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.
Player ratings10 May 2027
Rafael Bilu was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.13. 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.
Juventude held the lead for 2 minutes, which is not long enough to enjoy it. Avaí answered before the celebration had properly finished, and the shape of the afternoon changed with it.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Avaí can pretend not to have heard.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Avaí they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
It is the most legitimate ambition in the sport and the hardest for most clubs to satisfy. Alef Manga wants continental football; whether Avaí can provide it is a question about the next two seasons, not about him.
Behind, and beaten by any honest reading, until minute 87. Palmeiras had the points in their pocket and a corner of the ground still believed, which is generally when it happens.
The demotion a club never announces and a dressing room always notices. Igor Bohn is further from the side than he was, and the reason will not be given until he asks.
Something was said to Diego Callai and then it happened. In this industry that passes for remarkable, and the dressing room noticed faster than any supporter could.
In brief
Player ratingsNobody on the pitch touched Rafael Bilu
It is not a grievance and it is not a demand: he wants to play continental football, and he has stopped hiding it. Whether Avaí can give him that is a question about the club, not about him.
Luiz Henrique 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 is not the end of the world and it is not good enough. Both of those are true.” The manager, after a 0‑0 draw, said the honest thing and then went to say it again inside.
He used to wear the other shirt. On Saturday he plays against Remo in this one, and whatever he says this week about it being just another game will be untrue.
Another week, another link, another denial nobody quite believes. Avaí know the market decides these things, not the back pages — but the back pages are louder.
Nobody at Avaí is suggesting he is out of form. The manager simply wanted somebody with a different set of qualities for ninety specific minutes, and there is nothing a player can train to fix that.
Zé Ricardo 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 Otávio Passos is on it.
Numbers do not stay secret in a dressing room and never have. He is not asking for more than he is worth; he is asking why somebody beside him is worth more, and at Avaí that is a harder question to answer.
Avaí may not be able to give Wallison what he wants
It is the most legitimate ambition in the sport and the hardest for most clubs to satisfy. Wallison wants continental football; whether Avaí can provide it is a question about the next two seasons, not about him.
Another week, another link, another denial nobody quite believes. Avaí know the market decides these things, not the back pages — but the back pages are louder.
Nobody at Avaí 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 offer from Beijing Guoan for Igor Bohn 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.
Add another name to the list: Zhejiang FC have asked the question everybody in the game has been asking about Del Piage. The answer from Avaí has not changed — yet.
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 Otávio Passos is on it.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Avaí have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Every touch is being weighed now, in print and everywhere else. Some players grow into that and some are quietly ruined by it, and nobody knows which in advance.
Successful dribbles: 13. 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.
Nobody at Avaí 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 was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Avaí this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Daniel Penha 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.
Something was said to Wenderson and then it happened. In this industry that passes for remarkable, and the dressing room noticed faster than any supporter could.
Nobody at Avaí 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.
Every squad has one of these fixtures for somebody every season. This one is Wesley Gasolina’s: the club that knew him first, the supporters who will decide in the first minute whether to applaud, and Avaí needing him to play as if none of it matters.
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 Avaí have no good answer.
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 clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Avaí is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
The general version of this complaint is that a player wants more. The specific version names the thing: he wants to walk out under floodlights against clubs from other countries, and he has stopped pretending otherwise.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Daniel Penha was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Marked 8.33 — 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.
18 defensive actions and a clean sheet at the end of them. A defender's afternoon can only be told by what did not happen, which is why nobody makes a highlights package out of one and every manager in the division would take it.
16 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.
31 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Avaí lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Two goals and a mark of 8.73 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the team. 7 saves, several of them the sort nobody expects to see stopped, and a scoreline that flatters everybody in front of him.
Player ratings17 Aug 2026
Sorriso, 21, plays like he has been here for years — 7.76
A mark of 7.76 means one thing beside a twenty-nine-year-old's name and something else entirely beside a 21-year-old's. Nobody at the ground needed telling which this was.
At 33 he is supposed to be managing his minutes. Instead he was marked 8.34 and looked, for ninety minutes, exactly like the player everybody remembers.
There is no worse way to lose a footballer. Jamerson has pre-agreed a move away, which means every appearance between now and June is made by a man the club can no longer sell, and somebody upstairs will be asked why the contract was allowed to get here.
Defending was optional and nobody took up the option. 6 goals between Avaí and Santa Cruz de Natal, and not one of the people who paid to be there will ask for the money back.
In brief
SquadWords at Avaí training over how hard people work