Marked for Danilo
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Player ratings21 Sep 2026
Successful dribbles: 39. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
Squad21 Sep 2026
A falling-out at Botafogo
Alex Telles and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Match19 Sep 2026
Palmeiras left with the points after a 0‑1 defeat that will take some explaining on the terraces.
Squad21 Sep 2026
Arthur Chaves 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 dugout21 Sep 2026
“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 dugout21 Sep 2026
“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.
The dugout21 Sep 2026
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.
Looking ahead21 Sep 2026
Edenílson faces his old club
Internacional next, and one man in the Botafogo dressing room knows their training ground better than his own. The reception will tell him what they thought of him.
The dugout21 Sep 2026
No place in the plan for Allan
The manager wanted a different profile for this opponent, which is a real football reason and no consolation. He did nothing wrong and he did not play.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Steady
Player ratings7 Sep 2026
Two goals and a mark of 8.99 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
Squad7 Sep 2026
Gabriel Batista 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.
Squad7 Sep 2026
A row about effort at Botafogo
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Cristian Medina was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Match5 Sep 2026
Botafogo hit back inside 1 minutes
Vasco da Gama held the lead for 1 minutes, which is not long enough to enjoy it. Botafogo answered before the celebration had properly finished, and the shape of the afternoon changed with it.
The dugout7 Sep 2026
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Júnior Santos, and the manager let it.
Squad7 Sep 2026
Botafogo are still strangers to each other
14 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.
Match5 Sep 2026
A 2‑2 draw with Vasco da Gama leaves the dressing room somewhere between relief and regret.
Squad7 Sep 2026
Somebody has moved past him. It is not a dropping and it is worse than one, because a dropping is about a Saturday and this is about where he stands.
The dugout7 Sep 2026
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.” Marcos Farias chose the glass-half-full version of 2‑2; the supporters left with the other one.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad3 Aug 2026
“The easiest signature of my career.” Alex Telles and Botafogo agree another 2 years, and the manager can plan around him rather than about him.
Squad3 Aug 2026
Alex Telles 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.
Market3 Aug 2026
Danilo wants to know where this is going
“I want to win things, and I would like to do it here.” Nothing has been demanded and nothing has been threatened — but a boardroom at Botafogo hears a sentence like that exactly as it was built.
Squad3 Aug 2026
A move Paulinho Boia would have made for nothing
There is a version of every career where the player ends up somewhere he chose rather than somewhere that chose him. Paulinho Boia is living that version at Botafogo, and it tends to show in the first month.
Squad3 Aug 2026
A row about effort at Botafogo
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Cristian Medina was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Player ratings3 Aug 2026
A masterclass from Vitinho
Marked 8.12 — 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.
Match1 Aug 2026
A goal on 90 minutes turned three points into one and a good afternoon into an argument about game management that will run until Saturday.
Market3 Aug 2026
The clock runs on Alex Telles's contract
24 months left and silence from upstairs — no offer, no talks, nothing for his people to answer. Clubs that let a calendar do their negotiating usually end up negotiating with the calendar.
The dugout3 Aug 2026
Vitinho knocks on the manager's door
“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, and both men came out saying it was fine.