“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 The request is on a desk at Marcílio Dias, and it is not being withdrawn.
The deadline has passed and the squad is the squad. 2 arrived, 2 left, and everything else printed about this club last month was a rumour that stayed one.
Ruan Pablo 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.
3 matches, no goals, and a training ground that has tried everything. It will end — droughts always do — but nobody at Marcílio Dias can tell you which week it ends in.
Squad26 Jul 2027
Words at Marcílio Dias training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Zé Phelipe 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.
Itabaiana left with the points after a 0‑1 defeat that will take some explaining on the terraces.
Boardroom26 Jul 2027
127% of the income goes out in wages at Marcílio Dias
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.
Half the programme played, position 14, 12 on the board. Doubling it is the sum every supporter has done and the only one nobody at the club will do out loud.
6 saves, and a scoreline the ten men in front of him had no right to. Goalkeepers only get noticed on the bad days; this was one of the other ones.
Player ratings31 May 2027
Nicolás Ibarra, 21, plays like he has been here for years — 7.74
A mark of 7.74 means one thing beside a twenty-nine-year-old's name and something else entirely beside a 21-year-old's. Nobody at the ground needed telling which this was.
Cianorte left with the points after a 1‑3 defeat that will take some explaining on the terraces.
Squad31 May 2027
Arthur Baggio 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.
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 dugout31 May 2027
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 1‑3 Guilherme Ribeiro left the room before anybody could ask which.
Matheus Cavichioli 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.
“I have given this everything, but my family is not here and neither am I, not really.” A footballer can be coached out of bad form. Nobody has ever been coached out of this, and Marcílio Dias know it.
Squad1 Mar 2027
Words at Marcílio Dias training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Arthur Baggio 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.
10 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.
Matheus Cavichioli 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.
Squad22 Feb 2027
Words at Marcílio Dias training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Arthur Baggio 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 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.
Words at Marcílio Dias training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Arthur Baggio 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.
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 Claudinho is on it.
He is not being dropped. There is simply nowhere in the formation Marcílio Dias are playing to put a man who does what he does, which is a harder thing to be told than any team sheet.
Another week, another link, another denial nobody quite believes. Marcílio Dias know the market decides these things, not the back pages — but the back pages are louder.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Marcílio Dias have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Léo Silva and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Squad11 Jan 2027
Words at Marcílio Dias training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Roldan 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.
Nobody at Marcílio Dias 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.
He is doing things every Saturday that nobody around him can answer. It is flattering for a season and a problem after that, and Marcílio Dias know which stage they are at.
Matheus Cavichioli 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.
Everybody saw it before anybody said it. At 36 the numbers say 3 points down on what he was, and the question for Marcílio Dias is how to handle a man they owe a great deal.
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.
“We keep meeting, and we keep leaving the room with the same numbers we walked in with.” Another round of talks at Marcílio Dias, another week without a signature from Dylan López.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Arthur Baggio 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 Marcílio Dias this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Marcílio Dias have made the call to Avaí. No fee, a share of the wages, and a spare shirt in the position where the squad has been thinnest all season.
Novorizontino have been asked whether they would lend him. Loans are agreed quickly or not at all, and this one will be one or the other by the weekend.
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.
He is doing things every Saturday that nobody around him can answer. It is flattering for a season and a problem after that, and Marcílio Dias know which stage they are at.
A new face in his position and a shirt he thought he owned suddenly up for discussion. Marcílio Dias have promised nothing, which is what clubs promise at this stage.
Matheus Cavichioli 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 Gui Mansano was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
The young player of the month award goes to a 21-year-old at Marcílio Dias who has looked like the finished article for four weekends running. The next four are the ones that decide whether he is.
Marcílio Dias have made the call to Nova Iguaçu. No fee, a share of the wages, and a spare shirt in the position where the squad has been thinnest all season.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Marcílio Dias this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Nobody at Marcílio Dias 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. Marcílio Dias know the market decides these things, not the back pages — but the back pages are louder.
2 months left, and both sides know what that means: every week without a signature, the fee Marcílio Dias could ask drops and the wages Luan Rodrigues can ask rise.
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Marcílio Dias, and both men came out saying it was fine.
He looks like a man who lives here now rather than one who is working here. It took most of a season, and at Marcílio Dias the difference is visible from the back of the stand.
Successful dribbles: 30. 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.
7 without a win now, and the ground has developed the special quiet of a crowd that expects the worst. One scrappy 1-0 would cure most of it; that is the maddening part.
Squad2 Nov 2026
Words at Marcílio Dias training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Arthur Baggio 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.
Squad2 Nov 2026
8 new faces, and Marcílio Dias 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.
Antônio 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.
There is a figure at which a wage bill stops being ambitious and becomes the reason nothing else is possible, and this club has reached it. Nothing is left over for a transfer, a stand or a rainy afternoon.
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Wang Xingqiang and Marcílio Dias agree another 1 years.
“A point is a point and I will take it, but we should have had all three.” Guilherme Ribeiro after the 0‑0 draw, and the sentence every manager in the country said at some stage this weekend.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Marcílio Dias is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
6 without a win now, and the ground has developed the special quiet of a crowd that expects the worst. One scrappy 1-0 would cure most of it; that is the maddening part.
Miguel Silva 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.
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.
Another week, another link, another denial nobody quite believes. Marcílio Dias know the market decides these things, not the back pages — but the back pages are louder.
Matheus Cavichioli 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.
Squad12 Oct 2026
Arthur Baggio 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.
Clubs spend fortunes looking for players and occasionally find one down the corridor. Igor Rocha is that, and the reception he gets on his first appearance will be different in kind from the one any signing receives.
The academy exists for exactly this morning. Antônio Alves 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.
Goiatuba next, and one man in the Marcílio Dias dressing room knows their training ground better than his own. The reception will tell him what they thought of him.
The shrug has gone, the language is coming, and he now argues in training like somebody who expects to be here next year. Half a signing's value is this and none of it appears on a fee.
The least glamorous thing a foreign signing ever does and the one that decides most of them. A player who can hear the shout behind him is a different footballer from one who cannot.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Marcílio Dias they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
The rules permit it and it stings anyway. Luan Rodrigues has agreed terms with Operário Ferroviário for the summer, and until then he pulls on this shirt as a player who has already chosen his next one.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Arthur Baggio was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
He is doing things on a Saturday afternoon that nobody around him can answer, which is flattering for about one season and a problem after that. Marcílio Dias will not keep him by pretending otherwise.
“We were not good enough today and I am not going to dress it up.” Guilherme Ribeiro after 1‑2, in the tone of a man who knows the next question and does not intend to answer it.
0‑3 to Inter de Limeira, 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.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the team. 7 saves, several of them the sort nobody expects to see stopped, and a scoreline that flatters everybody in front of him.
At 20 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.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Marcílio Dias this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Boardroom21 Sep 2026
Nobody left the Marcílio Dias dressing room in a hurry
The door stayed shut a long time after the final whistle. What was said in there is between them; whether it worked is between them and Saturday.
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.
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 0‑3 Guilherme Ribeiro left the room before anybody could ask 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.
There is no fee, no unveiling and no agent on the steps. Renato Machado 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. Luís Braga 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 dugout14 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 0‑2 Guilherme Ribeiro left the room before anybody could ask which.
The team at the top of the table next, and the honest measure of where this side actually is. Anybody can beat the club below them; the question is what happens against Inter de Limeira.
The shape wanted a different profile against this opponent, which is a real football answer and no comfort at all to the man it is about. He did nothing wrong and he did not play.
Words at Marcílio Dias training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Arthur Baggio 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.
Antônio 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.
A month is long enough that nobody gets in by accident. Gehring is in the division's best eleven for it, which is a quieter compliment than an award and a more reliable one.
Nobody at Marcílio Dias 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.
A year in and the language has not come, the city has not opened up, and he eats alone more often than anybody at Marcílio Dias would like to admit. It is showing on Saturdays.
Gehring, 21, plays like he has been here for years — 8.06
A mark of 8.06 means one thing beside a twenty-nine-year-old's name and something else entirely beside a 21-year-old's. Nobody at the ground needed telling which this was.
7.86, 1 on the scoresheet, and the specific comedy of a back-four player celebrating like somebody who does this every week. He does not, and that is exactly why the ground reacted the way it did.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Arthur Baggio was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
There is a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 22-year-old it feels ownership of. Miguel Silva has it now, and everything he does for the rest of his time here will be measured against the goodwill he was handed for free.
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Antônio and Marcílio Dias agree another 3 years.
The dugout31 Aug 2026
The view from the dugout
“We controlled it. There were spells I did not like and we will look at them, but the group showed me something.” Guilherme Ribeiro, on a 3‑1 win that he was already picking apart on the walk to the press room.
He is doing things every Saturday that nobody around him can answer. It is flattering for a season and a problem after that, and Marcílio Dias know which stage they are at.
In brief
The dugoutMarcelo Sousa has become a man the manager trusts