Successful dribbles: 32. 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.
There is a version of every career where the player ends up somewhere he chose rather than somewhere that chose him. Cristian Ramírez is living that version at Maranhão, and it tends to show in the first month.
There is no complaint available here and everybody involved knows it, which does not make the walk to the bench any shorter. Form is the only currency in football that cannot be borrowed against.
There is a level at which a footballer stops being tested and starts being contained, and he reached it some time ago. Maranhão know it, and so does everybody who watches him.
“It is not the end of the world and it is not good enough. Both of those are true.” The manager, after a 0‑0 draw, said the honest thing and then went to say it again inside.
The clubs had agreed and the player had not. A snub, and a public one: another club keep him, and the supporters here are left wondering what he had heard about the place.
Juan José Barreña 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.
Squad16 Nov 2026
Words at Maranhão training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Elián Chaves 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.
11 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.
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.
Elián Chaves is 20, and Maranhão have signed him for the player he will be rather than the one he is. The first team can wait; the point of a deal like this is the years it buys.
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.
Every squad has one of these fixtures for somebody every season. This one is Éverson’s: the club that knew him first, the supporters who will decide in the first minute whether to applaud, and Maranhão needing him to play as if none of it matters.
Arthur Viana 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 chances are being made and something is happening between the making and the finishing. 3 matches now, and the anxiety in the ground arrives a little earlier every week.
“I never wanted to be anywhere else. There is unfinished business here.” Carlos Pereira commits to Maranhão for another 3 years.
The dugout28 Sep 2026
The manager’s verdict
“I am frustrated, honestly. We did enough to win and we did not win.” Samuel Borges was not hiding it after 0‑0, and nobody in the Maranhão dressing room was either.
Nobody at Maranhão 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.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Carlos Pereira trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
Clubs spend fortunes looking for players and occasionally find one down the corridor. Paulo Gomes is that, and the reception he gets on his first appearance will be different in kind from the one any signing receives.
There is no fee, no unveiling and no agent on the steps. Carlos Pereira 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 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 one version of being left out a player cannot argue with, and the one he takes worst. Somebody else has been better and the team sheet says so, in public, every week until it changes.
Ninety specific minutes wanted a different sort of player, and the manager picked one. He is not out of form and he is not in the side, and both are true.
“If we are going to be beaten, let it not be because somebody in here could not be bothered.” He stood up and said it in front of everybody, which is a thing a squad remembers about a man for years.
Éverson 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.
Three points for Maranhão, 2‑0 the final word against Imperatriz in a contest settled by the finer margins.
Player ratings31 Aug 2026
Lucas was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.42. There are performances a supporter describes to somebody who was not there and cannot quite convey; this was one, and the number does not help either.
Player ratings31 Aug 2026
Alyson was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.13. There are performances a supporter describes to somebody who was not there and cannot quite convey; this was one, and the number does not help either.
Successful dribbles: 15. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
The dugout31 Aug 2026
The view from the dugout
“We controlled it. There were spells I did not like and we will look at them, but the group showed me something.” Samuel Borges, on a 2‑0 win that he was already picking apart on the walk to the press room.
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.
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. Maranhão will not keep him by pretending otherwise.
“We keep meeting, and we keep leaving the room with the same numbers we walked in with.” Another round of talks at Maranhão, another week without a signature from Éverson.
9 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.
The dugout24 Aug 2026
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 Samuel Borges to a room that had heard them 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.