“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Boa can pretend not to have heard.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Boa 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 Boa this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
An error at the back is a moment; an error in goal is a goal. Dyogo Alves knows it, the crowd knew it instantly, and there was nobody behind him to make it anything else.
10 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.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Boa can pretend not to have heard.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Boa this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Boa this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
The standards have slipped, and in a building where everybody watches everybody it has not gone unremarked. This is how a player loses a place before he loses one.
0‑5 against Atletico Goianiense, and no complaints that would survive the replay. The manager spoke about character afterwards; the terraces used shorter words.
6 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.
Elias 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.
Beaten 5 times, with 2 saves for company. Goalkeepers carry these scorelines on their record whoever actually caused them, which is the quiet injustice of the job.
Shots: 9. Goals: none. The chances were there and they were good ones, and they went into the stand, the goalkeeper's arms and the side netting in roughly that order.