“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 The request is on a desk at CRB, and it is not being withdrawn.
Luiz Phellype 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 Fábio Alemão was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
A point taken on 92 minutes is worth exactly one point and considerably more than that to a dressing room. This side does not stop, which is a reputation worth more than the result.
1‑1, and both dressing rooms will call it two points lost. A draw that asked plenty of questions and answered none of them.
The dugout10 May 2027
The view from the dugout
“We did not lose. Some weeks that is all you get, and I would rather have the point than not.” Igor Teixeira chose the glass-half-full version of 1‑1; the supporters left with the other one.
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 Dadá Belmonte is on it.
A bone, which is the one injury with a calendar attached. CRB will name a return date and, unusually for this business, will probably be right about it.
Luiz Phellype 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.
Nobody at CRB 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.
Another week, another link, another denial nobody quite believes. CRB know the market decides these things, not the back pages — but the back pages are louder.
Numbers do not stay secret in a dressing room and never have. He is not asking for more than he is worth; he is asking why somebody beside him is worth more, and at CRB that is a harder question to answer.
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at CRB, and both men came out saying it was fine.
A bone, which is the one injury with a calendar attached. CRB will name a return date and, unusually for this business, will probably be right about it.
It is not a grievance and it is not a demand: he wants to play continental football, and he has stopped hiding it. Whether CRB can give him that is a question about the club, not about him.
Luiz Phellype 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.
There is no fee, no unveiling and no agent on the steps. Mateus Batista has been at this club since he was a boy and is now, formally, one of the first-team squad — which for a local readership beats any signing of any size.
“We keep meeting, and we keep leaving the room with the same numbers we walked in with.” Another round of talks at CRB, another week without a signature from Gegê.
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.
Danielzinho has done the arithmetic and does not like the answer. Nothing corrodes a squad faster, and no club has ever solved it by explaining the wage structure to a footballer.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at CRB this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Itabirito wanted more than $410.0K and the board would not go there. Walked away, for now, which in a transfer window means until somebody blinks.
Squad11 Jan 2027
Fábio Alemão 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.
Clubs spend fortunes looking for players and occasionally find one down the corridor. Rodrigo Pacheco is that, and the reception he gets on his first appearance will be different in kind from the one any signing receives.
The academy exists for exactly this morning. Renato Guimarães has come through every age group the club runs and has now been handed a senior number, and the people who coached him at twelve will be the proudest in the building.
The academy exists for exactly this morning. Renato Xavier has come through every age group the club runs and has now been handed a senior number, and the people who coached him at twelve will be the proudest in the building.
The academy exists for exactly this morning. João Nogueira has come through every age group the club runs and has now been handed a senior number, and the people who coached him at twelve will be the proudest in the building.
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.
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.
An individual honour is a strange thing in a team game, and the best of them are never argued with. He has had the sort of year that ends with his name being read out, and CRB have had the benefit of it.
It is not a grievance and it is not a demand: he wants to play continental football, and he has stopped hiding it. Whether CRB can give him that is a question about the club, not about him.
Terms were offered and declined. Whether it was the wages, the role or the town, nobody at Racing Club is saying, and nobody at CRB is enjoying the guessing.
Rafael Carvalheira 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.
Squad26 Oct 2026
Fábio Alemão 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.
Match24 Oct 2026
Another one collected away from home
3 on the bounce on the road for CRB. The coaches leave early, arrive at unlovely grounds in the dark, and keep coming home with three points.
11 new signings in one window. Every one may be an upgrade and the side can still be worse for a while, which is the part of a rebuild the verdicts never mention.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Danielzinho trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
There is a version of every career where the player ends up somewhere he chose rather than somewhere that chose him. Caetano is living that version at CRB, and it tends to show in the first month.
He left as a boy and has come back still knowing where the away end is. Most signings have to be explained to a town; this one needed a photograph and nothing else.
Player ratings17 Aug 2026
Breno Herculano was on a different afternoon to everybody else
9.63. There are performances a supporter describes to somebody who was not there and cannot quite convey; this was one, and the number does not help either.
Squad17 Aug 2026
Fábio Alemão 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.
He is 23 and the ground already sings his name, which is a thing that happens to local boys and almost never to signings. Everything from here is measured against an affection he did nothing to earn except be from here.
Marked 8.22 — 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.