1‑4 to Avaí, and it was every bit as bad as the number suggests. There are defeats you argue about and defeats you apologise for; this was the second kind.
“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 The request is on a desk at Ferroviária, and it is not being withdrawn.
$1.7M on the table at Cruzeiro. The manager wanted him, the board agreed a number, and the only voices still to be heard are the ones at the other club.
The number the board signed off was not enough. It has been asked again and raised its own offer to $2.0M — a club that wants Kaique Kenji 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 Ferroviária 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.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. João Gadu will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Ferroviária the goodbyes have quietly begun.
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.
3 games without scoring. Strikers stop looking up, midfielders take the extra touch, and every shot that clears the bar is followed by a groan that has been building since the last goal.
Squad30 Nov 2026
Words at Ferroviária training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. JP Martins 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.
Successful dribbles: 16. 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.
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.
The dugout30 Nov 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.” Eduardo Silva chose the glass-half-full version of 0‑0; the supporters left with the other one.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Ferroviária have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Ricardinho 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.
Squad16 Nov 2026
Words at Ferroviária training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Marcos Vinícius 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.
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Arthur Schilling and Ferroviária agree another 5 years.
Something was said to Lucas Rodrigues and then it happened. In this industry that passes for remarkable, and the dressing room noticed faster than any supporter could.
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 Fábio Soares is on it.
“The manager did not use many words, and he did not need to.” Andrés Macea has his answer from Ferroviária; what he does with it is the next window’s story.
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 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.
Ricardinho 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. Jhonatan Garcia is 22, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Albano. 1‑0 against Remo, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
Squad19 Oct 2026
Words at Ferroviária training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Edson Lucas 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 was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Ferroviária this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
At 21 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.
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 Fábio Soares is on it.
He used to wear the other shirt. On Saturday he plays against Remo in this one, and whatever he says this week about it being just another game will be untrue.
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Dênis Júnior signs something — a contract at Ferroviária or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
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 Danielzinho has written the date down.
“We keep meeting, and we keep leaving the room with the same numbers we walked in with.” Another round of talks at Ferroviária, another week without a signature from João Victor.
He trains hard, says the right things and goes home to an empty flat. Nobody at Ferroviária has done anything wrong, which is exactly what makes it so difficult to fix.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Ferroviária they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
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.
Squad5 Oct 2026
Words at Ferroviária training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Marcos Vinícius 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: Luiz Henrique. 1‑0 against Coritiba, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
“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.
Boardroom5 Oct 2026
95% of the income goes out in wages at Ferroviária
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.
Ricardinho 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.
Successful dribbles: 16. There was always a defender in front of him and there was never a defender in front of him for long.
The dugout21 Sep 2026
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 Eduardo Silva left the room before anybody could ask which.
He is not being dropped. There is simply nowhere in the formation Ferroviária are playing to put a man who does what he does, which is a harder thing to be told than any team sheet.
Botafogo go through and Ferroviária go home, 0‑1 the scoreline that did it. The dressing room will call the league the priority now, because that is what dressing rooms say.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the whole of the defence. 7 saves, several of them the kind nobody expects to see made, and ten outfield players who owe him a drink.
There is a version of every career where the player ends up somewhere he chose rather than somewhere that chose him. Danielzinho is living that version at Ferroviária, and it tends to show in the first month.
It is the most legitimate ambition in the sport and the hardest for most clubs to satisfy. Marcos Vinícius wants continental football; whether Ferroviária can provide it is a question about the next two seasons, not about him.
The rules permit it and it stings anyway. João Gadu has agreed terms with Tombense for the summer, and until then he pulls on this shirt as a player who has already chosen his next one.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Ferroviária this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad14 Sep 2026
Words at Ferroviária training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Marcos Vinícius 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.
Minute 85, against Botafogo-SP, 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.