“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Boavista can pretend not to have heard.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Boavista this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
“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 Boavista will have to give him a reason to stay or an exit.
What was a back-page story is now a matter for the terraces, and the terraces do not do nuance. Boavista would like it dealt with before it becomes the only question anybody asks.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Boavista they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Boavista have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Noël Atom will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Boavista the goodbyes have quietly begun.
Jorge Fernandes 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.
Boavista interviewed the field and appointed the corridor: Paulo Pinto keeps the job he had been doing in all but title. Sometimes the safest pair of hands is the one already holding the wheel.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the team. 7 saves, several of them the sort nobody expects to see stopped, and a scoreline that flatters everybody in front of him.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Boavista they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
Jorge Fernandes 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.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the team. 9 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 Boavista this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Shots: 11. Goals: none. The chances were there and they were good ones, and they went into the stand, the goalkeeper's arms and the side netting in roughly that order.