There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Pedro provided it, and the 9.09 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
9 home matches unbeaten. Visiting sides arrive already talking about the atmosphere, which is usually the sign that they have half-lost before kickoff.
11 goals in 13 games at Hapoel Kiryat Shmona — numbers that travel home faster than he does. Somebody at Flamengo updates a spreadsheet every Monday, and it makes better reading each week.
8 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.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the team. 9 saves, several of them the sort nobody expects to see stopped, and a scoreline that flatters everybody in front of him.
Diego Reyes 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 dugout12 Oct 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.” Daniel Machado, on a 1‑0 win that he was already picking apart on the walk to the press room.
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 Rossi is on it.
In brief
Player ratingsA defender's afternoon for Léo Pereira
3‑0 against Montevideo City Torque, and a performance that will change how the rest of the competition talks about this club. Reputations in continental football are built in single evenings and this was one.
7 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.
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Jorginho provided it, and the 8.53 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
At 35 he is supposed to be managing his minutes. Instead he was marked 8.16 and looked, for ninety minutes, exactly like the player everybody remembers.
Defending was optional and nobody took up the option. 6 goals between Flamengo and Bragantino, and not one of the people who paid to be there will ask for the money back.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Flamengo can pretend not to have heard.
There were 87 minutes on the clock and Internacional had all but banked the point. Football rarely reads the room, and Flamengo did not stop to explain themselves.
Two goals and a mark of 8.29 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
A 3‑2 win over Internacional, earned rather than given, and the sort of afternoon that sends everyone home talking about next week instead of this one.
Marked 8.54 — 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.
Nothing about the week ahead is ordinary. Fluminense on Saturday, a town that has already started talking about it, and a dressing room that does not need telling what it means.
“The players deserve the credit. My job was easy today.” It was not, and everybody in the room knew it; after 3‑2, Daniel Machado could afford to be generous.
Bahia go through and Flamengo go home, 1‑2 the scoreline that did it. The dressing room will call the league the priority now, because that is what dressing rooms say.
“I know what people will say. I know what I want, and it is here.” Avellino had the fee agreed and the shirt ready; they did not have the player, and now they will not.
The clubs have settled the fee and he has settled his wages. What remains is a medical and a photograph, and around Flamengo people have started saying his name in the past tense.