“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Penafiel have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Boardroom7 Dec 2026
An order from above at Penafiel: somebody has to go
Balance sheets do not care about form or about who the manager was planning to build around. The board have decided a sale is required, and the only question left is which name ends up carrying it.
Squad7 Dec 2026
Raúl Alcaina 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.
Joan Femenías 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.
Squad23 Nov 2026
Words at Penafiel training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Rúben Alves 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 is not much of a headline and it is the reason players believe the next promise. Penafiel told Ricardo Schutte something would happen and then it happened, which in this industry passes for remarkable.
The board had gone up, the arguing had started, and then the ball was in the net in the 92th minute. Leiria will replay every second of the added time for a week.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Penafiel this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad16 Nov 2026
Words at Penafiel training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Raúl Alcaina 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.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Penafiel have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Squad19 Oct 2026
Words at Penafiel training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Raúl Alcaina 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.
3 matches, no goals, and a training ground that has tried everything. It will end — droughts always do — but nobody at Penafiel can tell you which week it ends in.
Bruno Menezes 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.
Joan Femenías 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.
Squad14 Sep 2026
Raúl Alcaina 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.
Marked 8.09 — 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.
6 signings in three months. Every one of them may be an upgrade and the team can still be worse for a while, which is the part of a rebuild that never appears in the transfer-window verdicts.