Position 18 and 20 points, and the table gets read bottom-up in this part of town. The calendar has stopped being a schedule and started being a countdown.
“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.
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.
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 22 he is doing things at this level he could not do at the start of the season, and the coaching staff will tell you exactly which of them.
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.
Warm-up bib, ninety minutes of watching, and a handshake at the end that fooled nobody. Big matches tell you who a manager trusts; this one told Romarinho.
“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.
Marcinho 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.
Squad13 Sep 2027
Words at Criciúma training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Natanael 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 particular warmth a ground reserves for a 22-year-old it feels ownership of. Gabriel Bontempo has it now, and everything he does for the rest of his time here will be measured against the goodwill he was handed for free.
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Gabriel Bontempo. 2‑0 against Chapecoense, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Criciúma will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
Yuri Tanque and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Squad2 Aug 2027
Words at Criciúma training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Natanael 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.
“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.
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.
The offer from Santa Cruz de Natal for Fellipe Mateus 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.
The chances are being made and something is happening between the making and the finishing. 4 matches now, and the anxiety in the ground arrives a little earlier every week.
200 games in the shirt. Nobody sets out to build a record like that; it happens to a certain kind of player at a certain kind of club, and this town knows what it has.
Lira 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.
“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.
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.
30 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Criciúma lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
6 without a win now, and the ground has developed the special quiet of a crowd that expects the worst. One scrappy 1-0 would cure most of it; that is the maddening part.
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 am grateful for the games, but I did not become a footballer to be somebody else's spare part.” He wants to be at Criciúma, and 3 appearances in 21 say he has earned the hearing.
The dugout17 May 2027
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 0‑2 defeat, delivered by José Gomes to a room that had heard them before.
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.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the whole of the defence. 7 saves, several of them the kind nobody expects to see made, and ten outfield players who owe him a drink.
“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.
“The supporters are entitled to be angry. So am I. We will put it right.” 0‑1, a manager saying the necessary things, and a dressing room that heard a different version of them.
The manager wanted a different profile for this opponent, which is a real football reason and no consolation. He did nothing wrong and he did not play.
“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.
7.46, 1 on the scoresheet, and the specific comedy of a back-four player celebrating like somebody who does this every week. He does not, and that is exactly why the ground reacted the way it did.
Boardroom19 Apr 2027
2 academy players handed senior numbers at Criciúma
The morning the pathway stops being a brochure and becomes a team sheet. Most of them will not be here in three years; all of them have already done the hard part, which was getting to today.
Clubs spend fortunes looking for players and occasionally find one down the corridor. Pedro Souza is that, and the reception he gets on his first appearance will be different in kind from the one any signing receives.
The academy exists for exactly this morning. Danilo Batista has come through every age group the club runs and has now been handed a senior number, and the people who coached him at twelve will be the proudest in the building.
Goalkeepers do not get to make mistakes; they get to make goals. He made one, he knew it instantly, and there was nobody behind him to make it anything else.
“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.
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.
It is the most legitimate ambition in the sport and the hardest for most clubs to satisfy. Marcinho wants continental football; whether Criciúma can provide it is a question about the next two seasons, not about him.
“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 Criciúma, and 0 appearances in 16 say he has earned the hearing.
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.
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.
“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 Criciúma, and 0 appearances in 5 say he has earned the hearing.
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.
It is the most legitimate ambition in the sport and the hardest for most clubs to satisfy. Aírton wants continental football; whether Criciúma can provide it is a question about the next two seasons, not about him.
Yuri Tanque 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.
“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.
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.
Nothing in writing and nothing in public: a word about playing time, given face to face at Criciúma. The team sheets over the next month will show whether it was worth having.
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Criciúma, and both men came out saying it was fine.
The language has come, the shrug has gone, and he argues in training like a man who expects to be here next year. None of it shows up on a fee and all of it shows up on the pitch.
24 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.
Lira 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.
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.
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.
Squad8 Feb 2027
Words at Criciúma training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Rafael Juwer 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 no fee, no unveiling and no agent on the steps. Fera 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.
The academy exists for exactly this morning. Marcelo Neves has come through every age group the club runs and has now been handed a senior number, and the people who coached him at twelve will be the proudest in the building.
There is no fee, no unveiling and no agent on the steps. Thiago Araujo 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.
There is no fee, no unveiling and no agent on the steps. Guilherme Mendes 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.
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.
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.
Fee agreed, wages agreed, and Uberlândia waiting with a shirt. Nobody at Criciúma is pretending otherwise, and the supporters have stopped asking whether and started asking when.
A medical, a signature, a shirt held up in front of a sponsor’s board. Criciúma have done the hard part with Corinthians, and the part that remains is the part supporters actually see.
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.
The phone has started ringing about Cauê again, and this time the name on the line is Juazeirense. Criciúma are listening politely and promising nothing.
Every shape has positions in it and this one does not have his. Criciúma will either change the shape, change his job, or change his club, and he is waiting to hear which.
5 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.
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.
In brief
The dugoutAírton has become a man the manager trusts
“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.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Criciúma is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
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.
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.
Somebody watched every match in the division at the weekend and decided he was the best thing in any of them. A small honour, and most careers end without one.
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 Diego Gonçalves has written the date down.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Jean Irmer trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
The shrug has gone, the language is coming, and he now argues in training like somebody who expects to be here next year. Half a signing's value is this and none of it appears on a fee.
Marked 9.56 — 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.
There is a figure at which a wage bill stops being ambitious and becomes the reason nothing else is possible, and this club has reached it. Nothing is left over for a transfer, a stand or a rainy afternoon.
2 goals before the ground had finished arriving. Volta Redonda spent the rest of the afternoon playing a match that had already been decided, and everybody in the stadium knew it.
Every run ends on an afternoon somebody had marked down as routine. This one went 11 matches, which is long enough that a town had stopped counting, and short enough that it will remember exactly who stopped it.
“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.
Successful dribbles: 15. 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.
It is not much of a headline and it is the reason players believe the next promise. Criciúma told Fellipe Mateus something would happen and then it happened, which in this industry passes for remarkable.
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.