A bone, which is the one injury with a calendar attached. Famalicao will name a return date and, unusually for this business, will probably be right about it.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Vojin Serafimović will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Famalicao the goodbyes have quietly begun.
Sorriso and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Squad27 Sep 2027
Lucas Varaldo 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.
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 dugout27 Sep 2027
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 1‑2 Carlos Castro left the room before anybody could ask which.
21 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Famalicao lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 89 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Famalicao can pretend not to have heard.
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Bastien Meupiyou is 21, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
Leonardo Realpe 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 chances are being made and something is happening between the making and the finishing. 3 matches now, and the anxiety in the ground arrives a little earlier every week.
“I am frustrated, honestly. We did enough to win and we did not win.” Carlos Castro was not hiding it after 0‑0, and nobody in the Famalicao dressing room was either.
The shape wanted a different profile against this opponent, which is a real football answer and no comfort at all to the man it is about. He did nothing wrong and he did not play.
Fee agreed, wages agreed, and FF Jaro waiting with a shirt. Nobody at Famalicao is pretending otherwise, and the supporters have stopped asking whether and started asking when.
Estrela da Amadora paid $6.5M and Famalicao took it, which is the whole story in one sentence. The longer version involves a wage budget and will be told all season.
Lazar Carević has gone, the accounts have $6.5M in them, and the supporters have the feeling of having been sold something themselves. Good business and a good decision are not always the same thing.
The offer from Arouca for Mathis Jangeal 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 chase for Alfred Caicedo ended with $700.0K changing hands and Vizela out of reasons to say no. The supporters will judge the fee the only way that matters: on Saturdays.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Famalicao this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Sorriso was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Sorriso and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Squad10 May 2027
Pedro Bondo 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.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Famalicao can pretend not to have heard.
Lazar Carević and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Squad12 Apr 2027
Words at Famalicao training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Sorriso 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.
“Some mornings you wake up and you are still a long way from everything you know.” It is not the football and it never was; Famalicao are dealing with a man who wants a different country.
“I was told straight, and I would rather have it straight.” The manager at Famalicao has been clear about where Ivan Zlobin stands, which is more than many ever get.
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Famalicao, and both men came out saying it was fine.
Two goals and a mark of 8.68 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
A defender on the scoresheet, which happens rarely enough that everybody in the ground remembers who took the corner. 1 for him, and a mark of 7.93 for the rest of it.
7 goals in one match, Giorgos Koutsias on the scoresheet, and a scoreline that will look like a misprint. Neutrals could not have asked more of Famalicao and Vitoria Guimaraes.
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.
Cup ties wait for somebody to seize them, and Marcos Peña obliged against Portimonense. 6‑1 on the night, and the name in the next round’s hat is Famalicao.
The hardest thing about being 21 in a senior side is that nobody makes allowances. Rudi Almeida did not need any: 8.29, and he looked the most comfortable man on the pitch.
Lazar Carević 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.
7 goals. Both benches spent the second half looking at each other rather than at the pitch. Purists will complain about Famalicao and Portimonense in equal measure; everybody else had a wonderful time.
“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 Famalicao, and 3 appearances in 11 say he has earned the hearing.