“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 The request is on a desk at Ituano, and it is not being withdrawn.
The clubs have settled the fee and he has settled his wages. What remains is a medical and a photograph, and around Ituano people have started saying his name in the past tense.
It is the most legitimate ambition in the sport and the hardest for most clubs to satisfy. Luciano Juba wants continental football; whether Ituano can provide it is a question about the next two seasons, not about him.
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.
Squad12 Jul 2027
Words at Ituano training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Osman 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.
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.
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.
The most common injury in the game and the most rushed back from. Ituano will quote 15 days and will be careful with it, because the second one is always worse than the first.
“I watch every Ituano game from here. That says everything about where my head is.” The loan at Farense runs its course, but his heart never made the trip.
“The supporters are entitled to be angry. So am I. We will put it right.” 1‑2, a manager saying the necessary things, and a dressing room that heard a different version of them.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Farense have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Everybody saw it before anybody said it. At 38 the numbers say 3 points down on what he was, and the question for Farense is how to handle a man they owe a great deal.
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Ricardo Ryller, and the manager let it.
Squad29 Mar 2027
João Resende 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.
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.
Every squad has one of these fixtures for somebody every season. This one is Miguel Menino’s: the club that knew him first, the supporters who will decide in the first minute whether to applaud, and Farense needing him to play as if none of it matters.
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.
43 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Farense lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Farense can pretend not to have heard.
The offer from NK Maribor for Gal Kranjčič was heard out and sent back the same day. First bids are rarely meant to succeed; they are meant to find out how loudly the door closes.
The clubs had agreed and the player had not. A snub, and a public one: Benfica keep him, and the supporters here are left wondering what he had heard about the place.
Lucas Soares 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.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. New York City have kept their man, and Farense go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
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.
The clubs have settled the fee and he has settled his wages. What remains is a medical and a photograph, and around Ituano people have started saying his name in the past tense.
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.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Olimpia have kept their man, and Ituano go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
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 phone has started ringing about Marlon Yan again, and this time the name on the line is Porto Vitória. Ituano are listening politely and promising nothing.
He is not being dropped. There is simply nowhere in the formation Ituano are playing to put a man who does what he does, which is a harder thing to be told than any team sheet.
An individual honour is a strange thing in a team game, and the best of them are never argued with. He has had the sort of year that ends with his name being read out, and Ituano have had the benefit of it.
The offer from Azuriz for Lucas Dias was heard out and sent back the same day. First bids are rarely meant to succeed; they are meant to find out how loudly the door closes.
The number the board signed off was not enough. It has been asked again and raised its own offer to $100.1K — a club that wants Lucas Pereira enough to be asked twice.
Guilherme Xavier 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.
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 19 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.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Carlão was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
“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.
Neto Berola 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.
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.
Every squad has one of these fixtures for somebody every season. This one is Neto Berola’s: the club that knew him first, the supporters who will decide in the first minute whether to applaud, and Ituano needing him to play as if none of it matters.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Gabriel Razera trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
Another week, another link, another denial nobody quite believes. Ituano know the market decides these things, not the back pages — but the back pages are louder.
Matheus Mancini has done the arithmetic and does not like the answer. Nothing corrodes a squad faster, and no club has ever solved it by explaining the wage structure to a footballer.
He looks like a man who lives here now rather than one who is working here. It took most of a season, and at Ituano the difference is visible from the back of the stand.
Successful dribbles: 33. 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 88th minute, half the ground already edging towards the exits, and Victor Reis decided nobody was going anywhere. Anápolis had no time left to answer.
“It was not right for me. I am not going to explain why to anybody except the people I owe an explanation to.” A deal agreed between two clubs, and a player who declined to be part of it.
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.
There is a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 22-year-old it feels ownership of. Victor Reis has it now, and everything he does for the rest of his time here will be measured against the goodwill he was handed for free.
5 matches without defeat, and then CSA. Nobody at the ground pretended it would go on forever; nobody expected it to stop here either.
Squad24 Aug 2026
Words at Ituano training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Alason Carioca 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.
Neto Berola 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.
“We keep meeting, and we keep leaving the room with the same numbers we walked in with.” Another round of talks at Ituano, another week without a signature from Neto Berola.
Still no offer on the table, and Matheus Mancini’s deal keeps shrinking. In boardroom language, silence this long stops being an oversight and starts being an answer.
“We were not good enough today and I am not going to dress it up.” Samuel Freitas after 0‑1, in the tone of a man who knows the next question and does not intend to answer it.