The run now stands at 16, and the questions being asked around Amazonas are no longer polite ones.
The terraces30 Nov 2026
The mood at Amazonas has turned into something else
Supporters who sing when it goes badly are supporters. Supporters who gather afterwards are a problem, and everybody inside the building knows which of the two this now is.
Alyson 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 Marcondes was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Successful dribbles: 14. 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.
He used to wear the other shirt. On Saturday he plays against Remo in this one, and whatever he says this week about it being just another game will be untrue.
15 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 Amazonas this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
He is not being dropped. There is simply nowhere in the formation Amazonas are playing to put a man who does what he does, which is a harder thing to be told than any team sheet.
“There are things I liked and things we will be doing on Tuesday until they are right.” 0‑0, and a manager who had already decided what Tuesday looked like.
Every squad has one of these fixtures for somebody every season. This one is Fabiano’s: the club that knew him first, the supporters who will decide in the first minute whether to applaud, and Amazonas needing him to play as if none of it matters.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Marcondes was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
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 Alyson is on it.
3 matches, no goals, and a training ground that has tried everything. It will end — droughts always do — but nobody at Amazonas can tell you which week it ends in.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Amazonas this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
0‑2 to Ferroviária, and no complaints worth printing. The performance asked for nothing more than it got.
Squad26 Oct 2026
Marcondes 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.
“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 dugout26 Oct 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 0‑2 Thiago Rodrigues left the room before anybody could ask which.
The dugout26 Oct 2026
The manager has not finished forgetting Ítalo Melo's mistake
Publicly it is behind everybody. It is not behind the man who picks the team, and the only place that shows is a team sheet. He will get another chance; he will get it in a match that matters less.
10 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.
Position 20 and 3 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.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Marcondes was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
At 36, 3 points below where he was, and a body that has started charging interest. It happens to all of them and it is still the hardest paragraph on this page.
“We were not good enough today and I am not going to dress it up.” Thiago Rodrigues after 0‑1, in the tone of a man who knows the next question and does not intend to answer it.
In brief
The dugoutThiago Amaral has become a man the manager trusts
Alyson 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.
Successful dribbles: 19. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Squad5 Oct 2026
Words at Amazonas training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Marcondes 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.
Squad5 Oct 2026
12 new faces, and Amazonas are still learning each other
A squad rebuilt inside one window pays for it in a currency nobody budgets for. The football is not worse than the sum of the players; it is worse than the sum of the players who have played together before.
“There are things I liked and things we will be doing on Tuesday until they are right.” 0‑0, and a manager who had already decided what Tuesday looked like.
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 Alyson is on it.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Amazonas will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
Leonan 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.
He is not being dropped. There is simply nowhere in the formation Amazonas are playing to put a man who does what he does, which is a harder thing to be told than any team sheet.
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 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.