Not an interim appointment — an institution with an empty coaching office. Somebody unfamiliar will run the sessions this week, and the question of how a club gets into this state is one the board will be asked and will not answer.
“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 The request is on a desk at Estrela da Amadora, and it is not being withdrawn.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Estrela da Amadora have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
“I am not thinking past Saturday, and I would advise nobody else to.” The caretaker’s first rule is to pretend the job is small; Interim Coach recited it perfectly.
The name of Fedor Lapoukhov has come up in conversations Estrela da Amadora were not part of. Nothing formal, nothing signed — but nothing about it accidental either.
There is no worse way to lose a footballer. Hélio Semedo has pre-agreed a move away, which means every appearance between now and June is made by a man the club can no longer sell, and somebody upstairs will be asked why the contract was allowed to get here.
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.
Marked 8.15 — 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.
“The easiest signature of my career.” Joaquín Sotomayor and Estrela da Amadora agree another 4 years, and the manager can plan around him rather than about him.
The club looked outside for a month, found nothing it preferred, and handed the job to the man who had been doing it anyway. He knows the building; now he has to prove he knows the rest.
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.
Player ratings20 Mar 2028
Erison was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.71. There are performances a supporter describes to somebody who was not there and cannot quite convey; this was one, and the number does not help either.
Marked 8.30 — 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.
Level with 88 minutes on the clock, after an afternoon Estrela da Amadora had all but put away. Nacional will call it a point earned; the home dressing room will call it two given away, and both of them are right.
Successful dribbles: 16. 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.
The whole football department in one room on a weekday morning. Nothing was announced afterwards, which is what a board announces when it has run out of patience.
He arrived for a fee and leaves for a fraction of it. $259.8K of what Estrela da Amadora paid for Matheus Costa is money the club will not see again, and the boardroom will be asked about it for two seasons.
“Somebody has to pick the team on Saturday, and this week that is me.” An interim appointment with no promises attached, which is how most of them start.
“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 Estrela da Amadora, and it is not being withdrawn.
“The easiest signature of my career.” Renan Ribeiro and Estrela da Amadora agree another 2 years, and the manager can plan around him rather than about him.
Lovro Zvonarek 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.
0‑3 to Braga, and it was every bit as bad as the number suggests. There are defeats you argue about and defeats you apologise for; this was the second kind.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Estrela da Amadora this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
The door stayed shut a long time after the final whistle. What was said in there is between them; whether it worked is between them and Saturday.
The dugout18 Oct 2027
The view from the dugout
“We will look at it, we will learn from it, and we go again.” The three sentences every manager keeps for a 0‑3 defeat, delivered by Fabio Ferreira to a room that had heard them before.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 82 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
Successful dribbles: 26. 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.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Fábio Cruz was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
At 22 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.
“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.
Player ratings21 Sep 2026
Diogo Monteiro was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.41. There are performances a supporter describes to somebody who was not there and cannot quite convey; this was one, and the number does not help either.