0‑3 to Sporting CP, and it was every bit as bad as the number suggests. There are defeats you argue about and defeats you apologise for; this was the second kind.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at AVS this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
The one version of being left out a player cannot argue with, and the one he takes worst. Somebody else has been better and the team sheet says so, in public, every week until it changes.
The words a physio says slowly. 40 days is what the club will announce and everybody who has heard this diagnosis before knows the number is the least of it: the knee comes back before the player does.
Cup ties wait for somebody to seize them, and Manuel Simões obliged against Pacos de Ferreira. 1‑0 on the night, and the name in the next round’s hat is AVS.
There is no crueller way to lose a football match. AVS scored in the 101th minute, the restart barely happened, and the away end was still standing when the whistle went.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at AVS this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad2 Nov 2026
David Simão 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.
There is a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 17-year-old it feels ownership of. Manuel Simões has it now, and everything he does for the rest of his time here will be measured against the goodwill he was handed for free.
The words a physio says slowly. 47 days is what the club will announce and everybody who has heard this diagnosis before knows the number is the least of it: the knee comes back before the player does.
4 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.
Luís Guilherme 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 had been thinking. David Simão 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 words a physio says slowly. 77 days is what the club will announce and everybody who has heard this diagnosis before knows the number is the least of it: the knee comes back before the player does.
The hardest thing about being 20 in a senior side is that nobody makes allowances. Luís Guilherme did not need any: 7.99, and he looked the most comfortable man on the pitch.
David Simão 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.
There is a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 23-year-old it feels ownership of. Tunde has it now, and everything he does for the rest of his time here will be measured against the goodwill he was handed for free.
A 1‑0 win over Vitoria Guimaraes, earned rather than given, and the sort of afternoon that sends everyone home talking about next week instead of this one.
The words a physio says slowly. 84 days is what the club will announce and everybody who has heard this diagnosis before knows the number is the least of it: the knee comes back before the player does.
92 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. AVS lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
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.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. João Simões 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.
Squad14 Sep 2026
17 new faces, and AVS 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.
Régis is 37 and has run out of things to prove. What he has left is where to stand, when to slow it down and what to say at half-time, and none of that is on a fitness chart.
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.
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 one version of being left out a player cannot argue with, and the one he takes worst. Somebody else has been better and the team sheet says so, in public, every week until it changes.
Luís Guilherme is 20, and for one weekend he was the best of everybody his age in the division. Nobody should build a career on it and everybody quietly does.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Sporting CP this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
There is no complaint available here and everybody involved knows it, which does not make the walk to the bench any shorter. Form is the only currency in football that cannot be borrowed against.
The phone has started ringing about Luis Suárez again, and this time the name on the line is Real Madrid. Sporting CP are listening politely and promising nothing.
It is the most legitimate ambition in the sport and the hardest for most clubs to satisfy. Biel wants continental football; whether Sporting CP can provide it is a question about the next two seasons, not about him.
Pote 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 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.
Ousmane Diomande 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.
Footballers are asked about their boyhood club so often that nobody listens to the answer. Dinis Almeida has just signed for Sporting CP, and for once the answer mattered.
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.
Work is signed off on a capacity of 59274. It is the sort of decision a club is judged on twenty years later, by people who were not there when it was taken.