42 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Oeste lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Rubens 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 words a physio says slowly. 79 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. Dânio Djassi did not need any: 7.62, and he looked the most comfortable man on the pitch.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Chaves this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad5 Oct 2026
João Teixeira 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.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Chaves will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
Squad14 Sep 2026
Words at Chaves training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. João Teixeira 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.
There is a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 19-year-old it feels ownership of. Anhá Candé 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.
19 times he got in the way of something. Centre-halves get written about when they make mistakes and ignored when they do not, so an afternoon like this needs saying out loud: he is the reason the scoreline reads as it 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 Chaves this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Chaves will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
“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 Chaves, and it is not being withdrawn.
Squad7 Sep 2026
João Teixeira 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.
Jair Tavares 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.
“We keep meeting, and we keep leaving the room with the same numbers we walked in with.” Another round of talks at Chaves, another week without a signature from João Valido.
Four or five weekends of consistency, judged against everybody in the division doing his job. Bruno Rodrigues has come out of that comparison in the side, and Chaves have had the benefit of every one of those afternoons.