“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Santos have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
The clubs have settled the fee and he has settled his wages. What remains is a medical and a photograph, and around Santos people have started saying his name in the past tense.
He is going to Goiás, the club has $19.1M it did not have on Friday, and the phone-ins have already decided how they feel about that. Selling well and selling somebody they loved are not the same skill.
The number the board signed off was not enough. It has been asked again and raised its own offer to $100.2K — a club that wants Alex Santana enough to be asked twice.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Santos this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
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 watch every Santos game from here. That says everything about where my head is.” The loan at Tuna Luso runs its course, but his heart never made the trip.
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 Gabriel Bontempo is on it.
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Santos, and both men came out saying it was fine.
Nothing in writing and nothing in public: a word about playing time, given face to face at Santos. The team sheets over the next month will show whether it was worth having.
The language has come, the shrug has gone, and he argues in training like a man who expects to be here next year. None of it shows up on a fee and all of it shows up on the pitch.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Santos this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
“I am grateful for the games, but I did not become a footballer to be somebody else's spare part.” He wants to be at Santos, and 0 appearances in 9 say he has earned the hearing.
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 Moisés is on it.
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Álvaro Barreal signs something — a contract at Santos or anywhere else — this column belongs to 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.
He looks like a man who lives here now rather than one who is working here. It took most of a season, and at Santos the difference is visible from the back of the stand.
The least glamorous thing a foreign signing ever does and the one that decides most of them. A player who can hear the shout behind him is a different footballer from one who cannot.
“It was not right for me. I am not going to explain why to anybody except the people I owe an explanation to.” A deal agreed between two clubs, and a player who declined to be part of it.
The clubs have settled the fee and he has settled his wages. What remains is a medical and a photograph, and around Santos people have started saying his name in the past tense.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Santos this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad24 Jan 2028
Words at Santos training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Matheus Henrique 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.
Fee agreed, wages agreed, and Bogota waiting with a shirt. Nobody at Deportivo Pasto is pretending otherwise, and the supporters have stopped asking whether and started asking when.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Deportivo Pasto can pretend not to have heard.
John Méndez 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 manager did not use many words, and he did not need to.” Santiago Jiménez has his answer from Deportivo Pasto; what he does with it is the next window’s story.
Deportivo Pasto have made the call to Club America. No fee, a share of the wages, and a spare shirt in the position where the squad has been thinnest all season.
Deportivo Pasto have made the call to Banfield. No fee, a share of the wages, and a spare shirt in the position where the squad has been thinnest all season.
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.
In brief
The dugoutJorge Obregón knocks on the manager's door
SquadWords at Deportivo Pasto training over how hard people work
Gabriel Barbosa 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.
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Vinicius Rocha is 18, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
35 appearances at Brusque and the goals have stopped going in. Santos lent out a goalkeeper and are watching somebody else’s season get better every week.
8 goals in 35 games at Criciúma — numbers that travel home faster than he does. Somebody at Santos updates a spreadsheet every Monday, and it makes better reading each week.
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 Santos would admit. It shows on Saturdays.
Patrick Preciado 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.
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 Moisés is on it.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Johan Portilla was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
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 Deportivo Pasto would admit. It shows on Saturdays.
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Jorge Obregón signs something — a contract at Deportivo Pasto or anywhere else — this column belongs to 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.
“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 Deportivo Pasto, and it is not being withdrawn.
8.08. 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.
Warm-up bib, ninety minutes of watching, and a handshake at the end that fooled nobody. Big matches tell you who a manager trusts; this one told Patrick Preciado.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Santos have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Gabriel Barbosa 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.
11 shut-outs in 31 games. A goalkeeper’s loan is judged on the afternoons when nothing happened at all, and Diogenes has been having a lot of them.
Loan watch18 Oct 2027
João Pedro’s loan is measured in nothing happening
10 clean sheets from 20 appearances at Londrina. That is the whole of a goalkeeper’s job done properly, and it is being done a long way from the club that owns him.
The dugout18 Oct 2027
The manager’s verdict
“I am not going to get carried away and I will not let them either. It was a good day. There will be harder ones.” Samuel Carvalho kept it short after the 4‑0 win, which is what managers do when they are happy.
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.
Juan Felipe Quiñonez 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.
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.
He used to wear the other shirt. On Saturday he plays against Deportes Quindio in this one, and whatever he says this week about it being just another game will be untrue.
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Deportivo Pasto, and both men came out saying it was fine.
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Jorge Obregón signs something — a contract at Deportivo Pasto or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
“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 Santos hears a sentence like that exactly as it was built.
Matheus Henrique 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 watch every Santos game from here. That says everything about where my head is.” The loan at Pyunik runs its course, but his heart never made the trip.
30 appearances at Brusque and the goals have stopped going in. Santos lent out a goalkeeper and are watching somebody else’s season get better every week.
8 goals in 29 games at Novorizontino — numbers that travel home faster than he does. Somebody at Santos updates a spreadsheet every Monday, and it makes better reading each week.
8 goals in 35 games at Deportivo Pasto — numbers that travel home faster than he does. Somebody at Santos updates a spreadsheet every Monday, and it makes better reading each week.
Another week, another link, another denial nobody quite believes. Santos know the market decides these things, not the back pages — but the back pages are louder.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Dalberson trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
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.
2 kept out from twelve yards, and a stadium that will describe each of them for twenty years. A goalkeeper needs one night like this in a career, and this was it.
Cup ties wait for somebody to seize them, and Moisés obliged against Santa Fe. 1‑1 on the night, and the name in the next round’s hat is Deportivo Pasto.
9 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.
“The easiest signature of my career.” Matías Pisano and Deportivo Pasto agree another 2 years, and the manager can plan around him rather than about him.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Geovanni Banguera 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.
Patrick Preciado 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.
Marked 8.06 — 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.
7 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.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Deportivo Pasto have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Minute 89, against Aguilas Doradas, 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.
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.
It needed Jorge Obregón to find the net to bring anything home at all: 1‑1 against Aguilas Doradas, and half the dressing room will call it a point won.
The dugout27 Sep 2027
The manager’s verdict
“I am frustrated, honestly. We did enough to win and we did not win.” Francisco Vargas was not hiding it after 1‑1, and nobody in the Deportivo Pasto dressing room was either.
The words a physio says slowly. 46 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.
“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 Santos, and it is not being withdrawn.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Santos they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
Lucas Romero 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 much of a headline and it is the reason players believe the next promise. Santos told Lucas Romero something would happen and then it happened, which in this industry passes for remarkable.
Four or five weekends of consistency, judged against everybody in the division doing his job. Matheus Henrique has come out of that comparison in the side, and Santos have had the benefit of every one of those afternoons.
“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 Deportivo Pasto, and it is not being withdrawn.
It is not a grievance and it is not a demand: he wants to play continental football, and he has stopped hiding it. Whether Deportivo Pasto can give him that is a question about the club, not about him.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Geovanni Banguera was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Deportivo Pasto this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Marked 8.25 — 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.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Geovanni Banguera 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 easiest signature of my career.” Juan Felipe Quiñonez and Deportivo Pasto agree another 4 years, and the manager can plan around him rather than about him.
Johan Portilla 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 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 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.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Geovanni Banguera was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Deportivo Cali will keep picking him until June and will get nothing for him after it. Juan Manuel Arango has pre-agreed a move to Deportivo Pasto, and the only people who lose in that arrangement are the ones who let the contract run down.
John Méndez 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.
5 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.
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.
“We earned that. I asked them for a reaction and I got one, and now I want the same again on Saturday.” Francisco Vargas on a 1‑0 afternoon that pleased him more than he was prepared to show.
There is no complaint available here and everybody involved knows it, which does not make the walk to the bench any shorter. Form is the only currency in football that cannot be borrowed against.
The most common injury in the game and the most rushed back from. Deportivo Pasto will quote 14 days and will be careful with it, because the second one is always worse than the first.
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.
There is a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 23-year-old it feels ownership of. Mayer Gil 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.
Johan Portilla 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.
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 Hassan Vergara is on it.
Every squad has one of these fixtures for somebody every season. This one is Mateo Garavito’s: the club that knew him first, the supporters who will decide in the first minute whether to applaud, and Deportivo Pasto needing him to play as if none of it matters.
In brief
The dugoutJohn Méndez knocks on the manager's door
Two goals and a mark of 9.12 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
Lucas Romero 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.
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Neymar. 3‑1 against Vasco da Gama, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
“I watch every Santos game from here. That says everything about where my head is.” The loan at Londrina runs its course, but his heart never made the trip.
“We earned that. I asked them for a reaction and I got one, and now I want the same again on Saturday.” Samuel Carvalho on a 3‑1 afternoon that pleased him more than he was prepared to show.
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Benjamín Rollheiser signs something — a contract at Santos or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
He used to wear the other shirt. On Saturday he plays against Atlético Mineiro in this one, and whatever he says this week about it being just another game will be untrue.
“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 Deportivo Pasto, and it is not being withdrawn.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Deportivo Pasto have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
3 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.
A 1‑1 draw with Aguilas Doradas leaves the dressing room somewhere between relief and regret.
The dugout10 May 2027
The manager’s verdict
“I am frustrated, honestly. We did enough to win and we did not win.” Francisco Vargas was not hiding it after 1‑1, and nobody in the Deportivo Pasto dressing room was either.
In brief
The dugoutThe plan did not have a place for Moisés
Gabriel Barbosa 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 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 am grateful for the games, but I did not become a footballer to be somebody else's spare part.” He wants to be at Santos, and 5 appearances in 21 say he has earned the hearing.
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.” Samuel Carvalho chose the glass-half-full version of 0‑0; the supporters left with the other one.
Nobody at Santos 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.
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Neymar signs something — a contract at Santos or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
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.
Marked 8.07 — 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.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Deportivo Pasto this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
There is no complaint available here and everybody involved knows it, which does not make the walk to the bench any shorter. Form is the only currency in football that cannot be borrowed against.
He used to wear the other shirt. On Saturday he plays against Aguilas Doradas in this one, and whatever he says this week about it being just another game will be untrue.
Shots: 5. Goals: none. The chances were there and they were good ones, and they went into the stand, the goalkeeper's arms and the side netting in roughly that order.
It is not a grievance and it is not a demand: he wants to play continental football, and he has stopped hiding it. Whether Deportivo Pasto can give him that is a question about the club, not about him.
Patrick Preciado 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 supporters are entitled to be angry. So am I. We will put it right.” 1‑2, a manager saying the necessary things, and a dressing room that heard a different version of them.
He is the name in every column and on every phone-in, which is a heavy thing to carry at any age. Some footballers thrive on it; others are quietly finished by it.
The shape wanted a different profile against this opponent, which is a real football answer and no comfort at all to the man it is about. He did nothing wrong and he did not play.
Nobody at Deportivo Pasto 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.
7 without a win is the sort of run that changes how a town talks about its club, and Santa Fe were the afternoon it stopped. Nothing is fixed by one result and everything feels different by one.
John Méndez 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.
Santa Fe made Deportivo Pasto work for it, but the scoreboard read 2‑0 at the end and the table does not ask how.
Player ratings19 Apr 2027
Moisés was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.15. 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.
Player ratings19 Apr 2027
Esneyder Mena was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.11. 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.
“If you cannot run for the shirt, somebody else will wear it.” No name was used and none was needed; every player in that room knew who it was for.
The dugout19 Apr 2027
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.” Francisco Vargas, on a 2‑0 win that he was already picking apart on the walk to the press room.
Lucas Romero 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 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.
Nobody at Santos 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.
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.
Johan Portilla 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.
“We were not good enough today and I am not going to dress it up.” Francisco Vargas after 0‑1, in the tone of a man who knows the next question and does not intend to answer it.
Successful dribbles: 15. 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.
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Deportivo Pasto, and both men came out saying it was fine.
Shots: 8. Goals: none. The chances were there and they were good ones, and they went into the stand, the goalkeeper's arms and the side netting in roughly that order.
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.
11 without defeat on their own grass. The pitch has not changed; the crowd has — louder earlier, and quicker to sense when the opposition would rather be somewhere else.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Deportivo Pasto this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
The dugout15 Mar 2027
The manager’s verdict
“I am frustrated, honestly. We did enough to win and we did not win.” Francisco Vargas was not hiding it after 0‑0, and nobody in the Deportivo Pasto dressing room was either.
Nobody at Deportivo Pasto 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.
A shoot-out is remembered by its ending, and this one ends with Johan Portilla: 2 kept out, and a set of supporters who will describe every one of them for the next twenty years.
It is a specific kind of quiet, a ground watching a winning position dissolve. Deportes Quindio kept coming because nothing stopped them, and Deportivo Pasto will be asked about the last half hour all week.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Deportivo Pasto have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
10 home matches unbeaten. Visiting sides arrive already talking about the atmosphere, which is usually the sign that they have half-lost before kickoff.
John Méndez 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.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Gabriel Brazão was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Santos this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
“I am grateful for the games, but I did not become a footballer to be somebody else's spare part.” He wants to be at Santos, and 0 appearances in 9 say he has earned the hearing.
A year in and the language has not come, the city has not opened up, and he eats alone more often than anybody at Santos would like to admit. It is showing on Saturdays.
Nobody at Santos 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.
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 words a physio says slowly. 18 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.
Player ratings22 Feb 2027
A brace, and Matías Pisano takes the afternoon — 8.43
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Matías Pisano provided it, and the 8.43 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
“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 Deportivo Pasto, and it is not being withdrawn.
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.
John Méndez 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. Mayer Gil 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.
It finished 2‑0, and it was Matías Pisano’s afternoon: on the scoresheet when it mattered, and the reason the points belong to Deportivo Pasto.
Player ratings22 Feb 2027
Mayer Gil was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.03. 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.
26 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Deportivo Pasto lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
There is an age at which every good afternoon gets described as a throwback, which is unfair and also accurate. 8.35 at 35, and nobody on the pitch was better.
8 without defeat on their own grass. The pitch has not changed; the crowd has — louder earlier, and quicker to sense when the opposition would rather be somewhere else.
Nobody makes a documentary about a hamstring and everybody in the game fears one. Deportivo Pasto will be careful with the return date, because the second one is always worse than the first.
“The players deserve the credit. My job was easy today.” It was not, and everybody in the room knew it; after 3‑1, Francisco Vargas could afford to be generous.
34 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Deportivo Pasto lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
Every run ends on an afternoon somebody had marked down as routine. This one went 4 matches, which is long enough that a town had stopped counting, and short enough that it will remember exactly who stopped it.
Four or five weekends of consistency, judged against everybody in the division doing his job. Moisés has come out of that comparison in the side, and Deportivo Pasto have had the benefit of every one of those afternoons.
43 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Deportivo Pasto lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Some goals win a match and some take one off somebody else. Moisés scored in the 89th minute, Independiente Medellin had already begun thinking about the journey home, and Deportivo Pasto took the lot.
4 wins on the spin now, and the question has changed from whether the run ends to who ends it. Confidence like this cannot be bought; it has to be earned exactly this way.
One scored and one made, which is a different afternoon from scoring twice and an easier one to overlook. Marked 7.84, and involved in 2 of his side's goals.
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Moisés. 3‑2 against Independiente Medellin, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
He is 21 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.
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Geovanni Banguera, and the manager let it.
Player ratings1 Feb 2027
Moisés was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.08. 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.
Johan Portilla 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.
68 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Deportivo Pasto lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
Deportivo Pasto ran out of time with Cortulua. The paperwork was open when the deadline passed, and a transfer that was almost done is now a transfer that never happened.
Deportivo Pasto asked and Gimnasia La Plata said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Deportivo Pasto this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
His past walked in ahead of him. Players who have been where he has been get a hearing in a dressing room before they have earned one, and he has it for as long as his form does.
The words a physio says slowly. 99 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.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Flamengo have kept their man, and Deportivo Pasto 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 Lautaro Rivero was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Boca Juniors have been asked whether they would lend him. Loans are agreed quickly or not at all, and this one will be one or the other by the weekend.
He is not being dropped. There is simply nowhere in the formation Deportivo Pasto are playing to put a man who does what he does, which is a harder thing to be told than any team sheet.
A season-long audition: Santos still own him, but the shirt and the minutes are Deportivo Pasto's to give. A loan is a bet both clubs believe they are winning.
A season-long look at somebody else’s player: Lautaro Rivero arrives from River Plate with something to prove and a return ticket in the drawer. Good loans make everybody richer; this one starts Saturday.
The words a physio says slowly. 106 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.
Johan Portilla 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 demotion a club never announces and a dressing room always notices. Santiago Córdoba is further from the side than he was, and the reason will not be given until he asks.
The registration window is open and the phone has started. Between now and the deadline this club will be linked with forty players and sign three, which is the usual ratio.
A new face in his position and a shirt he thought he owned suddenly up for discussion. Deportivo Pasto have promised nothing, which is what clubs promise at this stage.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Hassan Vergara trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Santos they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
The rules permit it and it stings anyway. Nicola Profeta has agreed terms with CRB for the summer, and until then he pulls on this shirt as a player who has already chosen his next one.
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 21 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.
Squad19 Oct 2026
Gabriel Brazão has improved at 26, which nobody expected
Careers are supposed to plateau and then decline, and the players who ignore that are always the ones who were listening on the training ground. 3 points of it, over months, at an age where the direction normally only goes one way.
Successful dribbles: 18. 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.
“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.
Nobody at Santos 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.
At 18 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 was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Santos this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
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.
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 Thaciano is on it.
Every squad has one of these fixtures for somebody every season. This one is Lucas Veríssimo’s: the club that knew him first, the supporters who will decide in the first minute whether to applaud, and Santos needing him to play as if none of it matters.
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Santos, and both men came out saying it was fine.
6 appearances at Bahia and the goals have stopped going in. Santos lent out a goalkeeper and are watching somebody else’s season get better every week.
“I listened, I thought about it, and I am staying. That is the whole story.” The clubs had agreed a fee. Thaciano had not agreed to go, which turned out to be the part that mattered.
There is no worse way to lose a footballer. Jackson 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.
“I never wanted to be anywhere else. There is unfinished business here.” Pradella commits to Santos for another 4 years.
Squad7 Sep 2026
9 new faces, and Santos are still learning each other
A squad rebuilt inside one window pays for it in a currency nobody budgets for. The football is not worse than the sum of the players; it is worse than the sum of the players who have played together before.
The demotion a club never announces and a dressing room always notices. Rodinei is further from the side than he was, and the reason will not be given until he asks.
A month is long enough that nobody gets in by accident. João Schmidt is in the division's best eleven for it, which is a quieter compliment than an award and a more reliable one.
Nobody at Santos 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.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Igor Vinicius trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Moisés provided it, and the 8.36 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
“It was not right for me. I am not going to explain why to anybody except the people I owe an explanation to.” A deal agreed between two clubs, and a player who declined to be part of it.
The offer from Flora for Mateus Xavier 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.
7.38, 1 on the scoresheet, and the specific comedy of a back-four player celebrating like somebody who does this every week. He does not, and that is exactly why the ground reacted the way it did.