The chances are being made and something is happening between the making and the finishing. 5 matches now, and the anxiety in the ground arrives a little earlier every week.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Hamburger SV this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
It is the most legitimate ambition in the sport and the hardest for most clubs to satisfy. Nicolás Capaldo wants continental football; whether Hamburger SV can provide it is a question about the next two seasons, not about him.
The name of William Mikelbrencis has come up in conversations Hamburger SV were not part of. Nothing formal, nothing signed — but nothing about it accidental either.
“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 Hamburger SV know it.
In brief
SquadThe manager has not finished forgetting Daniel Elfadli's mistake
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the team. 6 saves, several of them the sort nobody expects to see stopped, and a scoreline that flatters everybody in front 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 Hamburger SV this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Footballers are asked about their boyhood club so often that nobody listens to the answer. Enzo Boer has just signed for Hamburger SV, and for once the answer mattered.
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 is a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 18-year-old it feels ownership of. João Grando 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.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Santos this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Everyone has stopped pretending: Adana Demirspor will make the call about João Pedro this week. Santos have a number in mind, and the number is not shy.
João Grando is 18, and for one weekend he was the best of everybody his age in the division. Nobody should build a career on it and everybody quietly does.
In brief
Player ratingsOff the bench and decisive: João Grando
3 wins on the spin now, and the question has changed from whether the run ends to who ends it. Confidence like this cannot be bought; it has to be earned exactly this way.
Lucas Veríssimo 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.
At 34 he is supposed to be managing his minutes. Instead he was marked 8.16 and looked, for ninety minutes, exactly like the player everybody remembers.
Lucas Veríssimo 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 ambitions, and I would like the club to share them.” Nobody has asked to leave and nobody has been shown the door — but a player chooses that sentence carefully, and a boardroom hears it exactly as it was meant.
It finished 2‑0, and it was Neymar’s afternoon: on the scoresheet when it mattered, and the reason the points belong to Santos.
Squad10 Aug 2026
Words at Santos training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Benjamín Rollheiser 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.