The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at ABC is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
Marcos Victor 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.
“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.
Squad15 Feb 2027
5 new faces, and ABC 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.
Nobody at ABC will say this on the record and the team sheets have been saying it for weeks. There is a small group in every squad who get picked when the fixture is difficult, and he has joined it.
In brief
The terracesSupporters make their feelings known about Bruno Xavier
Marcos Victor 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 Tobias Christensen was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Every manager keeps a short list in his head of the men he wants on the pitch when the stakes rise, and it is never published. The team sheets for the big afternoons say Lima is on it.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 27 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
The fee was agreed and the flight was looked at — and then the phone stopped ringing. Cruzeiro moved on, Cayo Tenório reports back to ABC, and everybody pretends Monday is just Monday.
Tobias Christensen 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 Lima was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
5 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.
Every manager keeps a short list in his head of the men he wants on the pitch when the stakes rise, and it is never published. The team sheets for the big afternoons say Esquerdinha is on it.
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Bruno Xavier signs something — a contract at ABC or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
A bone, which is the one injury with a calendar attached. ABC will name a return date and, unusually for this business, will probably be right about it.
Fee agreed, wages agreed, and Penedense waiting with a shirt. Nobody at ABC is pretending otherwise, and the supporters have stopped asking whether and started asking when.
$610.0K on the table at Bahia. The manager wanted him, the board agreed a number, and the only voices still to be heard are the ones at the other club.
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 22 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.
ABC offered $57.0K; América Mineiro said it was not close. The manager will be told the money is still there for the right player, which is what managers are told.
Boards get told what they have done wrong for years and hear nothing on the days they get it right. This is one of those days: Tobias Christensen from Rapid Bucharest for $3.7M, and a ticket office having a very good morning.
30 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. ABC lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 73 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
$750.0K on the table at Goiânia. The manager wanted him, the board agreed a number, and the only voices still to be heard are the ones at the other club.
6 goals. Both benches spent the second half looking at each other rather than at the pitch. Purists will complain about ABC and Floresta in equal measure; everybody else had a wonderful time.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at ABC this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
39 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. ABC lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at ABC this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
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.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and João Pedro was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
The dugout30 Nov 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 0‑2 André Moura left the room before anybody could ask which.
Nobody will confirm this and nothing else explains the last month of selections. A costly error buys a player a period of being second choice that is always longer than the error was.
The words a physio says slowly. 47 days is what the club will announce and everybody who has heard this diagnosis before knows the number is the least of it: the knee comes back before the player does.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Gabriel Bahia was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Lima 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.
“A point is a point and I will take it, but we should have had all three.” André Moura after the 1‑1 draw, and the sentence every manager in the country said at some stage this weekend.
Every manager keeps a short list in his head of the men he wants on the pitch when the stakes rise, and it is never published. The team sheets for the big afternoons say Esquerdinha is on it.
Every squad has one of these fixtures for somebody every season. This one is Lima’s: the club that knew him first, the supporters who will decide in the first minute whether to applaud, and ABC needing him to play as if none of it matters.
84 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. ABC lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Lucas Souza 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 João Pedro was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Marked 8.00 — 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.
“We earned that. I asked them for a reaction and I got one, and now I want the same again on Saturday.” André Moura on a 2‑0 afternoon that pleased him more than he was prepared to show.
Something was said to João Pedro and then it happened. In this industry that passes for remarkable, and the dressing room noticed faster than any supporter could.
98 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. ABC lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
Centre-halves are allowed forward twice a season and are judged on what they do when they get there. Edson scored, was marked 7.75, and got back before anybody noticed he had gone.
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 22 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.
Squad5 Oct 2026
Gabriel Bahia 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.
Every club in football pays most of what it earns to its players. Paying nearly all of it is a different arrangement, and it has ended the same way every time somebody has tried it.
The words a physio says slowly. 112 days is what the club will announce and everybody who has heard this diagnosis before knows the number is the least of it: the knee comes back before the player does.
Two goals and a mark of 8.39 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at ABC this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Gabriel Bahia 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 dugout21 Sep 2026
The manager’s verdict
“I am not going to get carried away and I will not let them either. It was a good day. There will be harder ones.” André Moura kept it short after the 3‑0 win, which is what managers do when they are happy.
Somebody watched every match in the division at the weekend and decided he was the best thing in any of them. A small honour, and most careers end without one.
Nobody at ABC will say this on the record and the team sheets have been saying it for weeks. There is a small group in every squad who get picked when the fixture is difficult, and he has joined it.
In brief
The dugoutThe plan did not have a place for Randerson
127 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. ABC lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. João Pedro 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.
“We keep meeting, and we keep leaving the room with the same numbers we walked in with.” Another round of talks at ABC, another week without a signature from Bruno Leite.
Every manager keeps a short list in his head of the men he wants on the pitch when the stakes rise, and it is never published. The team sheets for the big afternoons say Lima is on it.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Lucas Souza trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
Ponte Preta next, and one man in the ABC dressing room knows their training ground better than his own. The reception will tell him what they thought of him.