The kind of year that ends with a name being read out in a hall. Palmeiras had the benefit of it every week and now have the problem of everybody else knowing.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Micael was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
The dugout22 May 2028
The manager’s verdict
“I am frustrated, honestly. We did enough to win and we did not win.” Luís Fernandes was not hiding it after 1‑1, and nobody in the Palmeiras dressing room was either.
Somebody else has been better, the manager has said so with a team sheet, and there is no argument to be had. He will get the shirt back the only way it can be got back.
One weekend, judged against everybody else's. Jhon Arias has come out on top of it, and for most footballers a weekly award is the only silverware a career ever produces.
Centre-halves are allowed forward twice a season and are judged on what they do when they get there. Khellven scored, was marked 7.75, and got back before anybody noticed he had gone.
Successful dribbles: 23. 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.
“The manager did not use many words, and he did not need to.” Agustín Giay has his answer from Palmeiras; what he does with it is the next window’s story.
The manager has re-ordered his thinking and Khellven has come out of it lower. He will be told it is temporary, and the players who have heard that before will avoid his eye.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Palmeiras this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Palmeiras have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Player ratings24 Apr 2028
A brace, and Jhon Arias takes the afternoon — 9.06
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Jhon Arias provided it, and the 9.06 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
3 wins in a row changes how opponents warm up: quieter, more glances across. Runs end, everybody knows that — but nobody in this dressing room is planning for it.
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.
2 goals before the ground had finished arriving. Fluminense spent the rest of the afternoon playing a match that had already been decided, and everybody in the stadium knew it.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Palmeiras this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
The ambition story running the other way, and the one nobody tells: a footballer asking for a smaller stage, fewer cameras and a crowd that does not turn. It is not weakness and it is very rarely reported as anything else.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 32 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Palmeiras can pretend not to have heard.
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 Emiliano Martínez is on it.
Another week, another link, another denial nobody quite believes. Palmeiras know the market decides these things, not the back pages — but the back pages are louder.
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.
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 Palmeiras that is a harder question to answer.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Palmeiras will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Palmeiras they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Alexander Barboza was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
18 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.
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 Ramón Sosa is on it.
Another week, another link, another denial nobody quite believes. Palmeiras know the market decides these things, not the back pages — but the back pages are louder.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Palmeiras this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
At 22 he is doing things this season that he could not do last season, and doing them every week. Form comes and goes; this has stayed long enough to be called something else.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Alexander Barboza was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Palmeiras, and both men came out saying it was fine.
“Nobody here is above being told.” It was not said with a name attached, but the dressing room can count, and so can everybody who was listening.
The dugout21 Feb 2028
The manager has not finished forgetting Riquelme Felipe'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.
In brief
The dugoutJefté has become a man the manager trusts
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Palmeiras is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Alexander Barboza was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
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 Ramón Sosa is on it.
Another week, another link, another denial nobody quite believes. Palmeiras know the market decides these things, not the back pages — but the back pages are louder.
Arthur 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.
“We keep meeting, and we keep leaving the room with the same numbers we walked in with.” Another round of talks at Palmeiras, another week without a signature from Benedetti.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Aranha trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
In brief
BoardroomThe Palmeiras production line keeps running
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Cuiabá have kept their man, and Palmeiras go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
The bid was some way short and Palmeiras did not need long over it. Nobody in the game reads a first refusal as the end of anything.
Squad24 Jan 2028
Words at Palmeiras training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Alexander Barboza 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.
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.
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 Jefté is on it.
Another week, another link, another denial nobody quite believes. Palmeiras know the market decides these things, not the back pages — but the back pages are louder.
A year in and the language has not come, the city has not opened up, and he eats alone more often than anybody at Palmeiras would like to admit. It is showing on Saturdays.
A bone, which is the one injury with a calendar attached. Palmeiras will name a return date and, unusually for this business, will probably be right about it.
Marked 8.42 — 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.
A point taken on 88 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.
Aranha 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.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 50 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Palmeiras have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
A defender on the scoresheet, which happens rarely enough that everybody in the ground remembers who took the corner. 1 for him, and a mark of 7.82 for the rest of it.
Marlon Freitas 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.
The goal that put Fluminense ahead was still being replayed on the concourse when Palmeiras equalised, 2 minutes later. Leads are only worth what you do with them.
“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 Palmeiras, and it is not being withdrawn.
The hardest thing about being 19 in a senior side is that nobody makes allowances. Heittor did not need any: 7.67, and he looked the most comfortable man on the pitch.
Koné Mohamed 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 touch weighed, every quote parsed, every mistake replayed. Some players grow into that; some are quietly finished by it; nobody knows which until afterwards.
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Kaio Jorge signs something — a contract at Palmeiras or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
Two goals and a mark of 8.48 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
A clause somebody insisted on years ago, in a negotiation nobody remembers, has just paid Palmeiras $920.0K. Murilo left a long time ago; the paperwork stayed.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the whole of the defence. 7 saves, several of them the kind nobody expects to see made, and ten outfield players who owe him a drink.
1 for Marlon Freitas, marked 7.77, and a centre-half's name in the part of the report he normally only reaches by mistake. He will not be allowed to forget it in the dressing room for a month.
Palmeiras offered $700.0K; Bahia said it was not close. The manager will be told the money is still there for the right player, which is what managers are told.
“I want to win things, and I would like to do it here.” Nothing has been demanded and nothing has been threatened — but a boardroom at Palmeiras hears a sentence like that exactly as it was built.
Bruno Fuchs 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 decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Aranha and Palmeiras agree another 4 years.
Squad12 Jul 2027
7 new faces, and Palmeiras 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.