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.
Cuiabano 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 ambition story running the other way, and the one nobody tells: a footballer asking for a smaller stage, fewer cameras and a crowd that does not turn. It is not weakness and it is very rarely reported as anything else.
“I respect the manager and I am not going to sit here and pretend I am happy.” It is the most common sentence in football and it has never once been the end of a story.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Mirassol can pretend not to have heard.
Alexander Barboza 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.
Squad5 Jun 2028
Words at Mirassol training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Eduardo 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.
Successful dribbles: 24. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Squad1 May 2028
Words at Mirassol training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Shaylon 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.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Mirassol this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Cuiabano is 20, and Mirassol have signed him for the player he will be rather than the one he is. The first team can wait; the point of a deal like this is the years it buys.
“The manager did not use many words, and he did not need to.” Alex Muralha has his answer from Mirassol; what he does with it is the next window’s story.
There is a version of every career where the player ends up somewhere he chose rather than somewhere that chose him. Davy Gui is living that version at Mirassol, and it tends to show in the first month.
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.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Mirassol this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Two goals and a mark of 9.51 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Alverca this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad22 Nov 2027
Words at Alverca training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Micah Hamilton 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.
There is a particular helplessness in conceding 2 times before the twentieth minute. Santa Clara tried to reorganise, Alverca did not allow it, and the result was written long before it was confirmed.
Clubs make promises constantly and the page usually only hears about them when they are broken. This one was honoured, and the dressing room noticed that faster than any supporter did.
“This is not anger. I have thought about it for months, and nothing that has happened lately changed my mind.” The request is on a desk at Alverca, and it is not being withdrawn.
The hardest thing about being 21 in a senior side is that nobody makes allowances. Davy Gui did not need any: 8.12, and he looked the most comfortable man on the pitch.
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.
Bastien Meupiyou 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.
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.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Alverca will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
Player ratings20 Sep 2027
Bastien Meupiyou, 21, plays like he has been here for years — 8.62
A mark of 8.62 means one thing beside a twenty-nine-year-old's name and something else entirely beside a 21-year-old's. Nobody at the ground needed telling which this was.
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 20 he is doing things at this level he could not do at the start of the season, and the coaching staff will tell you exactly which of them.
Samy Merheg 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.
There is a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 21-year-old it feels ownership of. Bastien Meupiyou has it now, and everything he does for the rest of his time here will be measured against the goodwill he was handed for free.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Alverca will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 20 he is doing things at this level he could not do at the start of the season, and the coaching staff will tell you exactly which of them.
At 28 the improving is meant to be over. It is not: 3 points better than the mark taken at the start of the year, which is the sort of thing that happens to players who take the boring parts of the job seriously.
Add another name to the list: Portimonense have asked the question everybody in the game has been asking about Paulo Agostinho. The answer from Alverca has not changed — yet.
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.
The board’s statement ran to three sentences and one of them mentioned results. Hugo Barbosa has managed long enough to translate: win soon, or the next statement is shorter.
“This is not anger. I have thought about it for months, and nothing that has happened lately changed my mind.” The request is on a desk at Alverca, and it is not being withdrawn.
Nothing has been announced and everybody understands what it means. A board that summons the whole football department on a Tuesday morning is a board that has stopped believing the problem will fix itself.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Alverca this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad2 Aug 2027
Words at Alverca training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Micah Hamilton 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.
Squad2 Aug 2027
10 new faces, and Alverca are still learning each other
A squad rebuilt inside one window pays for it in a currency nobody budgets for. The football is not worse than the sum of the players; it is worse than the sum of the players who have played together before.
The offer from Empoli for Jeinner Fuentes 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.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Alverca this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
The board have said in public what they had been saying in private. Results between now and the next meeting decide it, and everybody in the building knows the arithmetic.
The phone has started ringing about Figueiredo again, and this time the name on the line is Porto. Alverca are listening politely and promising nothing.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Alverca can pretend not to have heard.
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 22 he is doing things at this level he could not do at the start of the season, and the coaching staff will tell you exactly which of them.
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.
Every squad has men who were signed by a particular manager and men who were merely inherited. Samy Merheg is in the first group, and the man who wanted him here is no longer in the building.
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Jeinner Fuentes signs something — a contract at Alverca or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
In brief
The terracesThe stands have heard the Figueiredo talk too
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Alverca can pretend not to have heard.
Footballers are asked about their boyhood club so often that nobody listens to the answer. Diego Rodríguez has just signed for Alverca, and for once the answer mattered.
Isaac James 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.
A player who expected to start watched it instead. The manager will call it a decision for the team; Vasco Moreira will call it something else in private.
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.
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.
“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; Alverca are dealing with a man who wants a different country.
2 goals, and the second was the one that settled it. Marked 7.89, and he could have had a third with better luck at the near post.
Player ratings18 Jan 2027
A first appearance Davy Gui will want to forget — 5.72
Everybody's debut is one of two stories and this was the other one. 5.72, and the only consolation available is that nobody's career has ever been decided by ninety minutes in a shirt he had just been given.
Footballers are asked about their boyhood club so often that nobody listens to the answer. Miguel Carvalho has just signed for Alverca, and for once the answer mattered.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Alverca this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
At 25 the improving is meant to be over. It is not: 3 points better than the mark taken at the start of the year, which is the sort of thing that happens to players who take the boring parts of the job seriously.
Headers, blocks, tackles, interceptions — 19 of them, and not one goal behind him. The sort of performance that never makes a highlight reel and wins football matches.
In brief
SquadWords at Alverca training over how hard people work