The board have said in public what they had been saying in private. Results between now and the next meeting decide it, and everybody in the building knows the arithmetic.
The official line will be that it was routine. It was not routine, the timing says so, and every person in that room knows what the next bad result costs.
“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 The request is on a desk at Jabrayil, and it is not being withdrawn.
The deal with Zira is done in every sense but the one that puts him on the pitch. Nothing goes wrong at this stage, except on the occasions when it does.
The shortfall was covered from upstairs again. Supporters are entitled to be relieved and entitled to ask what happens the month it is not, and both feelings usually arrive together.
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.
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Svetoslav Todorov and Jabrayil agree another 3 years.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Gabriel Ferreira was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
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.
São Bernardo 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.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Douglas Lukaku trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
Everything agreed with Portuguesa, everything agreed with the player; a doctor is the only person left to persuade. The photograph is a day or two away.
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Trem, and both men came out saying it was fine.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Trem can pretend not to have heard.
Trem had done everything except persuade the man himself. He stays at Bragantino, and the manager goes back to the drawing board with the money still in the bank.
It happens to all of them and it is still the hardest paragraph a local paper has to write. 35 years old, 3 points down on where he was, and a body that has started charging interest on a career.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Gabriel Ferreira was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Trem have made the call to Atlético Goianiense. No fee, a share of the wages, and a spare shirt in the position where the squad has been thinnest all season.
Trem had done everything except persuade the man himself. He stays at Botafogo, and the manager goes back to the drawing board with the money still in the bank.
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.
A medical, a signature, a shirt held up in front of a sponsor’s board. Trem have done the hard part with América Mineiro, and the part that remains is the part supporters actually see.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Pedrinho was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
“I respect the manager and I am not going to sit here and pretend I am happy.” It is the most common sentence in football and it has never once been the end of a story.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Quintino trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Trem can pretend not to have heard.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Pedrinho was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
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.
17 points at the turn. The first half of a season is a promise; the second is a bill, and the town is about to find out which of the two this one was.
The dugout30 Nov 2026
The view from the dugout
“We will look at it, we will learn from it, and we go again.” The three sentences every manager keeps for a 0‑1 defeat, delivered by Victor Rodrigues to a room that had heard them before.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Pedrinho 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.
“A point is a point and I will take it, but we should have had all three.” Victor Rodrigues after the 2‑2 draw, and the sentence every manager in the country said at some stage this weekend.
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Trem, and both men came out saying it was fine.
Ninety specific minutes wanted a different sort of player, and the manager picked one. He is not out of form and he is not in the side, and both are true.
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Blas Duarte signs something — a contract at Trem or anywhere else — this column belongs to 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.
4 games without scoring. Strikers stop looking up, midfielders take the extra touch, and every shot that clears the bar is followed by a groan that has been building since the last goal.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Gabriel Ferreira was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
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.
“We keep meeting, and we keep leaving the room with the same numbers we walked in with.” Another round of talks at Trem, another week without a signature from Rodrigo Amorim.
Márcio 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 Pedrinho was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
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.
The dugout19 Oct 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 Victor Rodrigues left the room before anybody could ask which.
“I have done everything asked of me in training and it has not changed a thing on a Saturday.” The most familiar complaint in football, and one Trem will have to answer with minutes or with a transfer.
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.
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.
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.
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Rodrigo Amorim, and the manager let it.
The dugout5 Oct 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 0‑1 Victor Rodrigues left the room before anybody could ask which.
The demotion a club never announces and a dressing room always notices. Pablo is further from the side than he was, and the reason will not be given until he asks.
Márcio 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 had been thinking. Pedrinho 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.
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.
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Trem, and both men came out saying it was fine.
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.
In brief
The dugoutMarcinho left out for tactical reasons at Trem
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Trem this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
“We are a long way apart, and pretending otherwise helps nobody.” Neither side is close, and the calendar is not on the club's side.
Squad14 Sep 2026
25 new faces, and Trem 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.
The dugout14 Sep 2026
The view from the dugout
“We will look at it, we will learn from it, and we go again.” The three sentences every manager keeps for a 0‑1 defeat, delivered by Victor Rodrigues to a room that had heard them before.
He is doing his job and he is not settling. Trem were supposed to be a step up in his own reckoning, and his own reckoning has been adjusted since he arrived.
In brief
The dugoutSomebody else is better right now than Ignacio Bednarek
The dugoutThe plan did not have a place for Marcinho