“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Nacional can pretend not to have heard.
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.
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.
Squad28 Jun 2027
Chiheb Labidi 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.
Daniel Restrepo is 34 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.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Nacional this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad24 May 2027
Chiheb Labidi 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.
“I have given this everything, but my family is not here and neither am I, not really.” A footballer can be coached out of bad form. Nobody has ever been coached out of this, and Nacional know it.
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 Chuchu Ramírez is on it.
It is the most legitimate ambition in the sport and the hardest for most clubs to satisfy. Matheus Dias wants continental football; whether Nacional can provide it is a question about the next two seasons, not about him.
Squad12 Apr 2027
Chiheb Labidi 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.
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.
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Nacional, and both men came out saying it was fine.
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Zé Vitor signs something — a contract at Nacional or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
Successful dribbles: 26. 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.
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.
Lazar Carević 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.
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 22 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.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Chuchu Ramírez was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Chiheb Labidi, and the manager let it.
The dugout29 Mar 2027
The view from the dugout
“We did not lose. Some weeks that is all you get, and I would rather have the point than not.” Leonardo Silva chose the glass-half-full version of 0‑0; the supporters left with the other one.
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Chuchu Ramírez provided it, and the 9.36 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
Nothing happens for months and then he simply arrives, at no cost, having signed a pre-contract while still turning out for somebody else. It is the least dramatic way to sign a footballer and frequently the shrewdest.
Allen Obando 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. Matchoi Djaló 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.
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Chuchu Ramírez provided it, and the 9.28 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
“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 Nacional, and it is not being withdrawn.
Lazar Carević 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.
A 3‑1 win over Estrela da Amadora, earned rather than given, and the sort of afternoon that sends everyone home talking about next week instead of this one.
Nacional asked and Bodo/Glimt said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
At 20 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.
Squad4 Jan 2027
Chiheb Labidi 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.
Marked 8.08 — 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.
Lazar Carević 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.
4 games without scoring. Strikers stop looking up, midfielders take the extra touch, and every shot that clears the bar is followed by a groan that has been building since the last goal.
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.
“The easiest signature of my career.” Ángel Román Bautista and Nacional agree another 2 years, and the manager can plan around him rather than about him.
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 dugout30 Nov 2026
The manager’s verdict
“I am frustrated, honestly. We did enough to win and we did not win.” Leonardo Silva was not hiding it after 0‑0, and nobody in the Nacional 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.
67 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Nacional lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Nacional will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Chuchu Ramírez provided it, and the 9.18 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
At 20 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.
It is the most legitimate ambition in the sport and the hardest for most clubs to satisfy. Zé Vitor wants continental football; whether Nacional can provide it is a question about the next two seasons, not about him.
10 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.
115 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Nacional lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Nacional asked and Moreirense said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
A medical, a signature, a shirt held up in front of a sponsor’s board. Nacional have done the hard part with Parma, and the part that remains is the part supporters actually see.
Senior shirt numbers handed to boys the coaches have known since they were twelve. Most will not make it and all of them have already done the hard part.
Lazar Carević 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 academy exists for exactly this morning. Carlos Pinto has come through every age group the club runs and has now been handed a senior number, and the people who coached him at twelve will be the proudest in the building.
“There are things I liked and things we will be doing on Tuesday until they are right.” 0‑0, and a manager who had already decided what Tuesday looked like.
Nothing about this will be in a press release. A plan went upstairs, came back rejected, and the version of the club that would have existed in three years' time just quietly stopped being possible.
In brief
SquadWords at Nacional training over how hard people work