“I listened, I thought about it, and I am staying. That is the whole story.” The clubs had agreed a fee. Marlon had not agreed to go, which turned out to be the part that mattered.
The fee was agreed and the flight was looked at — and then the phone stopped ringing. Mirassol moved on, Mayk reports back to Grêmio, and everybody pretends Monday is just Monday.
Vinicius Tobias 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.
There is a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 23-year-old it feels ownership of. Leonel Pérez 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.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Juan Ignacio Nardoni was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
The last thing about a transfer that is still about the player is his signature on his own terms, and it is there. Grêmio have lost him in all but the paperwork.
“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 The request is on a desk at Grêmio, and it is not being withdrawn.
Leonel Pérez 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.
Grêmio asked and Figueirense said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
A 1‑0 win over CRB, earned rather than given, and the sort of afternoon that sends everyone home talking about next week instead of this one.
Player ratings17 Jul 2028
Jovane Cabral was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.17. There are performances a supporter describes to somebody who was not there and cannot quite convey; this was one, and the number does not help either.
Two goals and a mark of 8.56 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Grêmio can pretend not to have heard.
Add another name to the list: Gimnasia La Plata have asked the question everybody in the game has been asking about Marlon. The answer from Grêmio has not changed — yet.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Krasnodar have kept their man, and Grêmio go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Jovane Cabral. 2‑1 against Atlético Mineiro, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
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.
“I have ambitions, and I would like the club to share them.” Nobody has asked to leave and nobody has been shown the door — but a player chooses that sentence carefully, and a boardroom hears it exactly as it was meant.
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 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.
4 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.
Wagner Leonardo and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Squad8 Nov 2027
Words at Grêmio training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Juan Ignacio Nardoni 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 board was up, the win was priced in, and then Novorizontino scored. There is no worse minute to concede in and the ground emptied in the silence that follows one.
He found out with everybody else, an hour before kick-off, from a sheet of paper on a wall. Nobody at Grêmio pretended it was anything other than a decision about him.
Nobody at Grêmio 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.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Gabriel Menegon will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Grêmio the goodbyes have quietly begun.
Wagner Leonardo 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 Juan Ignacio Nardoni was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
The fixture the rest of the division is looking forward to more than either of the sides in it. Both know a win changes the season and a defeat does not end it, which is what makes it hard to play.
The dugout27 Sep 2027
The manager’s verdict
“That is on me. I pick the team and I picked wrong.” Managers say that when they mean it and when they need to be seen to, and after 0‑1 João Fernandes left the room before anybody could ask which.
Nobody at Grêmio 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.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 90 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
Vinícius Paiva 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.
“I did not come here to warm up in front of people.” He is out of contract eventually, he is old enough to count the weeks, and Novorizontino will have to give him a reason to stay or an exit.
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 Caio Dantas has written the date down.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Novorizontino can pretend not to have heard.
Marked 8.17 — the sort of number a correspondent writes down twice to be sure. Everything he tried came off, and what he did not try was not worth trying.
15 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.
The young player of the month award goes to a 20-year-old at Novorizontino who has looked like the finished article for four weekends running. The next four are the ones that decide whether he is.
Every club 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 it has been tried.
Every shape has positions in it and this one does not have his. Novorizontino will either change the shape, change his job, or change his club, and he is waiting to hear which.
“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.
Patrick 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.
Minute 87, against América Mineiro, and a goal that felt like a win to everybody who had stayed. It was a draw. Nobody leaving the ground will describe it as one.
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 had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Novorizontino, and both men came out saying it was fine.
“A point is a point and I will take it, but we should have had all three.” João Rodrigues after the 2‑2 draw, and the sentence every manager in the country said at some stage this weekend.
Nobody at Novorizontino 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.
The manager has re-ordered his thinking and Mayk 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.
Squad7 Sep 2026
A place in the month's best eleven for Maykon Jesus
Four or five weekends of consistency, judged against everybody in the division doing his job. Maykon Jesus has come out of that comparison in the side, and Novorizontino have had the benefit of every one of those afternoons.
Squad7 Sep 2026
Marquinhos 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.
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 Juninho is on it.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Juninho trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
He used to wear the other shirt. On Saturday he plays against Avaí 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 Juninho signs something — a contract at Novorizontino or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.