him that is a question about the club, not about him.
Marked 9.61 — 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.
2 goals before the ground had finished arriving. Botafogo-SP spent the rest of the afternoon playing a match that had already been decided, and everybody in the stadium knew it.
“The players deserve the credit. My job was easy today.” It was not, and everybody in the room knew it; after 4‑1, Alex Porto could afford to be generous.
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 supporters are entitled to be angry. So am I. We will put it right.” 0‑4, a manager saying the necessary things, and a dressing room that heard a different version 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.
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.
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Thales provided it, and the 9.11 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
The match ball belongs to Gui Lobo, whose 3 goals turned a difficult afternoon into a procession.
Player ratings17 Aug 2026
A brace, and Yuri Tanque takes the afternoon — 8.32
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Yuri Tanque provided it, and the 8.32 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
He will play here until the summer and then walk out of the door for free, having already signed elsewhere. Supporters will manage the first part of that sentence; it is the second they will struggle with.