The hardest thing about being 19 in a senior side is that nobody makes allowances. Thierry Henry did not need any: 7.76, and he looked the most comfortable man on the pitch.
“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 The request is on a desk at Azuriz, and it is not being withdrawn.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Azuriz this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
At 19 he is being sung about by people twice his age, which is an affection a signing has to earn over years and a local kid gets for turning up. It is also the hardest thing in football to live up to.
Everything agreed with Juventude, everything agreed with the player; a doctor is the only person left to persuade. The photograph is a day or two away.
At 23 he is being sung about by people twice his age, which is an affection a signing has to earn over years and a local kid gets for turning up. It is also the hardest thing in football to live up to.
“A point is a point and I will take it, but we should have had all three.” Luiz Soares after the 0‑0 draw, and the sentence every manager in the country said at some stage this weekend.
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 words a physio says slowly. 15 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 The request is on a desk at Azuriz, and it is not being withdrawn.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Náutico have kept their man, and Azuriz go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
There is a version of this player everybody suspected was in there, and on this evidence it is. 8.13, and no argument anywhere in the ground.
Player ratings7 Jun 2027
Túlio was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.10. 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.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Eric Vieira was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
In brief
Transfer targetsA loan move for Felipe Redaelli is in the works
21 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Azuriz lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Londrina go through and Azuriz go home, 0‑4 the scoreline that did it. The dressing room will call the league the priority now, because that is what dressing rooms say.
The terraces24 May 2027
Azuriz are taken apart by Londrina — and the town wants answers
It finished 0-4. A cup exit is a disappointment; this was a public dismantling, and the difference between the two is the number of people who will still be talking about it in August.
Xavier 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.
At 18 he is being sung about by people twice his age, which is an affection a signing has to earn over years and a local kid gets for turning up. It is also the hardest thing in football to live up to.
43 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Azuriz lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Azuriz this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Zé Gabriel 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 Azuriz this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
“We were not good enough today and I am not going to dress it up.” Luiz Soares after 1‑3, in the tone of a man who knows the next question and does not intend to answer it.
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.
The demotion a club never announces and a dressing room always notices. Daniel Lopes is further from the side than he was, and the reason will not be given until he asks.
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 Azuriz 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 system has changed and his position has not. A footballer can improve his form; he cannot improve the manager’s formation, and that is the whole of the problem.
Nobody at Azuriz 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.
Another week, another link, another denial nobody quite believes. Azuriz know the market decides these things, not the back pages — but the back pages are louder.
Ikson 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.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Eric Vieira 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 Azuriz would admit. It shows on Saturdays.
“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 Azuriz, and it is not being withdrawn.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Azuriz this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Eric Vieira was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Every shape has positions in it and this one does not have his. Azuriz will either change the shape, change his job, or change his club, and he is waiting to hear which.
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.