Marked for William Abbriano
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad3 Sep 2035
Simao Miranda damages knee ligaments — 41 days out
The words a physio says slowly. 41 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.
Squad3 Sep 2035
A fracture rules Henrique Gomes out for 91 days
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Farense will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
Match1 Sep 2035
No end in sight to Farense's wait for a win
8 matches now without a victory, and the excuses have worn thinner than the patience. Somebody at Farense has to find a result from somewhere.
Squad3 Sep 2035
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the team. 6 saves, several of them the sort nobody expects to see stopped, and a scoreline that flatters everybody in front of him.
Player ratings3 Sep 2035
Mathias Kubel, 33, rolls back the years — 8.24
There is an age at which every good afternoon gets described as a throwback, which is unfair and also accurate. 8.24 at 33, and nobody on the pitch was better.
Market3 Sep 2035
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Farense is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
Market3 Sep 2035
The deal that would have taken José Sacramento to Arouca has collapsed at the last stage, and he reports back to Farense with a summer to forget and a season still to play. Nobody is saying which side walked away.
Squad3 Sep 2035
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Tiago Mamede and Farense agree another 3 years.
Match1 Sep 2035
A 1‑1 draw with Vizela leaves the dressing room somewhere between relief and regret.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Player ratings15 Jan 2035
Mathias Kubel, 33, rolls back the years — 8.39
There is an age at which every good afternoon gets described as a throwback, which is unfair and also accurate. 8.39 at 33, and nobody on the pitch was better.
Market15 Jan 2035
Duarte Dias hands in a written request
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Farense can pretend not to have heard.
Market15 Jan 2035
Farense say no — this time
The offer from Santa Clara for Henrique Dias 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.
Match13 Jan 2035
The wait goes on for Farense
5 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.
Squad15 Jan 2035
Mathias Kubel 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.
Squad15 Jan 2035
Words at Farense training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Rafael Nel 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.
Player ratings15 Jan 2035
Successful dribbles: 19. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Market15 Jan 2035
A conversation is coming this week. Farense will put a number on him, and from there it stops being football and becomes arithmetic.
Player ratings15 Jan 2035
Marked 3.44. Nothing he attempted worked and by the hour mark he had stopped attempting much, which is the part a manager notices rather than the mistakes.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Market2 Oct 2034
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Farense can pretend not to have heard.
Market2 Oct 2034
John Dodds has one foot out of the door
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Farense they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
Squad2 Oct 2034
Mathias Kubel 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.
Squad2 Oct 2034
Pablo Rosario 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.
Squad2 Oct 2034
Rafael Nel gets it from the manager
“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.
Squad2 Oct 2034
The medical room confirms 56 days on the sidelines for Luis Fonseca, and a plan built around him now has to be rebuilt.
Player ratings2 Oct 2034
Ninety minutes of Andreson Semedo at his very best
Marked 8.42. Players have careers without a single afternoon like this in them, and he has just had one in front of everybody at Farense.
Match30 Sep 2034
1‑1, and both dressing rooms will call it two points lost. A draw that asked plenty of questions and answered none of them.
Player ratings2 Oct 2034
Successful dribbles: 13. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
In brief
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Player ratings
Rafael Nel never got going
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Player ratings
Batata could not find anything
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The terraces
Everybody has an opinion about João Costa