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.
Squad15 Feb 2027
9 new faces, and Botafogo-PB 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.
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.
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Thallyson signs something — a contract at Botafogo-PB or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
At 35, 3 points below where he was, and a body that has started charging interest. It happens to all of them and it is still the hardest paragraph on this page.
There is no fee, no unveiling and no agent on the steps. Fernando Xavier has been at this club since he was a boy and is now, formally, one of the first-team squad — which for a local readership beats any signing of any size.
There is no fee, no unveiling and no agent on the steps. Lucas Mendes has been at this club since he was a boy and is now, formally, one of the first-team squad — which for a local readership beats any signing of any size.
6 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.
There is a level at which a footballer stops being tested and starts being contained, and he reached it some time ago. Sergipe know it, and so does everybody who watches him.
A medical, a signature, a shirt held up in front of a sponsor’s board. Botafogo-PB have done the hard part with Água Santa, and the part that remains is the part supporters actually see.
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.
Rafael Martins 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.
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.
Botafogo-PB asked and Remo said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
Nothing is announced when this happens and everybody knows. He is a bigger part of the plan at Botafogo-PB than he was a month ago, and the training ground worked that out before the team sheet said so.
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.
“We keep meeting, and we keep leaving the room with the same numbers we walked in with.” Another round of talks at Sergipe, another week without a signature from Joanderson.
There is a level at which a footballer stops being tested and starts being contained, and he reached it some time ago. Sergipe know it, and so does everybody who watches him.
Not a new contract, not a new number: a new place in the manager’s thinking, which is the only promotion in football that actually matters. Otávio has moved up it.
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Deijair signs something — a contract at Sergipe or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
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.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Botafogo-PB can pretend not to have heard.
Rafael Martins 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.
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Jorge Martínez is 20, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
Squad28 Dec 2026
Words at Botafogo-PB training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Luiz Henrique 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.
Nicola Profeta is 20, and Botafogo-PB have signed him for the player he will be rather than the one he is. The first team can wait; the point of a deal like this is the years it buys.
Juan Sebastian Palacios is 20, and Botafogo-PB have signed him for the player he will be rather than the one he is. The first team can wait; the point of a deal like this is the years it buys.
He is not being dropped. There is simply nowhere in the formation Botafogo-PB are playing to put a man who does what he does, which is a harder thing to be told than any team sheet.
Nobody at Botafogo-PB 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.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Botafogo-PB will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
“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 Botafogo-PB, and it is not being withdrawn.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Luiz Henrique 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 Botafogo-PB 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.” Fábio Santos after 0‑1, in the tone of a man who knows the next question and does not intend to answer it.
Somebody else has been better, the manager has said so with a team sheet, and there is no argument to be had. He will get the shirt back the only way it can be got back.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 39 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Botafogo-PB 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 Luiz Henrique was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
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 Igor Maduro is on it.
Every squad has one of these fixtures for somebody every season. This one is Júlio Vaz’s: the club that knew him first, the supporters who will decide in the first minute whether to applaud, and Botafogo-PB needing him to play as if none of it matters.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 46 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
Rafael Martins 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.
Clubs spend fortunes looking for players and occasionally find one down the corridor. Caio Lopes is that, and the reception he gets on his first appearance will be different in kind from the one any signing receives.
Clubs spend fortunes looking for players and occasionally find one down the corridor. Lucas Souza is that, and the reception he gets on his first appearance will be different in kind from the one any signing receives.
15 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.
“The supporters are entitled to be angry. So am I. We will put it right.” 1‑2, a manager saying the necessary things, and a dressing room that heard a different version of them.
There is no complaint available here and everybody involved knows it, which does not make the walk to the bench any shorter. Form is the only currency in football that cannot be borrowed against.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Botafogo-PB will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Botafogo-PB can pretend not to have heard.
Every footballer has an answer to the question about his boyhood club, and most of them never get to act on it. Antônio Falcão has, at Botafogo-PB, and the first month will show what that does to a man.
Everything agreed with another club, everything agreed with the player; a doctor is the only person left to persuade. The photograph is a day or two away.
18 defensive actions and a clean sheet at the end of them. A defender's afternoon can only be told by what did not happen, which is why nobody makes a highlights package out of one and every manager in the division would take it.
Every shape has positions in it and this one does not have his. Botafogo-PB will either change the shape, change his job, or change his club, and he is waiting to hear which.
In brief
The dugoutSomebody else is better right now than Rafael Martins
2 on the scoresheet on his first appearance and a mark of 9.69 beside it. Most debuts are got through; this one was enjoyed, by him and by everybody watching it.
At 22 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.
The academy exists for exactly this morning. Arthur Lima has come through every age group the club runs and has now been handed a senior number, and the people who coached him at twelve will be the proudest in the building.
There is no fee, no unveiling and no agent on the steps. Willian Guimarães has been at this club since he was a boy and is now, formally, one of the first-team squad — which for a local readership beats any signing of any size.
There is no fee, no unveiling and no agent on the steps. Biel has been at this club since he was a boy and is now, formally, one of the first-team squad — which for a local readership beats any signing of any size.
The academy exists for exactly this morning. Diego Borges has come through every age group the club runs and has now been handed a senior number, and the people who coached him at twelve will be the proudest in the building.