6 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.
Successful dribbles: 24. 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.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Samuel will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Atlético Mineiro the goodbyes have quietly begun.
13 clean sheets from 28 appearances at Athletic Club. That is the whole of a goalkeeper’s job done properly, and it is being done a long way from the club that owns him.
Raí Ramos 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.
“I watch every Atlético Mineiro game from here. That says everything about where my head is.” The loan at Ypiranga runs its course, but his heart never made the trip.
Rodolfo 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.
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Derlys Cabañas, and the manager let it.
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 0‑1 Júnior Cavalcante left the room before anybody could ask which.
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.
Squad27 Sep 2027
João Scatolin, 19, is the weekend’s best young player
Measured against every other kid in the division and first among them. The senior award is where Ypiranga would like this to lead.
Santa Cruz next, and one man in the Ypiranga dressing room knows their training ground better than his own. The reception will tell him what they thought of him.
The name of Mateo Cassierra has come up in conversations Atlético Mineiro were not part of. Nothing formal, nothing signed — but nothing about it accidental either.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Samuel will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Atlético Mineiro the goodbyes have quietly begun.
11 clean sheets from 25 appearances at Athletic Club. That is the whole of a goalkeeper’s job done properly, and it is being done a long way from the club that owns him.
“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 Atlético Mineiro, and 3 appearances in 10 say he has earned the hearing.
The dugout30 Aug 2027
The view from the dugout
“We will look at it, we will learn from it, and we go again.” The three sentences every manager keeps for a 1‑4 defeat, delivered by Renato Queiroz to a room that had heard them before.
He is the name in every column and on every phone-in, which is a heavy thing to carry at any age. Some footballers thrive on it; others are quietly finished by it.
Chapecoense will want this one forgotten quickly: 3‑0, every duel lost, and a long ride home. Atlético Mineiro were ruthless in the way good sides are ruthless.
Two goals and a mark of 9.04 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Atlético Mineiro have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Samuel will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Atlético Mineiro the goodbyes have quietly begun.
Victor Hugo 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. América Mineiro have kept their man, and Atlético Mineiro go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
“I watch every Atlético Mineiro game from here. That says everything about where my head is.” The loan at Ypiranga runs its course, but his heart never made the trip.