“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 The request is on a desk at CRB, and it is not being withdrawn.
$430.0K on the table at Guarani. The manager wanted him, the board agreed a number, and the only voices still to be heard are the ones at the other club.
Martinelli 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.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Corinthians have kept their man, and CRB go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Fábio Alemão was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
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 Agustín Módica is on it.
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Luiz Phellype signs something — a contract at CRB or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
The words a physio says slowly. 48 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.
Match23 Oct 2027
Agustín Módica wins it after the whistle should have gone
92 minutes played. Agustín Módica found the finish in time that only existed because of earlier delays, and Athletico Paranaense went from a point to nothing inside one movement.
Successful dribbles: 24. 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.
Luiz Phellype 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 Fábio Alemão was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
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.
65 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. CRB lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at CRB 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 Fábio Alemão was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Nobody at CRB 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.
Nobody will confirm it and the team sheets confirm it every week. One error has bought him a spell as second choice that is already longer than the error deserved.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Henri trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
Another week, another link, another denial nobody quite believes. CRB know the market decides these things, not the back pages — but the back pages are louder.
Chapecoense next, and one man in the CRB dressing room knows their training ground better than his own. The reception will tell him what they thought of him.
He asked about his future and was given an answer with minutes in it. The manager has now made a promise in a building where promises are remembered, and the clock on it has started.
The deal with Santa Clara 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 clubs had agreed and the player had not. A snub, and a public one: Charleroi keep him, and the supporters here are left wondering what he had heard about the place.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at CRB this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Successful dribbles: 17. 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.
“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.
In brief
The dugoutDadá Belmonte has become a man the manager trusts
$15.0M settles it between the clubs for Martinelli
Fluminense have accepted the money. What CRB do not yet have is the man, and between here and the photograph is a conversation about wages that both sides are dreading.
The offer from ABC for Breno Herculano 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 CRB this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
3 matches, no goals, and a training ground that has tried everything. It will end — droughts always do — but nobody at CRB can tell you which week it ends in.
“We are a long way apart, and pretending otherwise helps nobody.” Neither side is close, and the calendar is not on the club's side.
The dugout7 Jun 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 Igor Teixeira left the room before anybody could ask which.
“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 CRB, and it is not being withdrawn.
Luiz Phellype 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 Fábio Alemão was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
A point taken on 92 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.
1‑1, and both dressing rooms will call it two points lost. A draw that asked plenty of questions and answered none of them.
The dugout10 May 2027
The view from the dugout
“We did not lose. Some weeks that is all you get, and I would rather have the point than not.” Igor Teixeira chose the glass-half-full version of 1‑1; the supporters left with the other one.
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 Dadá Belmonte is on it.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 21 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
Luiz Phellype 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.
Squad12 Apr 2027
Fábio Alemão 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 academy exists for exactly this morning. Daniel Moreira 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. Igor Farias is that, and the reception he gets on his first appearance will be different in kind from the one any signing receives.
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 Dadá Belmonte is on it.
A bone, which is the one injury with a calendar attached. CRB will name a return date and, unusually for this business, will probably be right about it.
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.
It will be explained as a change for the team and it may even be one. Nobody who has worn one believes that, and neither does the man who has just had it taken away.
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at CRB, and both men came out saying it was fine.
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.
A bone, which is the one injury with a calendar attached. CRB will name a return date and, unusually for this business, will probably be right about it.
Luiz Phellype 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.
Nobody at CRB 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.
Another week, another link, another denial nobody quite believes. CRB know the market decides these things, not the back pages — but the back pages are louder.
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 CRB that is a harder question to answer.
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at CRB, and both men came out saying it was fine.
A bone, which is the one injury with a calendar attached. CRB will name a return date and, unusually for this business, will probably be right about it.
It is not a grievance and it is not a demand: he wants to play continental football, and he has stopped hiding it. Whether CRB can give him that is a question about the club, not about him.
Luiz Phellype 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 no fee, no unveiling and no agent on the steps. Mateus Batista has been at this club since he was a boy and is now, formally, one of the first-team squad — which for a local readership beats any signing of any size.
“We keep meeting, and we keep leaving the room with the same numbers we walked in with.” Another round of talks at CRB, another week without a signature from Gegê.
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.
Danielzinho 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.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at CRB this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Henri trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
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 Dadá Belmonte is on it.
Another week, another link, another denial nobody quite believes. CRB know the market decides these things, not the back pages — but the back pages are louder.
A year in and the city has not opened up, the language has not come, and lunch is eaten alone more often than anybody at CRB would admit. It shows on Saturdays.
Luiz Phellype 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 had been thinking. Fábio Alemão 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.
5 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.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Henri trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
Nobody at CRB 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 CRB this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
“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.
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 Geovane is on it.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” CRB have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Luiz Phellype 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.
Add another name to the list: Moreirense have asked the question everybody in the game has been asking about Breno Herculano. The answer from CRB has not changed — yet.
$42.0K was the most the club would pay and Chapecoense were asking for more. Deals like this are revived in the last week of a window roughly half the time, and everybody involved knows it.
Squad18 Jan 2027
Fábio Alemão 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 Dadá Belmonte is on it.
Fee agreed, wages agreed, and Aparecidense waiting with a shirt. Nobody at CRB is pretending otherwise, and the supporters have stopped asking whether and started asking when.
CRB asked and Nova Iguaçu said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
Luiz Phellype 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 had been thinking. Fábio Alemão 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 CRB, and both men came out saying it was fine.
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.
Another week, another link, another denial nobody quite believes. CRB know the market decides these things, not the back pages — but the back pages are louder.
A brace, and Luiz Phellype takes the afternoon — 8.67
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Luiz Phellype provided it, and the 8.67 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
The offer went to Boavista this week and it is theirs to answer. First bids are rarely meant to succeed; they are meant to find out how loud the door closes.
Add another name to the list: Union Espanola have asked the question everybody in the game has been asking about Mikael. The answer from CRB has not changed — yet.
The number the board signed off was not enough. It has been asked again and raised its own offer to $1.3M — a club that wants Lucas Silva enough to be asked twice.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Fábio Alemão 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.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” CRB have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
93 minutes played. Mikael found the finish in time that only existed because of earlier delays, and Cuiabá went from a point to nothing inside one movement.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Fábio Alemão 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.
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Mikael. 1‑0 against Cuiabá, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
Marked 7.69 on an afternoon he ran from the first whistle to the last. Whatever else went wrong, CRB had the best player on the pitch.
The dugout9 Nov 2026
The view from the dugout
“We controlled it. There were spells I did not like and we will look at them, but the group showed me something.” Igor Teixeira, on a 1‑0 win that he was already picking apart on the walk to the press room.
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.
Position 3, 29 points, and the result everyone checks first is now theirs. The word is still not being said around the ground, which is how you know everyone is thinking it.
There is an age at which every good afternoon gets described as a throwback, which is unfair and also accurate. 8.32 at 33, and nobody on the pitch was better.
It is the most legitimate ambition in the sport and the hardest for most clubs to satisfy. Rafael Carvalheira wants continental football; whether CRB can provide it is a question about the next two seasons, not about him.
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.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at CRB this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
4 straight away victories. Sides that win away are usually sides that can defend and can counter, and the table has begun to reflect what those journeys have earned.
He is not being dropped. There is simply nowhere in the formation CRB are playing to put a man who does what he does, which is a harder thing to be told than any team sheet.
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.
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Luiz Phellype signs something — a contract at CRB or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
He used to wear the other shirt. On Saturday he plays against América Mineiro in this one, and whatever he says this week about it being just another game will be untrue.
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 Mikael has written the date down.
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at CRB, and both men came out saying it was fine.
A year in and the language has not come, the city has not opened up, and he eats alone more often than anybody at CRB would like to admit. It is showing 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 CRB this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
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.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Fábio Alemão 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.
Every club in football 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 somebody has tried it.
“The players deserve the credit. My job was easy today.” It was not, and everybody in the room knew it; after 1‑0, Igor Teixeira could afford to be generous.
18 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. CRB lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
It is the most legitimate ambition in the sport and the hardest for most clubs to satisfy. Rafael Carvalheira wants continental football; whether CRB can provide it is a question about the next two seasons, not about him.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Fábio Alemão 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 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.
The words a physio says slowly. 26 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.
The hardest thing about being 20 in a senior side is that nobody makes allowances. Guilherme Estrella did not need any: 8.00, and he looked the most comfortable man on the pitch.
Luiz Phellype 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 23 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.
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Douglas Baggio. 1‑0 against Operário Ferroviário, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
The match ball belongs to Dadá Belmonte, whose 4 goals turned a difficult afternoon into a procession.
Player ratings24 Aug 2026
A brace, and Luiz Phellype takes the afternoon — 9.63
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Luiz Phellype provided it, and the 9.63 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
Player ratings24 Aug 2026
A brace, and Danielzinho takes the afternoon — 8.41
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Danielzinho provided it, and the 8.41 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
Luiz Phellype 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.
11 goals in one match, Dadá Belmonte on the scoresheet, and a scoreline that will look like a misprint. Neutrals could not have asked more of CRB and Amazonas.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Fábio Alemão 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.
Luiz Phellype 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.
The academy exists for exactly this morning. Carlos Pacheco 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. Willian Monteiro 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 Gomes 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. Wesley Lima is that, and the reception he gets on his first appearance will be different in kind from the one any signing receives.
“A point is a point and I will take it, but we should have had all three.” Igor Teixeira after the 0‑0 draw, and the sentence every manager in the country said at some stage this weekend.