A bone, which is the one injury with a calendar attached. Boa will name a return date and, unusually for this business, will probably be right about it.
Position 10 and 7 points, and the table gets read bottom-up in this part of town. The calendar has stopped being a schedule and started being a countdown.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Boa can pretend not to have heard.
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.
Fernandinho 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.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Iago Oliveira was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
In brief
Squad9 new faces, and Boa are still learning each other
A bad atmosphere can be waited out. A group of people meeting afterwards to decide what to do about it cannot, and everybody in the building knows which stage this is.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Boa will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
“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 The request is on a desk at Boa, and it is not being withdrawn.
Boa offered $610.0K; Botafogo said it was not close. The manager will be told the money is still there for the right player, which is what managers are told.
Nobody makes a documentary about a hamstring and everybody in the game fears one. Boa will be careful with the return date, because the second one is always worse than the first.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Bragantino have kept their man, and Boa go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Iago Oliveira was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Magrão 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.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Iago Oliveira 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.
Supporters who sing when it goes badly are supporters. Supporters who gather afterwards are a problem, and everybody inside the building knows which of the two this now is.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Boa will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
1‑4 to Juventude, 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.
The clubs have shaken hands with Grêmio; the player has not yet. Personal terms are next, and personal terms are where more deals die than anybody prints.
Magrão 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.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Iago Oliveira 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
The dugoutThe view from the dugout
Transfer targetsA loan move for Lucca is in the works
It has stopped being a mood in the stands and started being something organised. Boards can ignore a bad atmosphere for a long time; they cannot ignore this stage of it for very long at all.
10 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.
“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 Boa, and it is not being withdrawn.
Boa had done everything except persuade the man himself. He stays at Vasco da Gama, and the manager goes back to the drawing board with the money still in the bank.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Boa this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Magrão trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Danilo 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.