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.
Caio Hila 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.
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.
6 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 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.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Oeste this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Two or more conceded in each of the last 4 matches. It is not one mistake repeating itself, which would be the easier thing to fix; it is a different one every week.
“We were not good enough today and I am not going to dress it up.” Victor Rocha after 1‑3, in the tone of a man who knows the next question and does not intend to answer it.
He is not being dropped. There is simply nowhere in the formation Oeste are playing to put a man who does what he does, which is a harder thing to be told than any team sheet.
Sérgio Raphael 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 Grígor was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
The demotion a club never announces and a dressing room always notices. Caio Hila is further from the side than he was, and the reason will not be given until he asks.
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.
Every squad has one of these fixtures for somebody every season. This one is Léo Ceará’s: the club that knew him first, the supporters who will decide in the first minute whether to applaud, and Oeste needing him to play as if none of it matters.