Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the whole of the defence. 7 saves, several of them the kind nobody expects to see made, and ten outfield players who owe him a drink.
The deal with Criciúma 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.
The chase for Gabriel Grando ended with $2.5M changing hands and Grêmio out of reasons to say no. The supporters will judge the fee the only way that matters: on Saturdays.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Botafogo-SP can pretend not to have heard.
Centre-halves are allowed forward twice a season and are judged on what they do when they get there. Leandro Maciel scored, was marked 7.97, and got back before anybody noticed he had gone.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Botafogo-SP is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
10 matches unbeaten here. Every visiting manager is asked about it in the week before, which is precisely why it keeps going.
Squad8 May 2028
Words at Botafogo-SP training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Yuri Tanque 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.
Patrick Brey 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.
Squad8 May 2028
Pedrinho is the division's best young player this month
At 21 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. Botafogo-SP will try very hard not to make too much of it.
A point taken on 87 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.
“We keep meeting, and we keep leaving the room with the same numbers we walked in with.” Another round of talks at Botafogo-SP, another week without a signature from Victor Souza.
In brief
The dugoutSomebody else is better right now than Victor Souza
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Botafogo-SP will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
The hardest thing about being 21 in a senior side is that nobody makes allowances. Pedrinho did not need any: 7.76, and he looked the most comfortable man on the pitch.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Botafogo-SP this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
There is a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 21-year-old it feels ownership of. Pedrinho has it now, and everything he does for the rest of his time here will be measured against the goodwill he was handed for free.
8 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.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Kelvin was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
There is no complaint available here and everybody involved knows it, which does not make the walk to the bench any shorter. Form is the only currency in football that cannot be borrowed against.
In brief
The dugoutRafael Gava knocks on the manager's door
It is not a grievance and it is not a demand: he wants to play continental football, and he has stopped hiding it. Whether Botafogo-SP can give him that is a question about the club, not about him.
Everybody saw it before anybody said it. At 34 the numbers say 3 points down on what he was, and the question for Botafogo-SP is how to handle a man they owe a great deal.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Yuri Tanque was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Botafogo-SP 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 Yuri Tanque was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Gabriel Inocêncio 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 had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Botafogo-SP, and both men came out saying it was fine.
A conversation in the manager’s office, and a commitment that came out of it. Promises like that are cheap to make and expensive to break, and Lucas Bernal has written the date down.
The offer from Fulham for Yuri Tanque was heard out and sent back the same day. First bids are rarely meant to succeed; they are meant to find out how loudly the door closes.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Botafogo-SP 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 Rafael Gava was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Squad31 Jan 2028
9 new faces, and Botafogo-SP 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.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Patrick Brey trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Leandro Maciel signs something — a contract at Botafogo-SP or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
An individual honour is a strange thing in a team game, and the best of them are never argued with. He has had the sort of year that ends with his name being read out, and Botafogo-SP have had the benefit of it.
At 22 he is doing things this season that he could not do last season, and doing them every week. Form comes and goes; this has stayed long enough to be called something else.
The fee is $270.0K, the contract is signed, and the argument about whether he is worth it can begin. Manauara drove a hard bargain; time will say who won it.
There is a version of every career where the player ends up somewhere he chose rather than somewhere that chose him. Juan Pablo Ramírez is living that version at Botafogo-SP, and it tends to show in the first month.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 32 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
Victor Luís 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.
Squad15 Nov 2027
Words at Botafogo-SP training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Vilar 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 had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Botafogo-SP, and both men came out saying it was fine.
He used to wear the other shirt. On Saturday he plays against Vila Nova in this one, and whatever he says this week about it being just another game will be untrue.
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Leandro Maciel signs something — a contract at Botafogo-SP or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
A year in and the language has not come, the city has not opened up, and he eats alone more often than anybody at Botafogo-SP would like to admit. It is showing on Saturdays.
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 Pedro Henrique is on it.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 55 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
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.
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.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 63 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
Player ratings18 Oct 2027
A brace, and Yuri Tanque takes the afternoon — 9.09
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Yuri Tanque provided it, and the 9.09 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Botafogo-SP 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 Wallace was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Botafogo-SP can pretend not to have heard.
Yuri Tanque 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.
At 20 he is doing things this season that he could not do last season, and doing them every week. Form comes and goes; this has stayed long enough to be called something else.
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.
At 20 he was better than everybody his age in the division for four weeks running, which is harder than one good afternoon. Botafogo-SP will try not to make too much of it.
Nobody at Botafogo-SP 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.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Wallace was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
“The supporters are entitled to be angry. So am I. We will put it right.” 1‑3, a manager saying the necessary things, and a dressing room that heard a different version of them.
“I respect the manager and I am not going to sit here and pretend I am happy.” It is the most common sentence in football and it has never once been the end of a story.
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Yuri Tanque signs something — a contract at Botafogo-SP or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
In brief
The dugoutPatrick Brey asks for a word with the manager
“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 Botafogo-SP, and it is not being withdrawn.
Successful dribbles: 22. 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.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Wallace was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
In brief
Player ratingsNinety minutes of Yuri Tanque at his very best
A brace, and Yuri Tanque takes the afternoon — 8.99
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Yuri Tanque provided it, and the 8.99 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
“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 Botafogo-SP, and it is not being withdrawn.
3 wins in a row changes how opponents warm up: quieter, more glances across. Runs end, everybody knows that — but nobody in this dressing room is planning for it.
Yuri Tanque 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 7.92. There is a kind of forward whose value only shows up when you count what he was involved in rather than what he finished, and this is the day that argument makes itself.
Nothing happens for months and then he simply arrives, at no cost, having signed a pre-contract while still turning out for somebody else. It is the least dramatic way to sign a footballer and frequently the shrewdest.
Successful dribbles: 20. 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 offer from Bragantino for Kelvin was heard out and sent back the same day. First bids are rarely meant to succeed; they are meant to find out how loudly the door closes.
São Paulo paid $1.8M and Botafogo-SP took it, which is the whole story in one sentence. The longer version involves a wage budget and will be told all season.
Yuri Tanque 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 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.
Words at Botafogo-SP training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Yuri Tanque 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.
“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.
The crowd waited for a goal that never came. Ituano defended in numbers and left with what they came for, and the two sides could be playing still without troubling a scorer.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Patrick Brey trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
He used to wear the other shirt. On Saturday he plays against Coritiba in this one, and whatever he says this week about it being just another game will be untrue.
Ninety specific minutes wanted a different sort of player, and the manager picked one. He is not out of form and he is not in the side, and both are true.
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.
“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 Botafogo-SP, and it is not being withdrawn.
Marked 7.50. There is a kind of forward whose value only shows up when you count what he was involved in rather than what he finished, and this is the day that argument makes itself.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Yuri Tanque was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
14 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Botafogo-SP lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
3 matches, no goals, and a training ground that has tried everything. It will end — droughts always do — but nobody at Botafogo-SP can tell you which week it ends in.
Gabriel Inocêncio 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.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Wallace was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
“If you cannot run for the shirt, somebody else will wear it.” No name was used and none was needed; every player in that room knew who it was for.
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 0‑2 defeat, delivered by Daniel Lima to a room that had heard them before.
The words a physio says slowly. 60 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.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Wallace was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Leandro Maciel signs something — a contract at Botafogo-SP or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
The words a physio says slowly. 118 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.
Squad25 Jan 2027
Yuri Tanque 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.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Cortulua have kept their man, and Botafogo-SP go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
Patrick Brey 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.
“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 Botafogo-SP, and 0 appearances in 5 say he has earned the hearing.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Kelvin trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
A year in and the language has not come, the city has not opened up, and he eats alone more often than anybody at Botafogo-SP would like to admit. It is showing on Saturdays.
A conversation in the manager’s office, and a commitment that came out of it. Promises like that are cheap to make and expensive to break, and Carlão has written the date down.
$8.9M on the table at Criciúma. The manager wanted him, the board agreed a number, and the only voices still to be heard are the ones at the other club.
Successful dribbles: 20. 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.
Patrick Brey 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.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Wallace was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Position 15, 21 points, and every result so far reduced to one line. The second half of the season starts with the same squad and a different set of expectations.
Successful dribbles: 16. 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.
Squad23 Nov 2026
Words at Botafogo-SP training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Vitor Feijão 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.
“The supporters are entitled to be angry. So am I. We will put it right.” 0‑1, a manager saying the necessary things, and a dressing room that heard a different version of them.
The team sheet says it in public every week until it changes. The only version of being dropped a footballer cannot argue with, and the one he takes hardest.
Ninety specific minutes wanted a different sort of player, and the manager picked one. He is not out of form and he is not in the side, and both are true.
“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 Botafogo-SP, and it is not being withdrawn.
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 20 he is doing things at this level he could not do at the start of the season, and the coaching staff will tell you exactly which of them.
Everybody at Botafogo-SP saw it before anybody said it, which is how this always goes. At 34 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.
Beaten 0‑1, and beaten fairly. The manager kept his words short afterwards, which was probably wise.
Squad19 Oct 2026
Words at Botafogo-SP training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Wallace 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.
“The supporters are entitled to be angry. So am I. We will put it right.” 0‑1, a manager saying the necessary things, and a dressing room that heard a different version of them.
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.
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.
Gabriel Inocêncio 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.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Wallace was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
“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
14 new faces, and Botafogo-SP 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.
The system has changed and his position has not. A footballer can improve his form; he cannot improve the manager’s formation, and that is the whole of the problem.
The dugout5 Oct 2026
The manager’s verdict
“I am frustrated, honestly. We did enough to win and we did not win.” Daniel Lima was not hiding it after 0‑0, and nobody in the Botafogo-SP dressing room was either.
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.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 14 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
There is an age at which every good afternoon gets described as a throwback, which is unfair and also accurate. 7.90 at 34, and nobody on the pitch was better.
The shirt still fits. Dudu Hatamoto is back at Botafogo-SP, and half the ground remembers him in these colours already. Some signings need selling to the town; this one sold itself.
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.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Botafogo-SP they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
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.
Squad14 Sep 2026
Words at Botafogo-SP training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Wallace 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.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Wallace was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Pedrinho 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 demotion a club never announces and a dressing room always notices. Gabriel Inocêncio is further from the side than he was, and the reason will not be given until he asks.
Squad7 Sep 2026
A place in the month's best eleven for Robson Alex
Four or five weekends of consistency, judged against everybody in the division doing his job. Robson Alex has come out of that comparison in the side, and Botafogo-SP have had the benefit of every one of those afternoons.
Every squad has one of these fixtures for somebody every season. This one is Hygor’s: the club that knew him first, the supporters who will decide in the first minute whether to applaud, and Botafogo-SP needing him to play as if none of it matters.
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.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Ericson was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
10 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.
“We were not good enough today and I am not going to dress it up.” Daniel Lima after 0‑2, in the tone of a man who knows the next question and does not intend to answer it.
The shape wanted a different profile against this opponent, which is a real football answer and no comfort at all to the man it is about. He did nothing wrong and he did not play.
In brief
The dugoutPatrick Brey asks for a word with the manager
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Ericson will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Botafogo-SP the goodbyes have quietly begun.
Gabriel Inocêncio 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.
He is 21 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.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Wallace was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
The academy exists for exactly this morning. Daniel Batista 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.
Clubs spend fortunes looking for players and occasionally find one down the corridor. Vitor Moreira is that, and the reception he gets on his first appearance will be different in kind from the one any signing receives.
Clubs spend fortunes looking for players and occasionally find one down the corridor. Diego Oliveira is that, and the reception he gets on his first appearance will be different in kind from the one any signing receives.
The academy exists for exactly this morning. Lucas Araujo 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.
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.