A bone, which is the one injury with a calendar attached. ASA will name a return date and, unusually for this business, will probably be right about it.
There is no crueller way to lose a football match. ASA scored in the 93th minute, the restart barely happened, and the away end was still standing when the whistle went.
Marked 7.90. There is a kind of forward whose value only shows up when you count what he was involved in rather than what he finished, and this is the day that argument makes itself.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at ASA this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad9 Nov 2026
Pablo Rossi 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.
Marked 8.05 — 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.
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Gerônimo, and the manager let it.
The dugout9 Nov 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.” Felipe Tavares, on a 2‑1 win that he was already picking apart on the walk to the press room.
A bone, which is the one injury with a calendar attached. ASA will name a return date and, unusually for this business, will probably be right about it.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at ASA this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Player ratings2 Nov 2026
Sammuel was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.34. 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.
Marked 8.01 — 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.
22 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.
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.
A bone, which is the one injury with a calendar attached. ASA will name a return date and, unusually for this business, will probably be right about it.
Two goals and a mark of 8.25 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Pablo Rossi 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.
Gerônimo 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 doing things on a Saturday afternoon that nobody around him can answer, which is flattering for about one season and a problem after that. ASA will not keep him by pretending otherwise.
“The players deserve the credit. My job was easy today.” It was not, and everybody in the room knew it; after 3‑2, Felipe Tavares could afford to be generous.
In brief
Looking aheadASA take on the side everybody is chasing
A bone, which is the one injury with a calendar attached. ASA will name a return date and, unusually for this business, will probably be right about it.
Some transfers need a press campaign. This one needed a shirt with the old number on it. Rayan is a ASA player again, and the town has its story of the summer.
Ravel 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.
Four or five weekends of consistency, judged against everybody in the division doing his job. Sammuel has come out of that comparison in the side, and ASA have had the benefit of every one of those afternoons.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 119 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
An error at the back is a moment; an error in goal is a goal. Paulo Gianezini knows it, the crowd knew it instantly, and there was nobody behind him to make it anything else.
The dugout31 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 0‑5 defeat, delivered by Felipe Tavares 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.
Two goals and a mark of 8.32 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at ASA this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Defending was optional and nobody took up the option. 6 goals between ASA and União, and not one of the people who paid to be there will ask for the money back.