Bahia did not want to sell and the number is why they did. $1.3M for Marcos Felipe, and the expectation that arrives with him is the kind no amount of settling-in period softens.
The number the board signed off was not enough. It has been asked again and raised its own offer to $1.0M — a club that wants Rodrigo Cezar enough to be asked twice.
The clubs had agreed and the player had not. A snub, and a public one: Palmeiras keep him, and the supporters here are left wondering what he had heard about the place.
There is a version of every career where the player ends up somewhere he chose rather than somewhere that chose him. Nicolás Pedrazzini is living that version at Juventude, and it tends to show in the first month.
Successful dribbles: 21. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Squad19 Jun 2028
Words at Juventude training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Messias 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.
Raí Ramos 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.
Juventude asked and Bahia said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
Juventude and Santos have settled on $20.2M. The rest belongs to the player and his agent, and a supporter who has watched one of these before knows not to buy the shirt yet.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Rafael Rech will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Juventude the goodbyes have quietly begun.
Juventude have gone to Atlético Goianiense with a bid, and the supporters have gone to the internet with an opinion about it. Whether either changes anything is up to the selling club.
Gabriel Taliari 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.
The name of Marcos Paulo has come up in conversations Juventude were not part of. Nothing formal, nothing signed — but nothing about it accidental either.
“I was told straight, and I would rather have it straight.” The manager at Juventude has been clear about where Gabriel Taliari stands, which is more than many ever get.
The hardest thing about being 21 in a senior side is that nobody makes allowances. Ryan Francisco did not need any: 7.86, and he looked the most comfortable man on the pitch.
4 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.
Squad1 May 2028
Words at Juventude training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Messias 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.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Juventude this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Successful dribbles: 19. 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.
The manager has re-ordered his thinking and Warleson has come out of it lower. He will be told it is temporary, and the players who have heard that before will avoid his eye.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Rafael Rech will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Juventude the goodbyes have quietly begun.
Gabriel Taliari 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.
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 Raí Ramos is on it.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Raí Ramos trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
4 months left, and both sides know what that means: every week without a signature, the fee Juventude could ask drops and the wages Warleson can ask rise.
Nothing in writing and nothing in public: a word about playing time, given face to face at Juventude. The team sheets over the next month will show whether it was worth having.
Another week, another link, another denial nobody quite believes. Juventude know the market decides these things, not the back pages — but the back pages are louder.
“I want to stay in the game when I stop, and I am not going to wait until I stop to prepare for it.” At 33 the badges have begun, and every manager in the division remembers doing the same.
It is not a grievance and it is not a demand: he wants to play continental football, and he has stopped hiding it. Whether Juventude can give him that is a question about the club, not about him.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Santino Bima was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
“I watch every Juventude game from here. That says everything about where my head is.” The loan at Beitar Jerusalem runs its course, but his heart never made the trip.
Nobody at Juventude 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.
Commercial news is the news nobody sings about and everything else is paid for with. The board will call it a partnership; the accountants will call it the difference between this squad and a smaller one.
Nothing in writing and nothing in public: a word about playing time, given face to face at Juventude. The team sheets over the next month will show whether it was worth having.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Juventude is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Messias was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
“There is a gap, and pretending there is not helps nobody.” Neither side has moved, and the calendar is working for exactly one of them.
Squad13 Mar 2028
12 new faces, and Juventude 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.
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Juventude, and both men came out saying it was fine.
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.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Juventude 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 Juventude this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad14 Feb 2028
Words at Juventude training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Santino Bima 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 was told straight, and I would rather have it straight.” The manager at Juventude has been clear about where Raí Ramos stands, which is more than many ever get.
15 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.
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Juventude, and both men came out saying it was fine.
Another week, another link, another denial nobody quite believes. Juventude know the market decides these things, not the back pages — but the back pages are louder.
He is 20 and the ground already sings his name, which is a thing that happens to local boys and almost never to signings. Everything from here is measured against an affection he did nothing to earn except be from here.
23 appearances at Cuiabá and the goals have stopped going in. Juventude lent out a goalkeeper and are watching somebody else’s season get better every week.
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.
Messias 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.
Marked 8.32 — 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.
The fixture the rest of the division is looking forward to more than either of the sides in it. Both know a win changes the season and a defeat does not end it, which is what makes it hard to play.
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 Weliton.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Juventude is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
Lucca 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.
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 Maurício is on it.
“The manager did not use many words, and he did not need to.” Rafael Rech has his answer from Juventude; what he does with it is the next window’s story.
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.
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Alisson Safira signs something — a contract at Juventude or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
He used to wear the other shirt. On Saturday he plays against Ferroviária in this one, and whatever he says this week about it being just another game will be untrue.
In brief
Loan watchThe goals keep arriving from Émerson Galego’s exile
22 appearances at Cuiabá and the goals have stopped going in. Juventude lent out a goalkeeper and are watching somebody else’s season get better every week.
At 23 he is being sung about by people twice his age, which is an affection a signing has to earn over years and a local kid gets for turning up. It is also the hardest thing in football to live up to.
Marked 8.33 — 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.
Two goals and a mark of 8.35 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Marcos Paulo will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Juventude the goodbyes have quietly begun.
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.
The phone has started ringing about Raí Ramos again, and this time the name on the line is Gareji Sagarejo. Juventude are listening politely and promising nothing.
16 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.
Juventude ran out of time with Ceará. The paperwork was open when the deadline passed, and a transfer that was almost done is now a transfer that never happened.
“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 Juventude, and 0 appearances in 5 say he has earned the hearing.
Loan watch9 Aug 2027
Pedro Rocha’s loan is measured in nothing happening
10 clean sheets from 14 appearances at Cuiabá. That is the whole of a goalkeeper’s job done properly, and it is being done a long way from the club that owns him.
Somebody else has been better, the manager has said so with a team sheet, and there is no argument to be had. He will get the shirt back the only way it can be got back.
The words a physio says slowly. 65 days is what the club will announce and everybody who has heard this diagnosis before knows the number is the least of it: the knee comes back before the player does.
Two goals and a mark of 9.08 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
“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 Juventude, and it is not being withdrawn.
“I have ambitions, and I would like the club to share them.” Nobody has asked to leave and nobody has been shown the door — but a player chooses that sentence carefully, and a boardroom hears it exactly as it was meant.
“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 Juventude, and 0 appearances in 9 say he has earned the hearing.
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Juventude, and both men came out saying it was fine.
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 Fábio Lima is on it.
Not a new contract, not a new number: a new place in the manager’s thinking, which is the only promotion in football that actually matters. Allanzinho has moved up it.
The terraces1 Mar 2027
Supporters make their feelings known about Marcos Paulo
The speculation has reached the stands, and the stands have answered. Juventude would like this settled before it becomes the only thing anybody asks about.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Juventude can pretend not to have heard.
The injury that keeps coming back, keeps being rushed back from, and quietly costs more careers than the dramatic ones. 14 days is the estimate; the honest figure depends on whether anybody is patient.
Clubs make promises constantly and the page usually only hears about them when they are broken. This one was honoured, and the dressing room noticed that faster than any supporter did.
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 Pablo Roberto is on it.
Another week, another link, another denial nobody quite believes. Juventude know the market decides these things, not the back pages — but the back pages are louder.
Every squad has one of these fixtures for somebody every season. This one is Diogo Barbosa’s: the club that knew him first, the supporters who will decide in the first minute whether to applaud, and Juventude needing him to play as if none of it matters.
Nothing in writing and nothing in public: a word about playing time, given face to face at Juventude. The team sheets over the next month will show whether it was worth having.
Gabriel Taliari 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.
It is not much of a headline and it is the reason players believe the next promise. Juventude told Gabriel Taliari something would happen and then it happened, which in this industry passes for remarkable.
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.” Cristiano Nardo, on a 1‑0 win that he was already picking apart on the walk to the press room.
Nobody at Juventude 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 wheeled away like a man who had been carrying it for months, because he had. Juventude have their signing off the mark and one press-conference question retired.