Marked for Tony Strata
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Squad8 Mar 2027
Fredrik Aursnes and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Match6 Mar 2027
Porto left with the points after a 0‑2 defeat that will take some explaining on the terraces.
The dugout8 Mar 2027
“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.
Squad8 Mar 2027
Tony Strata 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.
The dugout8 Mar 2027
“I could talk about decisions and I could talk about luck. I will not. We lost.” The manager, 0‑2, and a press conference that lasted four minutes.
Squad8 Mar 2027
Tony Strata named in the team of the month
A month is long enough that nobody gets in by accident. Tony Strata is in the division's best eleven for it, which is a quieter compliment than an award and a more reliable one.
The dugout8 Mar 2027
Beni Mukendi knocks on the manager’s door
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Beni Mukendi trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
The dugout8 Mar 2027
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.
Market8 Mar 2027
Another week, another link, another denial nobody quite believes. Vitoria Guimaraes know the market decides these things, not the back pages — but the back pages are louder.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Steady
Market22 Feb 2027
It is not a grievance and it is not a demand: he wants to play continental football, and he has stopped hiding it. Whether Vitoria Guimaraes can give him that is a question about the club, not about him.
Squad22 Feb 2027
Fredrik Aursnes 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.
Market22 Feb 2027
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Vitoria Guimaraes they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
Squad22 Feb 2027
“I never wanted to be anywhere else. There is unfinished business here.” Tony Strata commits to Vitoria Guimaraes for another 4 years.
The terraces22 Feb 2027
The crowd has taken to Tony Strata
At 22 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.
Match20 Feb 2027
A 2‑0 win over Alverca, earned rather than given, and the sort of afternoon that sends everyone home talking about next week instead of this one.
Match20 Feb 2027
8 without defeat on their own grass. The pitch has not changed; the crowd has — louder earlier, and quicker to sense when the opposition would rather be somewhere else.
Squad22 Feb 2027
50 goals in these colours now, every one of them somebody’s memory. There is a supporter in the stand who can tell you where he was for most of them.
Player ratings22 Feb 2027
A performance of 8.32 does not come along often, and when it does the rest of the team becomes scenery. He was magnificent.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Match13 Feb 2027
Tondela will want this one forgotten quickly: 3‑0, every duel lost, and a long ride home. Vitoria Guimaraes were ruthless in the way good sides are ruthless.
The dugout15 Feb 2027
Lohann Doucet: that is not what I was promised
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Vitoria Guimaraes have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Market15 Feb 2027
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Vitoria Guimaraes they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
Squad15 Feb 2027
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Vitoria Guimaraes this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Match13 Feb 2027
5 without a win is the sort of run that changes how a town talks about its club, and Tondela were the afternoon it stopped. Nothing is fixed by one result and everything feels different by one.
Player ratings15 Feb 2027
There is a version of this player everybody suspected was in there, and on this evidence it is. 8.68, and no argument anywhere in the ground.
Player ratings15 Feb 2027
Marked 8.56 — 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.
Squad15 Feb 2027
Words at Vitoria Guimaraes training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Tony Strata 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 dugout15 Feb 2027
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Lucas Villela, and the manager let it.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad8 Feb 2027
2 kept out in the shoot-out, and a stadium that will still be describing them in twenty years. A goalkeeper only needs one of these to be remembered forever.
Match3 Feb 2027
A 0‑0 win over Farense, and the draw for the next round can be watched with some interest for once.
Player ratings8 Feb 2027
Successful dribbles: 32. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
Market8 Feb 2027
The offer was not close and it was refused without much discussion. Whether the second one is refused as quickly is another matter.
Match6 Feb 2027
5 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.
Market8 Feb 2027
The deal that would have taken Arnel Jakupović to Moreirense has collapsed at the last stage, and he reports back to Vitoria Guimaraes with a summer to forget and a season still to play. Nobody is saying which side walked away.
Transfer targets8 Feb 2027
Terms were offered and declined. Whether it was the wages, the role or the town, nobody at Boca Juniors is saying, and nobody at Vitoria Guimaraes is enjoying the guessing.
Squad8 Feb 2027
Fredrik Aursnes and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Squad8 Feb 2027
Words at Vitoria Guimaraes training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Tony Strata 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.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Transfer targets25 Jan 2027
The clubs have shaken hands with Famalicao; the player has not yet. Personal terms are next, and personal terms are where more deals die than anybody prints.
Market25 Jan 2027
Fee agreed, wages agreed, and Leixões waiting with a shirt. Nobody at Vitoria Guimaraes is pretending otherwise, and the supporters have stopped asking whether and started asking when.
Market25 Jan 2027
The paperwork is done: Fredrik Aursnes joins from Benfica in a deal worth $13.6M. Now comes the harder part.
Market25 Jan 2027
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Vitoria Guimaraes can pretend not to have heard.
The dugout25 Jan 2027
“I remember the meeting. I remember exactly what was promised in it.” Vitoria Guimaraes may remember it differently, which is precisely the problem.
Player ratings25 Jan 2027
Successful dribbles: 24. There was always a defender in front of him and there was never a defender in front of him for long.
Boardroom25 Jan 2027
The rules permit it and it stings anyway. Guilherme Paula has agreed terms with Portimonense for the summer, and until then he pulls on this shirt as a player who has already chosen his next one.
Squad25 Jan 2027
Samu in a row with a teammate
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Vitoria Guimaraes this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Transfer targets25 Jan 2027
The approach was made and the answer came back in a sentence. There is no number on the table because there was no number that would have been enough.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Match28 Nov 2026
No end in sight to Vitoria Guimaraes's wait for a win
5 matches now without a victory, and the excuses have worn thinner than the patience. Somebody at Vitoria Guimaraes has to find a result from somewhere.
Market30 Nov 2026
The general version of this complaint is that a player wants more. The specific version names the thing: he wants to walk out under floodlights against clubs from other countries, and he has stopped pretending otherwise.
Squad30 Nov 2026
Samu in a row with a teammate
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Vitoria Guimaraes this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad30 Nov 2026
Tomás Rodrigues 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.
Squad30 Nov 2026
Tony Strata reaches 100 appearances
100 games in the shirt. Nobody sets out to build a record like that; it happens to a certain kind of player at a certain kind of club, and this town knows what it has.
The dugout30 Nov 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 1‑3 defeat, delivered by Bruno Reis to a room that had heard them before.
Player ratings30 Nov 2026
The cruellest goal, and it is Fabio Blanco's
A touch he did not want, a bounce he could not have read, and his name in the wrong column. There is no consoling a man after one of these, and Vitoria Guimaraes will not try tonight.
The dugout30 Nov 2026
The manager makes an example of Lucas Villela
“If you cannot run for the shirt, somebody else will wear it.” No name was used and none was needed; every player in that room knew who it was for.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Match14 Nov 2026
Beaten 0‑3 by Braga, and beaten everywhere it matters. The inquest starts on the training pitch on Monday morning.
Match16 Nov 2026
Every point is an argument now for Vitoria Guimaraes
Position 16 and 13 points, and the table gets read bottom-up in this part of town. The calendar has stopped being a schedule and started being a countdown.
Squad16 Nov 2026
6 saves, and a scoreline the ten men in front of him had no right to. Goalkeepers only get noticed on the bad days; this was one of the other ones.
Squad16 Nov 2026
Samu 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.
Match14 Nov 2026
3 matches, no goals, and a training ground that has tried everything. It will end — droughts always do — but nobody at Vitoria Guimaraes can tell you which week it ends in.
Boardroom16 Nov 2026
The music was off and the showers ran late. What was said in that dressing room stays there, but Saturday will publish the minutes.
Squad16 Nov 2026
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Lucas Villela was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
The dugout16 Nov 2026
The manager’s verdict
“That is on me. I pick the team and I picked wrong.” Managers say that when they mean it and when they need to be seen to, and after 0‑3 Bruno Reis left the room before anybody could ask which.
The dugout16 Nov 2026
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Miguel Maga, and the manager let it.