Marked for André Oliveira
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Boardroom5 Jun 2028
The board’s statement ran to three sentences and one of them mentioned results. Duarte Marques has managed long enough to translate: win soon, or the next statement is shorter.
Squad5 Jun 2028
“I remember the meeting. I remember exactly what was promised in it.” Felgueiras may remember it differently, which is precisely the problem.
Squad5 Jun 2028
Footballers are asked about their boyhood club so often that nobody listens to the answer. Guilherme Venâncio has just signed for Felgueiras, and for once the answer mattered.
Squad5 Jun 2028
João Pedro 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.
Squad5 Jun 2028
Guus De Roon is a better footballer than he was
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 18 he is doing things at this level he could not do at the start of the season, and the coaching staff will tell you exactly which of them.
Boardroom5 Jun 2028
$4.1M taken back off the Felgueiras table
What was available in the summer has quietly gone. Upstairs nobody will call it a change of ambition; downstairs nobody will call it anything else.
Market5 Jun 2028
The list is a quiet document with a loud meaning. Mattia Motolese may talk to anybody who asks, and everybody at the club understands what that means.
Market5 Jun 2028
Felgueiras shop where it costs nothing
Guilherme Venâncio signs, and the fee column stays empty. Deals like this look small in July and clever by March — or they are never mentioned again.
Market5 Jun 2028
No fee and no drama: Nicolás Pelaez has signed at Felgueiras, and the wage bill is the only line that moved.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Match1 Apr 2028
7 matches without a win for Felgueiras
The run now stands at 7, and the questions being asked around Felgueiras are no longer polite ones.
Boardroom3 Apr 2028
Pressure builds in the Felgueiras boardroom
The directors have stopped offering the manager public warmth. In football that is usually the stage before the short statement.
Squad3 Apr 2028
André Oliveira: 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.” Felgueiras have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Squad3 Apr 2028
João Pedro 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 Felgueiras this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Player ratings3 Apr 2028
Successful dribbles: 22. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Squad3 Apr 2028
Words at Felgueiras training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Léo 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.
Squad3 Apr 2028
The manager makes an example of João Pedro
“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.
Match1 Apr 2028
0‑1 to Lusitânia Lourosa, and no complaints worth printing. The performance asked for nothing more than it got.
Boardroom3 Apr 2028
Felgueiras pull $4.1M back off the table
The money that was there in the summer is not there now. Nobody upstairs calls this a change of ambition, and everybody downstairs reads it as one.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad4 Oct 2027
André Oliveira gets the move he always wanted
Footballers are asked about their boyhood club so often that nobody listens to the answer. André Oliveira has just signed for Felgueiras, and for once the answer mattered.
Player ratings4 Oct 2027
Successful dribbles: 23. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Squad4 Oct 2027
“I never wanted to be anywhere else. There is unfinished business here.” João Pedro commits to Felgueiras for another 2 years.
Squad4 Oct 2027
João Pedro 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.
Squad4 Oct 2027
Ismaël Gharbi 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.
Player ratings4 Oct 2027
Defensive actions: 13. He was first to everything and second to nothing, and the goalkeeper had an easy day because of it.
Match2 Oct 2027
The crowd waited for a goal that never came. Leixões defended in numbers and left with what they came for, and the two sides could be playing still without troubling a scorer.
Market4 Oct 2027
The name of João Queirós keeps appearing in other people's back pages. Felgueiras say nothing, which says plenty.
Player ratings4 Oct 2027
12 defensive actions and a clean sheet at the end of them. A defender's afternoon can only be told by what did not happen, which is why nobody makes a highlights package out of one and every manager in the division would take it.