The words a physio says slowly. 88 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.
Successful dribbles: 24. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Squad21 Dec 2026
Words at Botafogo training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Vitinho 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.
Add another name to the list: Paysandu have asked the question everybody in the game has been asking about Kadir Barría. The answer from Botafogo has not changed — yet.
André Luís 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.
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Arthur Cabral signs something — a contract at Botafogo or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
The hardest thing about being 19 in a senior side is that nobody makes allowances. Kadir Barría did not need any: 7.79, and he looked the most comfortable man on the pitch.
“I want to win things, and I would like to do it here.” Nothing has been demanded and nothing has been threatened — but a boardroom at Botafogo hears a sentence like that exactly as it was built.
He won it back and then made something of it, which is two jobs and the reason the scoreline looks the way it does. 15 combined actions and a mark of 6.71, and not one of them will make a highlights package.
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Cristian Medina. 2‑1 against Fortaleza, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
There is a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 19-year-old it feels ownership of. Kadir Barría 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.
Squad2 Nov 2026
Words at Botafogo training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Chris Ramos 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.
“I watch every Botafogo game from here. That says everything about where my head is.” The loan at AGF runs its course, but his heart never made the trip.
Bahia go through and Botafogo go home, 1‑1 the scoreline that did it. The dressing room will call the league the priority now, because that is what dressing rooms say.
A shoot-out is remembered by its ending, and this one ends with Gabriel Batista: 1 kept out, and a set of supporters who will describe every one of them for the next twenty years.
Involvement in 2 goals, from a player who spent the ninety minutes doing the thing a manager actually wants: being where the ball was going to end up. 7.94 beside his name.
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Joaquín Correa. 2‑1 against Ceará, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
Squad31 Aug 2026
Chris Ramos 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.
Marked 8.05 — the sort of number a correspondent writes down twice to be sure. Everything he tried came off, and what he did not try was not worth trying.
A shoot-out is remembered by its ending, and this one ends with Gabriel Batista: 6 kept out, and a set of supporters who will describe every one of them for the next twenty years.
2 in front and in complete control, and it finished with São Paulo the happier side. There is no version of this afternoon that Botafogo will enjoy reviewing.
Player ratings24 Aug 2026
A brace, and Kadir Barría takes the afternoon — 8.92
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Kadir Barría provided it, and the 8.92 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Botafogo this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
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.
Add another name to the list: Omonoia have asked the question everybody in the game has been asking about Kadir Barría. The answer from Botafogo has not changed — yet.
1‑4 against Atlético Mineiro, and no complaints that would survive the replay. The manager spoke about character afterwards; the terraces used shorter words.
Player ratings17 Aug 2026
Kadir Barría, 19, plays like he has been here for years — 7.87
A mark of 7.87 means one thing beside a twenty-nine-year-old's name and something else entirely beside a 19-year-old's. Nobody at the ground needed telling which this was.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Botafogo this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad17 Aug 2026
Words at Botafogo training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Vitinho 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.
At 21 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.