Damián Bobadilla 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.
Squad26 Feb 2029
Words at Juventude training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Pinheiro Caio 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.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Diogo Barbosa trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
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.
The language has come, the shrug has gone, and he argues in training like a man who expects to be here next year. None of it shows up on a fee and all of it shows up on the pitch.
27 graduates, from a department now rated 7 out of 20. Nothing about the academy appears in a result, and nothing about the club’s future exists without it.
Nobody has promised him anything and he has not asked. The coaching staff have noticed, which at this stage of a season is the only thing that matters.
In brief
BoardroomThe Juventude board put their names to it
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.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Juventude 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.
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 Weliton is on it.
Somebody watched every match in the division at the weekend and decided he was the best thing in any of them. A small honour, and most careers end without one.
Volta Redonda 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.
The last thing about a transfer that is still about the player is his signature on his own terms, and it is there. Ituano have lost him in all but the paperwork.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Gabriel William will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Ituano the goodbyes have quietly begun.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Jhonny was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Ituano asked and Boca Juniors said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
Nobody will confirm this and nothing else explains the last month of selections. A costly error buys a player a period of being second choice that is always longer than the error was.
The last league game has been played and the table has stopped moving: 47 points. The summer begins on Monday, and so does the argument about what it all meant.
“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 Ituano, and it is not being withdrawn.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Victor Reis will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Ituano the goodbyes have quietly begun.
Add another name to the list: Barcelona de Ilhéus have asked the question everybody in the game has been asking about Gabriel William. The answer from Ituano has not changed — yet.
Squad6 Dec 2027
Words at Ituano training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Jhonny 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 was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Ituano this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
200 games in this shirt, through managers and relegations and everything else. Service like it is disappearing from the game and the crowd knows what it is watching.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Ituano can pretend not to have heard.
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 18 he is doing things at this level he could not do at the start of the season, and the coaching staff will tell you exactly which of them.
Marked 6.67 on 13 actions at both ends of the pitch. Midfielders like this get described as unspectacular by people who have never tried to play against one.
Squad29 Nov 2027
Words at Ituano training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Domingos Andrade 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 could talk about decisions and I could talk about luck. I will not. We lost.” The manager, 0‑1, and a press conference that lasted four minutes.
The dugout29 Nov 2027
The manager has not finished forgetting Raí's mistake
Publicly it is behind everybody. It is not behind the man who picks the team, and the only place that shows is a team sheet. He will get another chance; he will get it in a match that matters less.
Marquinhos 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.
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 Rodrigo Sam is on it.
Vasco da Gama 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.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Juventude this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Nobody will confirm this and nothing else explains the last month of selections. A costly error buys a player a period of being second choice that is always longer than the error was.
8 goals in 16 games at CSA — numbers that travel home faster than he does. Somebody at Juventude updates a spreadsheet every Monday, and it makes better reading each week.
Nobody at Juventude 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.
Every squad has one of these fixtures for somebody every season. This one is Matheus Savio’s: the club that knew him first, the supporters who will decide in the first minute whether to applaud, and Juventude needing him to play as if none of it matters.
Another week, another link, another denial nobody quite believes. Juventude know the market decides these things, not the back pages — but the back pages are louder.
32 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Ituano lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Squad4 Oct 2027
Words at Ituano training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Jhonny 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 watch every Ituano game from here. That says everything about where my head is.” The loan at Chapecoense runs its course, but his heart never made the trip.
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 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.