77 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Guarani lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
$3.6M was the most the club would pay and São Paulo were asking for more. Deals like this are revived in the last week of a window roughly half the time, and everybody involved knows it.
There are footballers who have a good season and footballers a season is remembered for, and the second kind get their names read out in a hall in the summer. Guarani will be quietly delighted and privately nervous.
“I want to win things, and I would like to do it here.” Nothing has been demanded and nothing has been threatened — but a boardroom at Guarani hears a sentence like that exactly as it was built.
Guarani had done everything except persuade the man himself. He stays at Corinthians, and the manager goes back to the drawing board with the money still in the bank.
Isaque and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Squad1 Jan 2029
Words at Guarani training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Gustavo Gómez 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.
Guarani asked and Atlético Mineiro said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
In brief
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“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 The request is on a desk at Guarani, and it is not being withdrawn.
There is an age at which every good afternoon gets described as a throwback, which is unfair and also accurate. 8.16 at 33, and nobody on the pitch was better.
A defender on the scoresheet, which happens rarely enough that everybody in the ground remembers who took the corner. 1 for him, and a mark of 7.44 for the rest of it.
7 goals. Both benches spent the second half looking at each other rather than at the pitch. Purists will complain about Guarani and Paysandu in equal measure; everybody else had a wonderful time.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Gustavo Gómez was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Guarani this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad11 Sep 2028
Nathan Melo 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.
Every club pays most of what it earns to its players. Paying nearly all of it is a different arrangement, and it has ended the same way every time it has been tried.
Nobody at Guarani 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.
“I did not sign to watch. Nobody does.” The oldest complaint in the game, and Guarani will have to answer it with minutes or with a move.
The dugout11 Sep 2028
The manager has not finished forgetting Bernardo Jacob's mistake
Publicly it is behind everybody. It is not behind the man who picks the team, and the only place that shows is a team sheet. He will get another chance; he will get it in a match that matters less.
He used to wear the other shirt. On Saturday he plays against Grêmio in this one, and whatever he says this week about it being just another game will be untrue.
Out, 0‑3 to Atlético Goianiense, and the long argument about which of the small moments decided it. The league is all there is now, and everybody knows it.
Mirandinha had done his part in building a 3-goal cushion. What happened after that was collective, and Ceará were allowed back into a match that had been finished with.
Two goals and a mark of 8.35 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
The fee is $4.7M, the contract is signed, and the argument about whether he is worth it can begin. Palmeiras drove a hard bargain; time will say who won it.
Guarani offered $4.7M; Grêmio said it was not close. The manager will be told the money is still there for the right player, which is what managers are told.
“I want to win things, and I would like to do it here.” Nothing has been demanded and nothing has been threatened — but a boardroom at Guarani hears a sentence like that exactly as it was built.
The words a physio says slowly. 88 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.
Fee agreed, wages agreed, and ASA waiting with a shirt. Nobody at Internacional is pretending otherwise, and the supporters have stopped asking whether and started asking when.
The clubs have shaken hands with Bragantino; the player has not yet. Personal terms are next, and personal terms are where more deals die than anybody prints.
A medical, a signature, a shirt held up in front of a sponsor’s board. Internacional have done the hard part with Botafogo-PB, and the part that remains is the part supporters actually see.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Internacional is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
The number the board signed off was not enough. It has been asked again and raised its own offer to $1.2M — a club that wants Sidney enough to be asked twice.
He will play here until the summer and then walk out of the door for free, having already signed elsewhere. Supporters will manage the first part of that sentence; it is the second they will struggle with.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Internacional is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
He will play here until the summer and then walk out of the door for free, having already signed elsewhere. Supporters will manage the first part of that sentence; it is the second they will struggle with.
Bruno Gomes 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 21 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 Guillermo Maripán was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
“Some mornings you wake up and you are still a long way from everything you know.” It is not the football and it never was; Internacional are dealing with a man who wants a different country.
Nobody at Internacional 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.
Nothing in writing and nothing in public: a word about playing time, given face to face at Internacional. The team sheets over the next month will show whether it was worth having.