The Botafogo Sentinel
Player ratings28 Sep 2026
Cristian Medina beats them one at a time
Successful dribbles: 30. There was always a defender in front of him and there was never a defender in front of him for long.
Squad28 Sep 2026
Alex Telles 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 Botafogo this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad28 Sep 2026
Words at Botafogo training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Cristian Medina 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.
Squad28 Sep 2026
200 appearances for Paulinho
200 games in these colours. Service of that kind gets rarer every season, and the crowd knows it.
Player ratings28 Sep 2026
Nobody on the pitch touched Vitinho
7.47, and no serious argument from anybody who was there. Botafogo had eleven men on the pitch and one of them decided how it went.
The dugout28 Sep 2026
When it matters, Cristian Medina plays
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.
The dugout28 Sep 2026
Somebody else is better right now than Tiquinho Soares
The team sheet says it in public every week until it changes. The only version of being dropped a footballer cannot argue with, and the one he takes hardest.
The dugout28 Sep 2026
The manager makes an example of Wallace Davi
“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.
The dugout28 Sep 2026
Vinícius Fonseca on the point
“A point is a point and I will take it, but we should have had all three.” Vinícius Fonseca after the 0‑0 draw, and the sentence every manager in the country said at some stage this weekend.
In brief
- Match Botafogo and Internacional cancel each other out
- Looking ahead Matheus Martins faces his old club
- Squad Wallace Davi, 19, gets his chance