Arthur Dias 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.
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 supporters are entitled to be angry. So am I. We will put it right.” 1‑3, a manager saying the necessary things, and a dressing room that heard a different version of them.
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Leandrinho signs something — a contract at Boavista or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
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.
The words a physio says slowly. 28 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.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Boavista this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad5 Apr 2027
Words at Boavista training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Café 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.
The demotion a club never announces and a dressing room always notices. André is further from the side than he was, and the reason will not be given until he asks.
The words a physio says slowly. 35 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.
Arthur Dias 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.
Squad29 Mar 2027
Words at Boavista training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Iago Santos 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.
Nobody at Boavista 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.
A bone, which is the one injury with a calendar attached. Goiatuba will name a return date and, unusually for this business, will probably be right about it.
Willian Bahia 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.
Squad25 Jan 2027
Felipe Alves 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.
In brief
Boardroom113% of the income goes out in wages at Goiatuba
Every footballer has an answer to the question about his boyhood club, and most of them never get to act on it. Henrique has, at Goiatuba, and the first month will show what that does to a man.
Everything agreed with Portuguesa, 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: Goianésia keep him, and the supporters here are left wondering what he had heard about the place.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Náutico have kept their man, and Goiatuba go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Henrique was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Every club pays most of what it earns to its players. Paying nearly all of it is a different arrangement, and it has ended the same way every time it has been tried.
He is doing things on a Saturday afternoon that nobody around him can answer, which is flattering for about one season and a problem after that. Goiatuba will not keep him by pretending otherwise.
36 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Boavista lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Boavista is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
Iago Santos 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 Marcus Carioca was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Terms were offered and declined. Whether it was the wages, the role or the town, nobody at Ceará is saying, and nobody at Goiatuba is enjoying the guessing.
The deal with Boavista is done in every sense but the one that puts him on the pitch. Nothing goes wrong at this stage, except on the occasions when it does.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Goiatuba this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad21 Dec 2026
Luis Felipe 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.
Nobody will confirm it and the team sheets confirm it every week. One error has bought him a spell as second choice that is already longer than the error deserved.
6 signings in three months. Every one of them may be an upgrade and the team can still be worse for a while, which is the part of a rebuild that never appears in the transfer-window verdicts.
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Luis Felipe signs something — a contract at Goiatuba or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Daniel Aguilar was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
“A point is a point and I will take it, but we should have had all three.” Roberto Fonseca after the 1‑1 draw, and the sentence every manager in the country said at some stage this weekend.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Daniel Aguilar trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
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.
Nobody at Boavista is suggesting he is out of form. The manager simply wanted somebody with a different set of qualities for ninety specific minutes, and there is nothing a player can train to fix that.