The deal that would have taken Nélson Campali to Paredes has collapsed at the last stage, and he reports back to Portimonense with a summer to forget and a season still to play. Nobody is saying which side walked away.
Martim Pereira 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.
The deal with Santa Clara is done in every sense but the one that puts him on the pitch. Nothing goes wrong at this stage, except on the occasions when it does.
The deadline has passed and the squad is the squad. 19 arrived, 14 left, and everything else printed about this club last month was a rumour that stayed one.
There is a version of every career where the player ends up somewhere he chose rather than somewhere that chose him. João Rafael is living that version at Portimonense, and it tends to show in the first month.
The clubs had agreed and the player had not. A snub, and a public one: Luzern keep him, and the supporters here are left wondering what he had heard about the place.
João Reis 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.
Portimonense asked and Palmeiras said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
The name of Nélson Campali has come up in conversations Portimonense were not part of. Nothing formal, nothing signed — but nothing about it accidental either.
“We are a long way apart, and pretending otherwise helps nobody.” Neither side is close, and the calendar is not on the club's side.
Squad7 Sep 2026
Words at Portimonense training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. João Tornich 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.
In brief
SquadPortimonense are still strangers to each other
The clubs had agreed and the player had not. A snub, and a public one: Flamengo keep him, and the supporters here are left wondering what he had heard about the place.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Portimonense this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Braga have kept their man, and Portimonense go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
At 23 he is being sung about by people twice his age, which is an affection a signing has to earn over years and a local kid gets for turning up. It is also the hardest thing in football to live up to.
It is the most legitimate ambition in the sport and the hardest for most clubs to satisfy. Heitor wants continental football; whether Portimonense can provide it is a question about the next two seasons, not about him.
Carlinhos 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.
Portimonense asked and La Equidad said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
Squad3 Aug 2026
Thauan Lara 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.
“We keep meeting, and we keep leaving the room with the same numbers we walked in with.” Another round of talks at Portimonense, another week without a signature from Tiago Mamede.
“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; Portimonense are dealing with a man who wants a different country.
A loan enquiry to Aguilas Doradas: cover, or a look at somebody the club cannot afford to buy yet. Either way the answer will come back inside the week.