47 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Caxias lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Caxias will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
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.
César Rolón 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.
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 André Shinyashiki is on it.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Alegria trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Caxias 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 Bernardo was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Behind, and beaten by any honest reading, until minute 96. Volta Redonda had the points in their pocket and a corner of the ground still believed, which is generally when it happens.
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Caxias, and both men came out saying it was fine.
“It is not the end of the world and it is not good enough. Both of those are true.” The manager, after a 1‑1 draw, said the honest thing and then went to say it again inside.
Bruno Moura 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.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Wesley Rodrigues was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
“We keep meeting, and we keep leaving the room with the same numbers we walked in with.” Another round of talks at Caxias, another week without a signature from Simão Bertelli.
10 signings in three months. Every one of them may be an upgrade and the team can still be worse for a while, which is the part of a rebuild that never appears in the transfer-window verdicts.
Nobody at Caxias 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.
Every footballer has an answer to the question about his boyhood club, and most of them never get to act on it. César Rolón has, at Caxias, and the first month will show what that does to a man.
Nothing happens for months and then he simply arrives, at no cost, having signed a pre-contract while still turning out for somebody else. It is the least dramatic way to sign a footballer and frequently the shrewdest.
Squad22 Feb 2027
Bruno Moura 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.
Rato 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 at Caxias 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.
Every shape has positions in it and this one does not have his. Caxias will either change the shape, change his job, or change his club, and he is waiting to hear which.
Another week, another link, another denial nobody quite believes. Caxias know the market decides these things, not the back pages — but the back pages are louder.
Nothing in writing and nothing in public: a word about playing time, given face to face at Caxias. The team sheets over the next month will show whether it was worth having.