“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 The request is on a desk at Azuriz, and it is not being withdrawn.
Xavier 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.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Sampaio Corrêa have kept their man, and Azuriz go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
“They were honest with me, and I would rather know.” Facundo Guastavino has been informed he is not in the manager's thinking at Azuriz.
Squad6 Dec 2027
Words at Azuriz training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Pablo Ricardo 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.
Atlético Goianiense have been asked whether they would lend him. Loans are agreed quickly or not at all, and this one will be one or the other by the weekend.
A month is long enough that nobody gets in by accident. Rikelme is in the division's best eleven for it, which is a quieter compliment than an award and a more reliable one.
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Azuriz, and both men came out saying it was fine.
In brief
The dugoutThe manager makes an example of Anderson Cino
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Azuriz have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
At 35 he is supposed to be managing his minutes. Instead he was marked 8.26 and looked, for ninety minutes, exactly like the player everybody remembers.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Azuriz this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
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.
5 without a win is the sort of run that changes how a town talks about its club, and Cianorte were the afternoon it stopped. Nothing is fixed by one result and everything feels different by one.
A 1‑0 win over Cianorte, earned rather than given, and the sort of afternoon that sends everyone home talking about next week instead of this one.
Squad23 Aug 2027
Words at Azuriz training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Pablo Ricardo 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 Azuriz has been clear about where Pablo Ricardo stands, which is more than many ever get.
The words a physio says slowly. 23 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.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Azuriz this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Everybody at Azuriz saw it before anybody said it, which is how this always goes. At 35 the decline is real and measurable — 3 points — and the only question left is how the club handles somebody it owes a great deal to.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Manaus have kept their man, and Azuriz go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
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.
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.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Azuriz this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Azuriz, 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.
He is not being dropped. There is simply nowhere in the formation Azuriz are playing to put a man who does what he does, which is a harder thing to be told than any team sheet.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Fluminense have kept their man, and Azuriz go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
There is no fee, no unveiling and no agent on the steps. Vitor Oliveira 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.
Nobody at Azuriz 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.
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Xavier signs something — a contract at Azuriz or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
He looks like a man who lives here now rather than one who is working here. It took most of a season, and at Azuriz the difference is visible from the back of the stand.
It has stopped being a mood in the stands and started being something organised. Boards can ignore a bad atmosphere for a long time; they cannot ignore this stage of it for very long at all.
Position 15 and 11 points, and the table gets read bottom-up in this part of town. The calendar has stopped being a schedule and started being a countdown.
“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 Azuriz, and it is not being withdrawn.
Xavier 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 manager has re-ordered his thinking and Caetano 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.
“The supporters are entitled to be angry. So am I. We will put it right.” 0‑3, a manager saying the necessary things, and a dressing room that heard a different version of them.
Centre-halves are allowed forward twice a season and are judged on what they do when they get there. Júnior scored, was marked 7.79, and got back before anybody noticed he had gone.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Azuriz can pretend not to have heard.
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.
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Capote. 2‑0 against Barra, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
Some games turn on a moment; this one turned on a man. 7.90 on the card, and the Azuriz support went home talking about one name.
The dugout19 Oct 2026
The manager’s verdict
“I am not going to get carried away and I will not let them either. It was a good day. There will be harder ones.” Renato Peixoto kept it short after the 2‑0 win, which is what managers do when they are happy.
Nobody at Azuriz 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.
Everybody at Azuriz saw it before anybody said it, which is how this always goes. At 36 the decline is real and measurable — 3 points — and the only question left is how the club handles somebody it owes a great deal to.
The academy exists for exactly this morning. Beto has come through every age group the club runs and has now been handed a senior number, and the people who coached him at twelve will be the proudest in the building.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Xavier trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Felipe Teixeira was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Position 15 and 5 points, and the table gets read bottom-up in this part of town. The calendar has stopped being a schedule and started being a countdown.
7 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.
Xavier 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.
“Nobody here is above being told.” It was not said with a name attached, but the dressing room can count, and so can everybody who was listening.
Squad5 Oct 2026
Caio Farias is the division's best young player this month
At 14 he has spent a month being better than everybody his age in the league, which is a different and harder thing than one good afternoon. Azuriz will try very hard not to make too much of it.
“The supporters are entitled to be angry. So am I. We will put it right.” 0‑3, a manager saying the necessary things, and a dressing room that heard a different version of them.