Successful dribbles: 29. 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.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Ituano this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
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 am grateful for the games, but I did not become a footballer to be somebody else's spare part.” He wants to be at Ituano, and 7 appearances in 22 say he has earned the hearing.
Marked 7.30 on an afternoon he ran from the first whistle to the last. Whatever else went wrong, Ituano had the best player on the pitch.
The dugout31 May 2027
The manager’s verdict
“I am frustrated, honestly. We did enough to win and we did not win.” Samuel Freitas was not hiding it after 0‑0, and nobody in the Ituano dressing room was either.
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 manager wanted a different profile for this opponent, which is a real football reason and no consolation. He did nothing wrong and he did not play.
Alan Saldivia 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 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.
At 23 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.
7 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.
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.
Lucas Rocha 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.
“I am grateful for the games, but I did not become a footballer to be somebody else's spare part.” He wants to be at Ituano, and 5 appearances in 21 say he has earned the hearing.
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Ituano, and both men came out saying it was fine.
“A point is a point and I will take it, but we should have had all three.” Samuel Freitas after the 1‑1 draw, and the sentence every manager in the country said at some stage this weekend.
In brief
The dugoutItuano pick somebody else ahead of Wagner
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Ituano can pretend not to have heard.
It is the most legitimate ambition in the sport and the hardest for most clubs to satisfy. Luiz Felipe wants continental football; whether Ituano can provide it is a question about the next two seasons, not about him.
Guilherme Xavier 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.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Alason Carioca was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
He is 21 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.
Alan Saldivia 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.
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.
Nothing is announced when this happens and everybody knows. He is a bigger part of the plan at Ituano than he was a month ago, and the training ground worked that out before the team sheet said so.
“I know what people will say. I know what I want, and it is here.” Penedense had the fee agreed and the shirt ready; they did not have the player, and now they will not.
Ituano ran out of time with Criciúma. The paperwork was open when the deadline passed, and a transfer that was almost done is now a transfer that never happened.
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.
It happens to all of them and it is still the hardest paragraph a local paper has to write. 34 years old, 3 points down on where he was, and a body that has started charging interest on a career.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Ituano will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
The offer went to Criciúma this week and it is theirs to answer. First bids are rarely meant to succeed; they are meant to find out how loud the door closes.
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. Ituano will be quietly delighted and privately nervous.
Footballers are asked about their boyhood club so often that nobody listens to the answer. Wagner has just signed for Ituano, and for once the answer mattered.
It is not a grievance and it is not a demand: he wants to play continental football, and he has stopped hiding it. Whether Ituano can give him that is a question about the club, not about him.
Everything agreed with Sport Recife, everything agreed with the player; a doctor is the only person left to persuade. The photograph is a day or two away.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Ituano they have already started talking about him in the past tense.