There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Jair provided it, and the 8.20 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
The hardest thing about being 20 in a senior side is that nobody makes allowances. Isaque did not need any: 8.05, and he looked the most comfortable man on the pitch.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Novorizontino is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
The offer from Sporting da Covilhã for Alisson 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.
Patrick 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 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.
A bone, which is the one injury with a calendar attached. Criciúma will name a return date and, unusually for this business, will probably be right about it.
Novorizontino pay $130.0K, and the deal is done. The number reads well on a balance sheet; whether it reads well on the pitch is next season's question.
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.
Everybody at Criciúma 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.
The system has changed and his position has not. A footballer can improve his form; he cannot improve the manager’s formation, and that is the whole of the problem.
$15.3M on the table at Vasco da Gama. The manager wanted him, the board agreed a number, and the only voices still to be heard are the ones at the other club.
The clubs have settled the fee and he has settled his wages. What remains is a medical and a photograph, and around Novorizontino people have started saying his name in the past tense.
“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 The request is on a desk at Novorizontino, and it is not being withdrawn.
12 without defeat on their own grass. The pitch has not changed; the crowd has — louder earlier, and quicker to sense when the opposition would rather be somewhere else.
The deal with CSKA Moscow 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.
The chase for Alisson ended with $130.0K changing hands and Criciúma out of reasons to say no. The supporters will judge the fee the only way that matters: on Saturdays.
The name of Hélio Borges has come up in conversations Novorizontino were not part of. Nothing formal, nothing signed — but nothing about it accidental either.
A bone, which is the one injury with a calendar attached. Criciúma will name a return date and, unusually for this business, will probably be right about it.
“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.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Atlético Mineiro have kept their man, and Criciúma go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
Yuri Tanque 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.
At 22 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.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Natanael was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Successful dribbles: 16. 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.
Every run ends on an afternoon somebody had marked down as routine. This one went 19 matches, which is long enough that a town had stopped counting, and short enough that it will remember exactly who stopped it.
Novorizontino asked and Vasco da Gama said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
Novorizontino and Criciúma have settled on $130.0K. The rest belongs to the player and his agent, and a supporter who has watched one of these before knows not to buy the shirt yet.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Novorizontino can pretend not to have heard.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Novorizontino this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
It happens to all of them and it is still the hardest paragraph a local paper has to write. 36 years old, 3 points down on where he was, and a body that has started charging interest on a career.
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.
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Rômulo. 2‑1 against Náutico, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
“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.
Criciúma have gone to Ferroviária with a bid, and the supporters have gone to the internet with an opinion about it. Whether either changes anything is up to the selling club.
“I watch every Criciúma game from here. That says everything about where my head is.” The loan at Hapoel Beer Sheva runs its course, but his heart never made the trip.
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.
“We were not good enough today and I am not going to dress it up.” José Gomes after 1‑2, in the tone of a man who knows the next question and does not intend to answer it.
Atlético Mineiro have been asked whether they would lend him. Loans are agreed quickly or not at all, and this one will be one or the other by the weekend.
In brief
Transfer targetsA loan move for Leonel Pérez is in the works
Everybody saw it before anybody said it. At 36 the numbers say 3 points down on what he was, and the question for Criciúma is how to handle a man they owe a great deal.
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.
“I watch every Criciúma game from here. That says everything about where my head is.” The loan at Barcelona de Ilhéus runs its course, but his heart never made the trip.
Nobody at Criciúma 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 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.
He asked about his future and was given an answer with minutes in it. The manager has now made a promise in a building where promises are remembered, and the clock on it has started.
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.
Nobody at Criciúma 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.
Numbers do not stay secret in a dressing room and never have. He is not asking for more than he is worth; he is asking why somebody beside him is worth more, and at Criciúma that is a harder question to answer.
Add another name to the list: Hapoel Beer Sheva have asked the question everybody in the game has been asking about Kauã. The answer from Criciúma has not changed — yet.
“I watch every Criciúma game from here. That says everything about where my head is.” The loan at Maricá runs its course, but his heart never made the trip.
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.
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 Alisson has written the date down.
Two hours a week with a tutor, which is the least glamorous thing at Criciúma and the one that decides whether a foreign signing is still here in two years.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Criciúma have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
The general version of this complaint is that a player wants more. The specific version names the thing: he wants to walk out under floodlights against clubs from other countries, and he has stopped pretending otherwise.
Every club in football 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 somebody has tried it.
Lira and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
The dugout30 Nov 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 0‑1 José Gomes left the room before anybody could ask which.
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.
Squad30 Nov 2026
Rafael Juwer 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.