Marked for Andreas Llana
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad24 Dec 2035
The knee: Kazeem Bolaji out for 136 days
136 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Amarante lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
Match22 Dec 2035
Nowhere to hide for Amarante
0‑4 against Amora, and no complaints that would survive the replay. The manager spoke about character afterwards; the terraces used shorter words.
Match19 Dec 2035
The cup run ends for Amarante
1‑3 against Braga, and the road stops here. Cup exits are quick deaths — no second leg, no next week, just the league from now until May.
Match24 Dec 2035
The view from the top for Amarante
37 points, and the rest of the division looking up. Every side that finishes first spends the season pretending it is not thinking about it, and this one has started pretending.
Market24 Dec 2035
“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 The request is on a desk at Amarante, and it is not being withdrawn.
Squad24 Dec 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 ratings24 Dec 2035
Henrique Mota, 20, plays like he has been here for years — 7.70
A mark of 7.70 means one thing beside a twenty-nine-year-old's name and something else entirely beside a 20-year-old's. Nobody at the ground needed telling which this was.
Market24 Dec 2035
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Sebastián Alarcón will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Amarante the goodbyes have quietly begun.
Squad24 Dec 2035
“I have given this everything, but my family is not here and neither am I, not really.” A footballer can be coached out of bad form. Nobody has ever been coached out of this, and Amarante know it.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Squad3 Dec 2035
Gabriel Rodrigues damages knee ligaments — 84 days out
The words a physio says slowly. 84 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.
Match1 Dec 2035
0‑3 to Atlético CP, and it was every bit as bad as the number suggests. There are defeats you argue about and defeats you apologise for; this was the second kind.
Market3 Dec 2035
Only the photograph left for Thijs Muller
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Thijs Muller will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Amarante the goodbyes have quietly begun.
Squad3 Dec 2035
Footballers are asked about their boyhood club so often that nobody listens to the answer. Trayvion Jackson has just signed for Amarante, and for once the answer mattered.
The dugout3 Dec 2035
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Amarante have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Squad3 Dec 2035
João Victor 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.
Squad3 Dec 2035
Words at Amarante training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Gregory Kelo 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.
Match1 Dec 2035
The run is over for Amarante
6 matches without defeat, and then Atlético CP. Nobody at the ground pretended it would go on forever; nobody expected it to stop here either.
The dugout3 Dec 2035
“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.
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Market22 Oct 2035
“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 Amarante, and it is not being withdrawn.
Match22 Oct 2035
Amarante refuse to drop out of the race
Position 2, 19 points, and the result everyone checks first is now theirs. The word is still not being said around the ground, which is how you know everyone is thinking it.
The dugout22 Oct 2035
“I was told what my role would be, and I signed on that basis. It has not happened.” A grievance with a date attached is the hardest kind to settle.
Market22 Oct 2035
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Amarante is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
Squad22 Oct 2035
A falling-out at Amarante
João Victor and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Squad22 Oct 2035
Words at Amarante training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Gregory Kelo 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.
Match20 Oct 2035
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: João Victor. 1‑0 against Santa Clara, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
The dugout22 Oct 2035
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Andreas Llana, and the manager let it.
Squad22 Oct 2035
“I have given this everything, but my family is not here and neither am I, not really.” A footballer can be coached out of bad form. Nobody has ever been coached out of this, and Amarante know it.
From our football correspondent
Triumph
Squad1 Oct 2035
Andreas Llana gets the move he always wanted
Footballers are asked about their boyhood club so often that nobody listens to the answer. Andreas Llana has just signed for Amarante, and for once the answer mattered.
Market1 Oct 2035
Kazeem Bolaji 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 Amarante can pretend not to have heard.
Squad1 Oct 2035
Paulo Daniel 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.
Boardroom1 Oct 2035
Tondela will keep picking him until June and will get nothing for him after it. Hernandes has pre-agreed a move to Amarante, and the only people who lose in that arrangement are the ones who let the contract run down.
Squad1 Oct 2035
Words at Amarante training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Gregory Kelo 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.
Match29 Sep 2035
It finished 1‑0, and it was Thijs Muller’s afternoon: on the scoresheet when it mattered, and the reason the points belong to Amarante.
Player ratings1 Oct 2035
There is a version of this player everybody suspected was in there, and on this evidence it is. 8.39, and no argument anywhere in the ground.
Looking ahead1 Oct 2035
The big one: Amora come into view
Two sides from the top of the table, one afternoon, and a month of talk decided in ninety minutes. Amarante will not use the word title this week and will not stop thinking it.
The dugout1 Oct 2035
Léo Porfírio 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.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Match26 Aug 2034
11 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.
Transfer targets28 Aug 2034
Estoril Praia and Varzim have settled on $2.5M. The rest belongs to the player and his agent, and a supporter who has watched one of these before knows not to buy the shirt yet.
Market28 Aug 2034
Fee agreed, wages agreed, and 1º Dezembro waiting with a shirt. Nobody at Estoril Praia is pretending otherwise, and the supporters have stopped asking whether and started asking when.
Market28 Aug 2034
“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 Estoril Praia, and it is not being withdrawn.
Squad28 Aug 2034
6 saves, and a scoreline the ten men in front of him had no right to. Goalkeepers only get noticed on the bad days; this was one of the other ones.
Transfer targets28 Aug 2034
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Leixões have kept their man, and Estoril Praia go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
Transfer targets28 Aug 2034
Everything agreed with Benfica, everything agreed with the player; a doctor is the only person left to persuade. The photograph is a day or two away.
Transfer targets28 Aug 2034
Estoril Praia have gone to Leiria with a bid, and the supporters have gone to the internet with an opinion about it. Whether either changes anything is up to the selling club.
Squad28 Aug 2034
Demiane Agustien 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.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Boardroom7 Aug 2034
Rafael Simoes has until the next board meeting
What was said behind closed doors has now been said in front of a microphone. Everybody at Estoril Praia can do the arithmetic, including the man it is aimed at.
Transfer targets7 Aug 2034
$3.8M settles it between the clubs for Martim Fernandes
Leixões have accepted the money. What Estoril Praia do not yet have is the man, and between here and the photograph is a conversation about wages that both sides are dreading.
Boardroom7 Aug 2034
The Estoril Praia board call everybody in
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.
Market7 Aug 2034
Joao Costa 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 Estoril Praia can pretend not to have heard.
Market7 Aug 2034
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Estoril Praia is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
Transfer targets7 Aug 2034
The approach was made and the answer came back in a sentence. There is no number on the table because there was no number that would have been enough.
Transfer targets7 Aug 2034
No thanks: Felipe Costa rejects the move
Estoril Praia had done everything except persuade the man himself. He stays at Benfica, and the manager goes back to the drawing board with the money still in the bank.
Boardroom7 Aug 2034
He will play here until the summer and then walk out of the door for free, having already signed elsewhere. Supporters will manage the first part of that sentence; it is the second they will struggle with.
Squad7 Aug 2034
Bruninho signs a new deal
“I never wanted to be anywhere else. There is unfinished business here.” Bruninho commits to Estoril Praia for another 4 years.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Market31 Jul 2034
“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 Estoril Praia, and it is not being withdrawn.
Transfer targets31 Jul 2034
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Leixões have kept their man, and Estoril Praia go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
Transfer targets31 Jul 2034
The clubs had agreed and the player had not. A snub, and a public one: Porto keep him, and the supporters here are left wondering what he had heard about the place.
Market31 Jul 2034
Bruninho wants European nights
The general version of this complaint is that a player wants more. The specific version names the thing: he wants to walk out under floodlights against clubs from other countries, and he has stopped pretending otherwise.
Transfer targets31 Jul 2034
$100.0K on the table at Leiria. The manager wanted him, the board agreed a number, and the only voices still to be heard are the ones at the other club.
Squad31 Jul 2034
Jevan Beattie 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.
Squad31 Jul 2034
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Xavi Sintes was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Transfer targets31 Jul 2034
$100.0K was the most the club would pay and Leiria were asking for more. Deals like this are revived in the last week of a window roughly half the time, and everybody involved knows it.
Squad31 Jul 2034
“I have given this everything, but my family is not here and neither am I, not really.” A footballer can be coached out of bad form. Nobody has ever been coached out of this, and Estoril Praia know it.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Market19 Jun 2034
“I have given everything here and I need a new challenge.” The request is formal, and the relationship will never be quite the same again.
Transfer targets19 Jun 2034
The approach was made and the answer came back in a sentence. There is no number on the table because there was no number that would have been enough.
Squad19 Jun 2034
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Estoril Praia this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad19 Jun 2034
Words at Estoril Praia training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Bruninho 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.
Squad19 Jun 2034
Estoril Praia are still strangers to each other
6 new signings in one window. Every one may be an upgrade and the side can still be worse for a while, which is the part of a rebuild the verdicts never mention.
The dugout19 Jun 2034
When it matters, Xavi Sintes plays
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.
Squad19 Jun 2034
No place for Geilson in the new shape
He is not being dropped. There is simply nowhere in the formation Estoril Praia are playing to put a man who does what he does, which is a harder thing to be told than any team sheet.
The dugout19 Jun 2034
Kelvin Pires knocks on the manager's door
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Estoril Praia, and both men came out saying it was fine.