14 matches without a win, and then this, against Estrela da Amadora. Relief is a strange noise in a football ground and it was the only noise at the end.
“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 The request is on a desk at AVS, and it is not being withdrawn.
The clubs had agreed and the player had not. A snub, and a public one: Club Brugge keep him, and the supporters here are left wondering what he had heard about the place.
Diego Duarte 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.
A 1‑0 win over Estrela da Amadora, earned rather than given, and the sort of afternoon that sends everyone home talking about next week instead of this one.
10 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.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at AVS 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.
Nothing happens for months and then he simply arrives, at no cost, having signed a pre-contract while still turning out for somebody else. It is the least dramatic way to sign a footballer and frequently the shrewdest.
3 matches, no goals, and a training ground that has tried everything. It will end — droughts always do — but nobody at AVS can tell you which week it ends in.
AVS asked and Benfica said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
“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 AVS, and 4 appearances in 18 say he has earned the hearing.
At 20 he is doing things this season that he could not do last season, and doing them every week. Form comes and goes; this has stayed long enough to be called something else.
Squad11 Jan 2027
Words at Leiria training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Pablo Fernández 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.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what AVS can pretend not to have heard.
5 matches, no goals, and a training ground that has tried everything. It will end — droughts always do — but nobody at AVS can tell you which week it ends in.
Two or more conceded in each of the last 6 matches. It is not one mistake repeating itself, which would be the easier thing to fix; it is a different one every week.
Diego Duarte 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 Roni was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
“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 AVS, and it is not being withdrawn.
Diego Duarte 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 Diego Renan was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
“The supporters are entitled to be angry. So am I. We will put it right.” 0‑2, a manager saying the necessary things, and a dressing room that heard a different version of them.
It is the most legitimate ambition in the sport and the hardest for most clubs to satisfy. Raul Steffens wants continental football; whether AVS can provide it is a question about the next two seasons, not about him.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at AVS this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Roni 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.
A 2‑1 win over Estrela da Amadora, earned rather than given, and the sort of afternoon that sends everyone home talking about next week instead of this one.
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.
Successful dribbles: 28. 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.
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Bernardo Conde is 20, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Pablo Fernández was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
3 wins on the spin now, and the question has changed from whether the run ends to who ends it. Confidence like this cannot be bought; it has to be earned exactly this way.
Leiria ran out of time with Cortulua. The paperwork was open when the deadline passed, and a transfer that was almost done is now a transfer that never happened.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Pablo Fernández was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
The academy exists for exactly this morning. Rodrigo Mota 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.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Leiria this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
19 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Leiria lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Pablo Fernández provided it, and the 8.73 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
Leiria asked and Braga said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
Pablo Fernández 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.
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Pablo Fernández. 2‑0 against Sporting CP B, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
Squad31 Aug 2026
8 new faces, and Leiria are still learning each other
A squad rebuilt inside one window pays for it in a currency nobody budgets for. The football is not worse than the sum of the players; it is worse than the sum of the players who have played together before.