“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Vitória have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Emmanuel Martínez 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.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Diego Tarzia was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
The dugout8 Feb 2027
The manager has not finished forgetting Mateusinho'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.
The table is being checked before the results are in, which is always the tell. Nobody at Vitória says the word and every senior player in the building is thinking it.
He asked about his future and was given an answer with minutes in it. The manager has now made a promise in a building where promises are remembered, and the clock on it has started.
A year in and the city has not opened up, the language has not come, and lunch is eaten alone more often than anybody at Vitória would admit. It shows on Saturdays.
In brief
The dugoutRúben Ismael asks for a word with the manager
Vitória had done everything except persuade the man himself. He stays at Avellino, and the manager goes back to the drawing board with the money still in the bank.
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.
The dugout11 Jan 2027
The manager has not finished forgetting Mateusinho'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.
He asked about his future and was given an answer with minutes in it. The manager has now made a promise in a building where promises are remembered, and the clock on it has started.
Marinho 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.
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.
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Emmanuel Martínez. 2‑0 against Ceará, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
Marked 8.28 — the sort of number a correspondent writes down twice to be sure. Everything he tried came off, and what he did not try was not worth trying.
Marked 8.19 — the sort of number a correspondent writes down twice to be sure. Everything he tried came off, and what he did not try was not worth trying.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Zé Marcos was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
In brief
The dugoutThe view from the dugout
The dugoutMateusinho is still being punished for one mistake
Emmanuel Martínez 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 Zé Marcos was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Squad26 Oct 2026
12 new faces, and Vitória 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 supporters are entitled to be angry. So am I. We will put it right.” 0‑2, a manager saying the necessary things, and a dressing room that heard a different version of them.
Successful dribbles: 33. 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.
Emmanuel Martínez 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 injury that keeps coming back, keeps being rushed back from, and quietly costs more careers than the dramatic ones. 15 days is the estimate; the honest figure depends on whether anybody is patient.
12 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.
“That is what I want every week. Not the result, the way they went about it.” The manager, after 1‑0, already talking about the next one.
The dugout28 Sep 2026
Mateusinho is still being punished for one mistake
Nobody will confirm it and the team sheets confirm it every week. One error has bought him a spell as second choice that is already longer than the error deserved.
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.
Emmanuel Martínez 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.
12 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.
1‑1, and both dressing rooms will call it two points lost. A draw that asked plenty of questions and answered none of them.
Squad31 Aug 2026
Words at Vitória training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Zé Marcos 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.
The dugout31 Aug 2026
The manager’s verdict
“I am frustrated, honestly. We did enough to win and we did not win.” Wesley Gomes was not hiding it after 1‑1, and nobody in the Vitória dressing room was either.
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Francisco, and the manager let it.
The dugout31 Aug 2026
Mateusinho is still being punished for one mistake
Nobody will confirm it and the team sheets confirm it every week. One error has bought him a spell as second choice that is already longer than the error deserved.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Vitória this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
12 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 dugout3 Aug 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 0‑4 defeat, delivered by Wesley Gomes to a room that had heard them before.
1 error, one goal, and a night in front of the same three seconds. He will see it tonight, tomorrow and probably in February, and everybody who has played knows exactly which frame he keeps stopping on.
In brief
The dugoutMatheuzinho asks for a word with the manager