5 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.
Boardroom24 Jul 2028
Deadline passes with 7 signed and 16 gone
That is the business done at Bahia until the window opens again. Whether it was enough will be answered on Saturdays rather than in a column, and the first Saturday is close.
A medical, a signature, a shirt held up in front of a sponsor’s board. Bahia have done the hard part with Sport Recife, and the part that remains is the part supporters actually see.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Bahia this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
4 matches, no goals, and a training ground that has tried everything. It will end — droughts always do — but nobody at Bahia can tell you which week it ends in.
16 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Bahia lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Botafogo paid $12.6M and Bahia took it, which is the whole story in one sentence. The longer version involves a wage budget and will be told all season.
Fee agreed, wages agreed, and GAS waiting with a shirt. Nobody at Bahia is pretending otherwise, and the supporters have stopped asking whether and started asking when.
Add another name to the list: Caxias have asked the question everybody in the game has been asking about Iago Borduchi. The answer from Bahia has not changed — yet.
The approach was made and the answer came back in a sentence. There is no number on the table because there was no number that would have been enough.
Squad10 Jul 2028
Jean Lucas 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.
The clubs have shaken hands with Sport Recife; the player has not yet. Personal terms are next, and personal terms are where more deals die than anybody prints.
The first defeat in 11 matches. The manager will say it had to come; the dressing room will say it did not have to come against Vila Nova; the supporters will say both, in that order, all week.
$960.0K on the table at Santos. The manager wanted him, the board agreed a number, and the only voices still to be heard are the ones at the other club.
Add another name to the list: Cruzeiro have asked the question everybody in the game has been asking about Arthur Dias. The answer from Athletico Paranaense has not changed — yet.
Gonzalo Mastriani 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.
$360.0K on the table at Mirassol. The manager wanted him, the board agreed a number, and the only voices still to be heard are the ones at the other club.
“I want to win things, and I would like to do it here.” Nothing has been demanded and nothing has been threatened — but a boardroom at Athletico Paranaense hears a sentence like that exactly as it was built.
Day 40 of the vacancy. Candidates have been priced, sounded out and quietly ruled out — and the caretaker’s win ratio is becoming an argument all by itself.
The fee was agreed and the flight was looked at — and then the phone stopped ringing. Santa Cruz moved on, Junior Balbuena reports back to Athletico Paranaense, and everybody pretends Monday is just Monday.
“The easiest signature of my career.” João Cruz and Athletico Paranaense agree another 5 years, and the manager can plan around him rather than about him.
Gonzalo Mastriani 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.
Squad10 Jan 2028
Rodrigo Garro 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.
15 new signings in one window. Every one may be an upgrade and the side can still be worse for a while, which is the part of a rebuild the verdicts never mention.
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Athletico Paranaense, and both men came out saying it was fine.
A mark of 8.05 means one thing beside a twenty-nine-year-old's name and something else entirely beside a 19-year-old's. Nobody at the ground needed telling which this was.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Londrina can pretend not to have heard.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Londrina 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 Londrina this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
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.
Londrina asked and Athletico Paranaense said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
“The easiest signature of my career.” Carlos Terán and Athletico Paranaense agree another 5 years, and the manager can plan around him rather than about him.
Isaac 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 Habraão is on 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 Athletico Paranaense, and both men came out saying it was fine.
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Lucas Esquivel signs something — a contract at Athletico Paranaense or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
Numbers do not stay secret in a dressing room. He is not asking for more than he is worth; he is asking why somebody beside him is worth more, and Athletico Paranaense have no good answer.
1 for Juan Camilo Portilla, marked 7.74, 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.
The chase for Luan ended with $760.0K changing hands and Londrina out of reasons to say no. The supporters will judge the fee the only way that matters: on Saturdays.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Athletico Paranaense this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Footballers are asked about their boyhood club so often that nobody listens to the answer. Luan has just signed for Athletico Paranaense, and for once the answer mattered.
“I watch every Athletico Paranaense game from here. That says everything about where my head is.” The loan at Hapoel Tel Aviv runs its course, but his heart never made the trip.
10 goals in 18 games at América Mineiro — numbers that travel home faster than he does. Somebody at Athletico Paranaense updates a spreadsheet every Monday, and it makes better reading each week.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Londrina will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
“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 Londrina, and it is not being withdrawn.
The deal with Danubio is done in every sense but the one that puts him on the pitch. Nothing goes wrong at this stage, except on the occasions when it does.
Paulinho Moccelin 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.
Athletico Paranaense paid $760.0K and Londrina took it, which is the whole story in one sentence. The longer version involves a wage budget and will be told all season.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Praxedes was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
3 matches, no goals, and a training ground that has tried everything. It will end — droughts always do — but nobody at Londrina can tell you which week it ends in.
Londrina asked and Flamengo said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 42 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
Ronald had done his part in building a 2-goal cushion. What happened after that was collective, and Mirassol were allowed back into a match that had been finished with.
The last thing about a transfer that is still about the player is his signature on his own terms, and it is there. Londrina have lost him in all but the paperwork.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the whole of the defence. 8 saves, several of them the kind nobody expects to see made, and ten outfield players who owe him a drink.
Two goals and a mark of 8.33 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
5 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.
Everything agreed with San Martín SJ, everything agreed with the player; a doctor is the only person left to persuade. The photograph is a day or two away.
Londrina had done everything except persuade the man himself. He stays at Boca Juniors, and the manager goes back to the drawing board with the money still in the bank.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 49 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
Fee agreed, wages agreed, and Sousa waiting with a shirt. Nobody at Londrina is pretending otherwise, and the supporters have stopped asking whether and started asking when.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Londrina can pretend not to have heard.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Caio Rafael will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Londrina the goodbyes have quietly begun.
Everything agreed with Villa Dálmine, everything agreed with the player; a doctor is the only person left to persuade. The photograph is a day or two away.
“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 Londrina, and it is not being withdrawn.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Londrina this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
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.
“There are things I liked and things we will be doing on Tuesday until they are right.” 0‑0, and a manager who had already decided what Tuesday looked like.
Squad10 May 2027
The division's best last weekend was a Londrina man
It is a small honour and it is not nothing: somebody watched every match in the division and decided that Praxedes was the best thing in any of them.
Two goals and a mark of 8.26 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
Wallace 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.
2‑3 to Athletic Club, and no complaints worth printing. The performance asked for nothing more than it got.
Squad26 Apr 2027
Words at Londrina training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Praxedes 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.
100 games in the shirt. Nobody sets out to build a record like that; it happens to a certain kind of player at a certain kind of club, and this town knows what it has.
“I did not go to Parnahyba to sit and watch. I want to come back to Londrina and fight for my place.” 2 appearances in 17 matches say the rest.
The dugout26 Apr 2027
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 2‑3 defeat, delivered by Guilherme Souza to a room that had heard them 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 Londrina, and both men came out saying it was fine.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Londrina 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 Londrina this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Praxedes was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Clubs spend fortunes looking for players and occasionally find one down the corridor. Júnior Figueiredo is that, and the reception he gets on his first appearance will be different in kind from the one any signing receives.
Nobody at Londrina 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.
Kozlinski has done the arithmetic and does not like the answer. Nothing corrodes a squad faster, and no club has ever solved it by explaining the wage structure to a footballer.