Marked for Ericson
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
The dugout14 Dec 2026
Felipe Pacheco: that is not what I was promised
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Goiatuba have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Transfer targets14 Dec 2026
The clubs had agreed and the player had not. A snub, and a public one: Internacional keep him, and the supporters here are left wondering what he had heard about the place.
Squad14 Dec 2026
Ericson 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.
Market14 Dec 2026
There is no fee, no unveiling and no agent on the steps. Éder Pereira has been at this club since he was a boy and is now, formally, one of the first-team squad — which for a local readership beats any signing of any size.
Market14 Dec 2026
The academy exists for exactly this morning. Monstro 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.
Squad14 Dec 2026
Words at Goiatuba training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Felipe Alves 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.
Transfer targets14 Dec 2026
Portuguesa 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.
The dugout14 Dec 2026
“Nobody here is above being told.” It was not said with a name attached, but the dressing room can count, and so can everybody who was listening.
Market14 Dec 2026
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Maikon Aquino signs something — a contract at Goiatuba or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
The terraces7 Dec 2026
The mood at Goiatuba has turned into something else
Supporters who sing when it goes badly are supporters. Supporters who gather afterwards are a problem, and everybody inside the building knows which of the two this now is.
Match7 Dec 2026
Goiatuba are in real trouble now
Position 15, 11 points, and a fixture list with fewer games left in it than excuses. The arithmetic is not cruel yet, but it has stopped being kind.
Squad7 Dec 2026
The medical room confirms 53 days on the sidelines for Pedro Caracoci, and a plan built around him now has to be rebuilt.
Squad7 Dec 2026
Ericson 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 Goiatuba this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Transfer targets7 Dec 2026
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.
Market7 Dec 2026
Goiatuba and Endrio are talking past each other
“There is a gap, and pretending there is not helps nobody.” Neither side has moved, and the calendar is working for exactly one of them.
Transfer targets7 Dec 2026
A loan enquiry to Goianésia: cover, or a look at somebody the club cannot afford to buy yet. Either way the answer will come back inside the week.
The dugout7 Dec 2026
Bruno Alves gets it from the manager
“Nobody here is above being told.” It was not said with a name attached, but the dressing room can count, and so can everybody who was listening.
Boardroom7 Dec 2026
Open for business: Goiatuba enter the window
The registration window is open and the phone has started. Between now and the deadline this club will be linked with forty players and sign three, which is the usual ratio.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Match21 Nov 2026
The wait goes on for Goiatuba
5 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.
Squad23 Nov 2026
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Goiatuba this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Match21 Nov 2026
Operário-MS left with the points after a 0‑2 defeat that will take some explaining on the terraces.
Squad23 Nov 2026
Words at Goiatuba training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Felipe Alves 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 dugout23 Nov 2026
The manager makes an example of Felipe Alves
“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 dugout23 Nov 2026
“We were not good enough today and I am not going to dress it up.” Danilo Fernandes after 0‑2, in the tone of a man who knows the next question and does not intend to answer it.
The dugout23 Nov 2026
Leylon is still being punished for one mistake
Nobody will confirm it and the team sheets confirm it every week. One error has bought him a spell as second choice that is already longer than the error deserved.
Player ratings23 Nov 2026
Successful dribbles: 13. There was always a defender in front of him and there was never a defender in front of him for long.
Player ratings23 Nov 2026
Leylon could not find anything
4.73. Every footballer has these and most of them happen away from a full ground; his did not, and he will be aware of that all week.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Player ratings2 Nov 2026
Luis Felipe beats them one at a time
Successful dribbles: 22. There was always a defender in front of him and there was never a defender in front of him for long.
Squad2 Nov 2026
Words exchanged at Goiatuba
Luis Felipe 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 dugout2 Nov 2026
The manager makes an example of Pedro Caracoci
“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.
Squad2 Nov 2026
Felipe Alves 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.
Match31 Oct 2026
A goal on 96 minutes turned three points into one and a good afternoon into an argument about game management that will run until Saturday.
Boardroom2 Nov 2026
Wages eat 95% of everything Goiatuba earn
There is a figure at which a wage bill stops being ambitious and becomes the reason nothing else is possible, and this club has reached it. Nothing is left over for a transfer, a stand or a rainy afternoon.
Player ratings2 Nov 2026
A mark of 7.74, and nobody in the ground would argue with it. He was involved in everything that mattered and most of what did not.
Match31 Oct 2026
It needed Maikon Aquino to find the net to bring anything home at all: 1‑1 against Brasil de Pelotas, and half the dressing room will call it a point won.
The dugout2 Nov 2026
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.” Danilo Fernandes chose the glass-half-full version of 1‑1; the supporters left with the other one.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Player ratings26 Oct 2026
Successful dribbles: 32. 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.
Market26 Oct 2026
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Goiatuba can pretend not to have heard.
Squad26 Oct 2026
Words exchanged at Goiatuba
Ericson 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.
Match24 Oct 2026
Beaten 0‑1, and beaten fairly. The manager kept his words short afterwards, which was probably wise.
Squad26 Oct 2026
Goiatuba are still strangers to each other
11 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.
The dugout26 Oct 2026
The manager’s verdict
“That is on me. I pick the team and I picked wrong.” Managers say that when they mean it and when they need to be seen to, and after 0‑1 Danilo Fernandes left the room before anybody could ask which.
Squad26 Oct 2026
At 27 he is in the side on merit and somebody else is watching from the bench. Places at Goiatuba are won quietly and lost loudly.
The dugout26 Oct 2026
The plan did not have a place for Bruno Alves
Nobody at Goiatuba 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.
Squad26 Oct 2026
“If we are going to be beaten, let it not be because somebody in here could not be bothered.” He stood up and said it in front of everybody, which is a thing a squad remembers about a man for years.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Player ratings19 Oct 2026
Dudu Figueiredo, 35, rolls back the years — 8.13
There is an age at which every good afternoon gets described as a throwback, which is unfair and also accurate. 8.13 at 35, and nobody on the pitch was better.
Squad19 Oct 2026
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Endrio is 20, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
Squad19 Oct 2026
Ericson 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.
Squad19 Oct 2026
Words at Goiatuba training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Luis Felipe 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.
Match17 Oct 2026
Goiatuba rescue it on 89 minutes
Behind, and beaten by any honest reading, until minute 89. Marcílio Dias had the points in their pocket and a corner of the ground still believed, which is generally when it happens.
Squad19 Oct 2026
This league is too small for Ericson
He is doing things on a Saturday afternoon that nobody around him can answer, which is flattering for about one season and a problem after that. Goiatuba will not keep him by pretending otherwise.
Market19 Oct 2026
“We keep meeting, and we keep leaving the room with the same numbers we walked in with.” Another round of talks at Goiatuba, another week without a signature from Ericson.
Match17 Oct 2026
A 1‑1 draw with Marcílio Dias leaves the dressing room somewhere between relief and regret.
Player ratings19 Oct 2026
Successful dribbles: 14. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.