“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Bahia can pretend not to have heard.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Bahia they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Bahia this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
In brief
SquadWords at Bahia training over how hard people work
2‑2 against Fluminense, and a performance that will be described to people who were not there for the rest of the season. Rodrigo Nestor was at the centre of the description.
It is a specific kind of quiet, a ground watching a winning position dissolve. Fluminense kept coming because nothing stopped them, and Bahia will be asked about the last half hour all week.
A shoot-out is remembered by its ending, and this one ends with Emiliano Machado: 1 kept out, and a set of supporters who will describe every one of them for the next twenty years.
370 appearances across 11 seasons in one shirt. Nobody builds a career like that on purpose any more; it happens to a certain kind of footballer at a certain kind of club.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Bahia is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
11 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.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Bahia have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
He will be fined, he will apologise, and he will play on Saturday. The order of those three tells you everything about what a football club actually values.
Jean Lucas 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.
29 times he got in the way of something. Centre-halves get written about when they make mistakes and ignored when they do not, so an afternoon like this needs saying out loud: he is the reason the scoreline reads as it does.
There are footballers who have a good season and footballers a season is remembered for, and the second kind get their names read out in a hall in the summer. Bahia will be quietly delighted and privately nervous.
“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 Bahia, and it is not being withdrawn.
462 appearances across 10 seasons in one shirt. Nobody builds a career like that on purpose any more; it happens to a certain kind of footballer at a certain kind of club.
26 times he got in the way of something. Centre-halves get written about when they make mistakes and ignored when they do not, so an afternoon like this needs saying out loud: he is the reason the scoreline reads as it does.
45 times he got in the way of something. Centre-halves get written about when they make mistakes and ignored when they do not, so an afternoon like this needs saying out loud: he is the reason the scoreline reads as it does.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Bahia they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the team. 7 saves, several of them the sort nobody expects to see stopped, and a scoreline that flatters everybody in front of him.
The rules permit it and it stings anyway. Allan has agreed terms with Grêmio for the summer, and until then he pulls on this shirt as a player who has already chosen his next one.
Jean Lucas 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.
In brief
SquadRodrigo Nestor falls out with a teammate over standards
“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 Bahia, and it is not being withdrawn.
Jean Lucas 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 had been thinking. Erick Pulga 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.