“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 The request is on a desk at Ituano, and it is not being withdrawn.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.” Ituano have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
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.
A player who expected to start watched it instead. The manager will call it a decision for the team; Matheus Mancini will call it something else in private.
“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 The request is on a desk at Ituano, and it is not being withdrawn.
Squad11 Oct 2027
Words at Ituano training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Osman 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 Ituano this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
12 appearances at Tuna Luso and the goals have stopped going in. Ituano lent out a goalkeeper and are watching somebody else’s season get better every week.
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Ituano, and both men came out saying it was fine.
30 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Ituano lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Ituano can pretend not to have heard.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Ituano 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.
“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.
Every club 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 it has been tried.
“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 Ituano, and it is not being withdrawn.
The clubs have settled the fee and he has settled his wages. What remains is a medical and a photograph, and around Ituano people have started saying his name in the past tense.
It is the most legitimate ambition in the sport and the hardest for most clubs to satisfy. Luciano Juba wants continental football; whether Ituano can provide it is a question about the next two seasons, not about him.
Alan Saldivia 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.
Squad12 Jul 2027
Words at Ituano training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Osman 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.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Ituano they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
He will play here until the summer and then walk out of the door for free, having already signed elsewhere. Supporters will manage the first part of that sentence; it is the second they will struggle with.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Ituano this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
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
“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 Freitas kept it short after the 1‑0 win, which is what managers do when they are happy.
There is an age at which every good afternoon gets described as a throwback, which is unfair and also accurate. 8.06 at 38, and nobody on the pitch was better.
There is no worse way to lose a footballer. Pedro Mantovani 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.
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 Ituano this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
The dugout14 Sep 2026
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 Freitas kept it short after the 1‑0 win, which is what managers do when they are happy.
At 38 he is supposed to be managing his minutes. Instead he was marked 7.87 and looked, for ninety minutes, exactly like the player everybody remembers.
He will play here until the summer and then walk out of the door for free, having already signed elsewhere. Supporters will manage the first part of that sentence; it is the second they will struggle with.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Ituano is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
Bruno Mezenga 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.
100 games in the shirt. Nobody sets out to build a record like that; it happens to a certain kind of player at a certain kind of club, and this town knows what it has.
Squad31 Aug 2026
5 new faces, and Ituano 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.