Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 53 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
“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 The request is on a desk at Criciuma, and it is not being withdrawn.
The clubs had agreed and the player had not. A snub, and a public one: Madryn keep him, and the supporters here are left wondering what he had heard about the place.
Criciuma have gone to Vasco da Gama 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.
Parana paid $59.0K and Criciuma took it, which is the whole story in one sentence. The longer version involves a wage budget and will be told all season.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Stade Brestois have kept their man, and Criciuma go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
It is the most legitimate ambition in the sport and the hardest for most clubs to satisfy. Eduardo wants continental football; whether Criciuma can provide it is a question about the next two seasons, not about him.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 106 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Criciuma this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
A bone, which is the one injury with a calendar attached. Criciuma will name a return date and, unusually for this business, will probably be right about it.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Criciuma have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
It is the most legitimate ambition in the sport and the hardest for most clubs to satisfy. Eduardo wants continental football; whether Criciuma can provide it is a question about the next two seasons, not about him.
16 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.
Squad26 Oct 2026
Words at Criciuma training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Alisson 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 Criciuma this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
He will play here until the summer and then walk out of the door for free, having already signed elsewhere. Supporters will manage the first part of that sentence; it is the second they will struggle with.
There is a version of every career where the player ends up somewhere he chose rather than somewhere that chose him. Juan Ignacio Blanco is living that version at Criciuma, and it tends to show in the first month.
Eduardo 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.
Juan Ignacio Blanco is 20, and Criciuma 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.
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.
A point taken on 86 minutes is worth exactly one point and considerably more than that to a dressing room. This side does not stop, which is a reputation worth more than the result.
It is the most legitimate ambition in the sport and the hardest for most clubs to satisfy. Eduardo wants continental football; whether Criciuma can provide it is a question about the next two seasons, not about him.
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.
It finished 1‑1, and it somehow always looked like it would. One of those afternoons where the table moves less than the tempers.
The dugout31 Aug 2026
The view from the dugout
“We did not lose. Some weeks that is all you get, and I would rather have the point than not.” Douglas Monteiro chose the glass-half-full version of 1‑1; the supporters left with the other one.
In brief
The dugoutThe plan did not have a place for Romarinho
2 goals to the good, and then a slow surrender of everything that had been earned. Yuri Tanque will not be the one blamed for it, but nobody at Criciuma escapes the conversation that follows a collapse like this.
The offer was not close and it was refused without much discussion. Whether the second one is refused as quickly is another matter.
Player ratings17 Aug 2026
A brace, and Yuri Tanque takes the afternoon — 8.73
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Yuri Tanque provided it, and the 8.73 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
0-3, and long before the end the away end had switched from encouragement to something considerably more pointed. Nobody rings a phone-in about losing narrowly.
1 for Ronald, marked 7.97, and a centre-half's name in the part of the report he normally only reaches by mistake. He will not be allowed to forget it in the dressing room for a month.
Arouca paid $580.0K and Criciuma took it, which is the whole story in one sentence. The longer version involves a wage budget and will be told all season.
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.