The clubs have settled the fee and he has settled his wages. What remains is a medical and a photograph, and around Água Santa people have started saying his name in the past tense.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Água Santa can pretend not to have heard.
Água Santa had done everything except persuade the man himself. He stays at Vasco da Gama, and the manager goes back to the drawing board with the money still in the bank.
$120.0K on the table at Cruzeiro. The manager wanted him, the board agreed a number, and the only voices still to be heard are the ones at the other club.
Villian 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 Matheusinho was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Cruzeiro have kept their man, and Água Santa go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
72 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Goiatuba lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
A bad atmosphere can be waited out. A group of people meeting afterwards to decide what to do about it cannot, and everybody in the building knows which stage this is.
8 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.
The clubs have settled the fee and he has settled his wages. What remains is a medical and a photograph, and around Goiatuba people have started saying his name in the past tense.
“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 The request is on a desk at Goiatuba, and it is not being withdrawn.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Água Santa they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
A medical, a signature, a shirt held up in front of a sponsor’s board. Água Santa have done the hard part with Goiatuba, and the part that remains is the part supporters actually see.
The name of Rafael Porfírio has come up in conversations Água Santa were not part of. Nothing formal, nothing signed — but nothing about it accidental either.
A month is long enough that nobody gets in by accident. Wesley Dias is in the division's best eleven for it, which is a quieter compliment than an award and a more reliable one.
A bad atmosphere can be waited out. A group of people meeting afterwards to decide what to do about it cannot, and everybody in the building knows which stage this is.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Goiatuba will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
“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 Goiatuba, and it is not being withdrawn.
There is a level at which a footballer stops being tested and starts being contained, and he reached it some time ago. Goiatuba know it, and so does everybody who watches him.
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Enrique Estigarribia signs something — a contract at Goiatuba or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
128 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Goiatuba 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 Goiatuba can pretend not to have heard.
Everything agreed with another club, everything agreed with the player; a doctor is the only person left to persuade. The photograph is a day or two away.
Goiatuba asked and Sport Recife said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
Lucas Mota 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.
Nobody has barred the club from spending; it simply has nothing to spend that it has not first raised. Every incoming name comes with an outgoing one attached.
“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.
The manager has a list and the board has a condition attached to it. That is not a crisis — half of football works this way — but it decides which of the two of them gets his way in August.
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Goiatuba, and both men came out saying it was fine.
A year in and the city has not opened up, the language has not come, and lunch is eaten alone more often than anybody at Goiatuba would admit. It shows on Saturdays.
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Kattê signs something — a contract at Goiatuba or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
The standards have slipped, and in a building where everybody watches everybody it has not gone unremarked. This is how a player loses a place before he loses one.
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.
Successful dribbles: 23. 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.
Lucas Mota 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.
Position 14 and 19 points, and the table gets read bottom-up in this part of town. The calendar has stopped being a schedule and started being a countdown.
“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.
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.
Nobody has barred the club from spending; it simply has nothing to spend that it has not first raised. Every incoming name comes with an outgoing one attached.
The shrug has gone, the language is coming, and he now argues in training like somebody who expects to be here next year. Half a signing's value is this and none of it appears on a fee.
The board’s statement ran to three sentences and one of them mentioned results. Rodrigo Pereira has managed long enough to translate: win soon, or the next statement is shorter.
The gap in the accounts was filled from upstairs again. Supporters are entitled to be grateful and to ask what happens the month it is not, and both feelings arrive together.
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.
Squad6 Sep 2027
Fabrício Oya 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.
Past the limit the bank set, which is the line between a club being financed and a club being in trouble. $7.9M is now the number every conversation about this club will start with.
The demotion a club never announces and a dressing room always notices. Fabrício Oya is further from the side than he was, and the reason will not be given until he asks.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the whole of the defence. 10 saves, several of them the kind nobody expects to see made, and ten outfield players who owe him a drink.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Goiatuba will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
“I have given everything here and I need a new challenge.” The request is formal, and the relationship will never be quite the same again.
The terraces24 May 2027
A cup hiding at Ceará leaves Goiatuba explaining themselves
0-3, and long before the end the away end had switched from encouragement to something considerably more pointed. Nobody rings a phone-in about losing narrowly.
The chances are being made and something is happening between the making and the finishing. 5 matches now, and the anxiety in the ground arrives a little earlier every week.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Goiatuba will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
9 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.
“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.
Player ratings26 Apr 2027
Up for the corner, and Matheus Neris delivers — 7.67
Centre-halves are allowed forward twice a season and are judged on what they do when they get there. Matheus Neris scored, was marked 7.67, and got back before anybody noticed he had gone.
Gabriel 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.
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 supporters are entitled to be angry. So am I. We will put it right.” 1‑3, a manager saying the necessary things, and a dressing room that heard a different version of them.
In brief
The dugoutKattê is still paying for one afternoon at Goiatuba
“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 Goiatuba, and it is not being withdrawn.
Gabriel 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.
Goiatuba asked and Corinthians said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
Squad28 Dec 2026
Words at Goiatuba training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Rosivan 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.
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.
There is a level at which a footballer stops being tested and starts being contained, and he reached it some time ago. Goiatuba know it, and so does everybody who watches him.
0 appearances and 0 goals is not a season, it is a year somebody has lost. Whether that is his fault, the borrowing club's or the people who arranged it is the argument the next few weeks will have.
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.
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.
“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.
Squad21 Dec 2026
8 new faces, and Goiatuba 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.
“I watch every Goiatuba game from here. That says everything about where my head is.” The loan at FCI Levadia runs its course, but his heart never made the trip.
Sport Recife 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.
A loan enquiry to Atlético Mineiro: cover, or a look at somebody the club cannot afford to buy yet. Either way the answer will come back inside the week.