Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Matheus Lira will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Maricá the goodbyes have quietly begun.
Felipe Carvalho 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 Rafael Forster was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
“There are things I liked and things we will be doing on Tuesday until they are right.” 1‑1, and a manager who had already decided what Tuesday looked like.
In brief
The dugoutRafael Carioca dropped after a run of poor form
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Maricá they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Maricá this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
“Nobody here is above being told.” It was not said with a name attached, but the dressing room can count, and so can everybody who was listening.
Squad10 May 2027
Wellington 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.
“There are things I liked and things we will be doing on Tuesday until they are right.” 0‑0, and a manager who had already decided what Tuesday looked like.
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 Capital.
Successful dribbles: 13. 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.
In brief
The dugoutMagno Nunes dropped after a run of poor form
At 36 he is supposed to be managing his minutes. Instead he was marked 8.13 and looked, for ninety minutes, exactly like the player everybody remembers.
Felipe Carvalho and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Squad3 May 2027
Words at Maricá training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Café 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.
“I did not come here to warm up in front of people.” He is out of contract eventually, he is old enough to count the weeks, and Maricá will have to give him a reason to stay or an exit.
The dugout3 May 2027
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.” Danilo Figueiredo kept it short after the 2‑0 win, which is what managers do when they are happy.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Maricá have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Felipe Carvalho 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.
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.
Nobody at Maricá is suggesting he is out of form. The manager simply wanted somebody with a different set of qualities for ninety specific minutes, and there is nothing a player can train to fix that.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Maricá will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
Maricá had done everything except persuade the man himself. He stays at São Paulo, and the manager goes back to the drawing board with the money still in the bank.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Maricá this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
The name of Matheus Lira has come up in conversations Maricá were not part of. Nothing formal, nothing signed — but nothing about it accidental either.
Squad14 Dec 2026
Words at Maricá training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Rafael Forster 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.
5 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.
The demotion a club never announces and a dressing room always notices. Nathan Santos is further from the side than he was, and the reason will not be given until he asks.
Gabriel Pinheiro 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.
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. Diogo Barbosa has moved up it.
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.
São Paulo next, and one man in the Juventude dressing room knows their training ground better than his own. The reception will tell him what they thought of him.