Marked for Wictor Gabriel
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Squad10 May 2027
A falling-out at Maringá
Julio Rodrigues and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Squad10 May 2027
Bruno Pacheco 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.
Match8 May 2027
A bad afternoon for Maringá against Cuiabá
1‑2 to Cuiabá, and no complaints worth printing. The performance asked for nothing more than it got.
The dugout10 May 2027
The manager makes an example of Gustavo Ramalho
“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.
Player ratings10 May 2027
Successful dribbles: 16. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
The dugout10 May 2027
“I could talk about decisions and I could talk about luck. I will not. We lost.” The manager, 1‑2, and a press conference that lasted four minutes.
Squad10 May 2027
“I have done everything asked of me in training and it has not changed a thing on a Saturday.” The most familiar complaint in football, and one Maringá will have to answer with minutes or with a transfer.
The dugout10 May 2027
The plan did not have a place for Zé Henrique
Nobody at Maringá is suggesting he is out of form. The manager simply wanted somebody with a different set of qualities for ninety specific minutes, and there is nothing a player can train to fix that.
Looking ahead10 May 2027
Every squad has one of these fixtures for somebody every season. This one is Edison Negueba’s: the club that knew him first, the supporters who will decide in the first minute whether to applaud, and Maringá needing him to play as if none of it matters.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Triumph
The dugout3 May 2027
“I remember the meeting. I remember exactly what was promised in it.” Maringá may remember it differently, which is precisely the problem.
Player ratings3 May 2027
Marked 7.72 at 20, in a side that makes no allowances for age. He did not need any, and he looked the least nervous man on the pitch.
Player ratings3 May 2027
A defender's goal wins it for Maringá — 7.73
1 for Valderrama, marked 7.73, and a centre-half's name in the part of the report he normally only reaches by mistake. He will not be allowed to forget it in the dressing room for a month.
Squad3 May 2027
A falling-out at Maringá
Diego Matos and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Squad3 May 2027
Aderlan signs on for more
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Aderlan and Maringá agree another 2 years.
Squad3 May 2027
Words at Maringá training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Bruno Pacheco 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 terraces3 May 2027
He is 20 and the ground already sings his name, which is a thing that happens to local boys and almost never to signings. Everything from here is measured against an affection he did nothing to earn except be from here.
Match1 May 2027
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Bautista Fernández. 1‑0 against Ponte Preta, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
Match27 Apr 2027
Athletic Club made Maringá work for it, but the scoreboard read 1‑0 at the end and the table does not ask how.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad8 Mar 2027
A falling-out at Maringá
Julio Rodrigues and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Squad8 Mar 2027
Words at Maringá training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Bruno Pacheco 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 dugout8 Mar 2027
Rhuan 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 Rhuan trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
Market8 Mar 2027
The Aderlan talk will not go away
Another week, another link, another denial nobody quite believes. Maringá know the market decides these things, not the back pages — but the back pages are louder.
Market8 Mar 2027
The list is a quiet document with a loud meaning. Cristovam may talk to anybody who asks, and everybody at the club understands what that means.
Squad8 Mar 2027
The language has come, the shrug has gone, and he argues in training like a man who expects to be here next year. None of it shows up on a fee and all of it shows up on the pitch.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad18 Jan 2027
Gustavo Ramalho damages knee ligaments — 27 days out
The words a physio says slowly. 27 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.
Market18 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 Maringá can pretend not to have heard.
Squad18 Jan 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 Maringá this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Transfer targets18 Jan 2027
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Mixto have kept their man, and Maringá go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
Squad18 Jan 2027
A row about effort at Maringá
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Alan Pinheiro was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Squad18 Jan 2027
Maringá are still strangers to each other
8 new signings in one window. Every one may be an upgrade and the side can still be worse for a while, which is the part of a rebuild the verdicts never mention.
Transfer targets18 Jan 2027
Temperley have been asked whether they would lend him. Loans are agreed quickly or not at all, and this one will be one or the other by the weekend.
Market18 Jan 2027
The Rhuan question follows Maringá around
Every press conference now starts and ends the same way: with Rhuan’s future. The manager has run out of new ways to say nothing.
Market18 Jan 2027
Nobody sells a season ticket on a signing like this. Every manager who has been through a bad October wants one anyway, and Maringá have gone and got theirs early.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Market4 Jan 2027
Cristovam puts it in writing
“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 Maringá, and it is not being withdrawn.
Squad4 Jan 2027
Diego Matos 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 Jan 2027
Aderlan 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.
Transfer targets4 Jan 2027
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. APOEL have kept their man, and Maringá go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
Squad4 Jan 2027
At 35, 3 points below where he was, and a body that has started charging interest. It happens to all of them and it is still the hardest paragraph on this page.
Transfer targets4 Jan 2027
A loan enquiry to Varzim: cover, or a look at somebody the club cannot afford to buy yet. Either way the answer will come back inside the week.
Market4 Jan 2027
Wictor Gabriel is 20, and Maringá have signed him for the player he will be rather than the one he is. The first team can wait; the point of a deal like this is the years it buys.
The dugout4 Jan 2027
Julio Rodrigues has become a man the manager trusts
Nobody at Maringá will say this on the record and the team sheets have been saying it for weeks. There is a small group in every squad who get picked when the fixture is difficult, and he has joined it.
The dugout4 Jan 2027
Rhuan knocks on the manager's door
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Maringá, and both men came out saying it was fine.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Market24 Aug 2026
The bid was some way short and Juventude did not need long over it. Nobody in the game reads a first refusal as the end of anything.
Boardroom24 Aug 2026
The rules permit it and it stings anyway. Wictor Gabriel has agreed terms with Maringá for the summer, and until then he pulls on this shirt as a player who has already chosen his next one.
Squad24 Aug 2026
Gabriel Taliari and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Squad24 Aug 2026
Words at Juventude training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Marcos Paulo 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.
Match18 Aug 2026
A bad afternoon for Juventude against Bahia
1‑2 to Bahia, and no complaints worth printing. The performance asked for nothing more than it got.
The dugout24 Aug 2026
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Gabriel Taliari, and the manager let it.
Player ratings24 Aug 2026
Successful dribbles: 19. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
Match22 Aug 2026
0‑1 to Fortaleza, and no complaints worth printing. The performance asked for nothing more than it got.
The dugout24 Aug 2026
“We were not good enough today and I am not going to dress it up.” Arthur Lopes after 0‑1, in the tone of a man who knows the next question and does not intend to answer it.
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Match18 Aug 2026
4‑0, and the margin flattered nobody — it could have carried another goal or two without complaint. Afternoons like this are why people keep coming.
Match22 Aug 2026
Guilherme Pira wins it after the whistle should have gone
94 minutes played. Guilherme Pira found the finish in time that only existed because of earlier delays, and Confiança went from a point to nothing inside one movement.
Player ratings24 Aug 2026
A brace, and Edison Negueba takes the afternoon — 8.98
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Edison Negueba provided it, and the 8.98 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
Squad24 Aug 2026
3 goals in one afternoon from one man. The other players were also present, a witness confirmed.
Match22 Aug 2026
Three points for Maringá, 3‑2 the final word against Confiança in a contest settled by the finer margins.
Player ratings24 Aug 2026
Marked 9.50 — 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.
Boardroom24 Aug 2026
Juventude will keep picking him until June and will get nothing for him after it. Wictor Gabriel has pre-agreed a move to Maringá, and the only people who lose in that arrangement are the ones who let the contract run down.
Player ratings24 Aug 2026
Successful dribbles: 17. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Squad24 Aug 2026
“The easiest signature of my career.” Sérgio Amaral and Maringá agree another 3 years, and the manager can plan around him rather than about him.