17 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Gil Vicente lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
“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 targets31 Jan 2028
$500.0K settles it between the clubs for Mario Rivas
Penafiel have accepted the money. What Gil Vicente do not yet have is the man, and between here and the photograph is a conversation about wages that both sides are dreading.
Terms were offered and declined. Whether it was the wages, the role or the town, nobody at Benfica is saying, and nobody at Gil Vicente is enjoying the guessing.
Zé Carlos 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.
Marked 6.73 on 14 actions at both ends of the pitch. Midfielders like this get described as unspectacular by people who have never tried to play against one.
Squad31 Jan 2028
Murilo Souza 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.
Gil Vicente asked and Sporting CP said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
26 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Gil Vicente lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
“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 The request is on a desk at Gil Vicente, and it is not being withdrawn.
Zé Carlos 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 Jonathan Buatu was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Gil Vicente asked and Sporting CP said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
Murilo Souza 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 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.
“I did not go to São João de Ver to sit and watch. I want to come back to Gil Vicente and fight for my place.” 4 appearances in 37 matches say the rest.
Numbers do not stay secret in a dressing room and never have. He is not asking for more than he is worth; he is asking why somebody beside him is worth more, and at Gil Vicente that is a harder question to answer.
Nothing in writing and nothing in public: a word about playing time, given face to face at Gil Vicente. The team sheets over the next month will show whether it was worth having.
The language is arriving, the jokes are landing, and there is somebody at the next peg to talk to. None of it appears in a scouting report and all of it shows up on the pitch.
Public backing, and the sort that costs a manager something if it turns out to be wrong. Facundo Cáseres has been told in front of everybody that the shirt is his.
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.
Centre-halves are allowed forward twice a season and are judged on what they do when they get there. Facundo Cáseres scored, was marked 7.87, and got back before anybody noticed he had gone.
Ammar Ramadan 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 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.
“I did not go to São João de Ver to sit and watch. I want to come back to Gil Vicente and fight for my place.” 4 appearances in 33 matches say the rest.
The dugout19 Apr 2027
The manager’s verdict
“I am not going to get carried away and I will not let them either. It was a good day. There will be harder ones.” Lucas Teixeira kept it short after the 1‑0 win, which is what managers do when they are happy.
“I have done everything asked of me in training and it has not changed a thing on a Saturday.” The most familiar complaint in football, and one Gil Vicente will have to answer with minutes or with a transfer.
In brief
The dugoutThe plan did not have a place for Ammar Ramadan
“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; Gil Vicente are dealing with a man who wants a different country.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Jonathan Buatu was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
“I did not go to São João de Ver to sit and watch. I want to come back to Gil Vicente and fight for my place.” 4 appearances in 27 matches say the rest.
“The supporters are entitled to be angry. So am I. We will put it right.” 1‑3, a manager saying the necessary things, and a dressing room that heard a different version of them.
The loan was meant to give him football. 2 games and 0 goals later he is back at Gil Vicente no further forward, and everybody involved will explain why it was not their doing.
There is no fee, no unveiling and no agent on the steps. Paulo Barbosa has been at this club since he was a boy and is now, formally, one of the first-team squad — which for a local readership beats any signing of any size.
The academy exists for exactly this morning. Hugo Machado has come through every age group the club runs and has now been handed a senior number, and the people who coached him at twelve will be the proudest in the building.
The academy exists for exactly this morning. Leonardo Goncalves has come through every age group the club runs and has now been handed a senior number, and the people who coached him at twelve will be the proudest in the building.
Gil Vicente ran out of time with Portimonense. The paperwork was open when the deadline passed, and a transfer that was almost done is now a transfer that never happened.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Gil Vicente can pretend not to have heard.
6 games without scoring. Strikers stop looking up, midfielders take the extra touch, and every shot that clears the bar is followed by a groan that has been building since the last goal.
“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; Gil Vicente are dealing with a man who wants a different country.
Marvin Elimbi 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.
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 21 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.
Add another name to the list: Académica have asked the question everybody in the game has been asking about Antonio Espigares. The answer from Gil Vicente has not changed — yet.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Gil Vicente this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
It is not a grievance and it is not a demand: he wants to play continental football, and he has stopped hiding it. Whether Gil Vicente can give him that is a question about the club, not about him.
“I did not go to São João de Ver to sit and watch. I want to come back to Gil Vicente and fight for my place.” 4 appearances in 14 matches say the rest.
Successful dribbles: 13. He went past people as if he had been told there was a prize for it, and by the end the full-back had stopped pretending to try.
Facundo Cáseres 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.
“I watch every Gil Vicente game from here. That says everything about where my head is.” The loan at São João de Ver runs its course, but his heart never made the trip.
100 games in this shirt, through managers and relegations and everything else. Service like it is disappearing from the game and the crowd knows what it is watching.
9 combined actions and 6.58. The job he did is the one that shows up as other people looking good, and the only reliable way to notice it is to watch what happens on the afternoons he is missing.
Boardroom9 Nov 2026
Nobody left the Gil Vicente dressing room in a hurry
The door stayed shut a long time after the final whistle. What was said in there is between them; whether it worked is between them and Saturday.
“The supporters are entitled to be angry. So am I. We will put it right.” 0‑4, a manager saying the necessary things, and a dressing room that heard a different version of them.
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 19 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.
Marvin Elimbi 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.
“I am grateful for the games, but I did not become a footballer to be somebody else's spare part.” He wants to be at Gil Vicente, and 2 appearances in 6 say he has earned the hearing.
Every squad has one of these fixtures for somebody every season. This one is Diogo Prioste’s: the club that knew him first, the supporters who will decide in the first minute whether to applaud, and Gil Vicente needing him to play as if none of it matters.
Nobody at Gil Vicente will say this on the record and the team sheets have been saying it for weeks. There is a small group in every squad who get picked when the fixture is difficult, and he has joined it.
He asked about his future and was given an answer with minutes in it. The manager has now made a promise in a building where promises are remembered, and the clock on it has started.
Footballers are asked about their boyhood club so often that nobody listens to the answer. Rodrigo Freitas has just signed for São João de Ver, 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 São João de Ver this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
São João de Ver have gone to Feirense 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.
São João de Ver asked and Leiria said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
Every shape has positions in it and this one does not have his. São João de Ver will either change the shape, change his job, or change his club, and he is waiting to hear which.
“We keep meeting, and we keep leaving the room with the same numbers we walked in with.” Another round of talks at São João de Ver, another week without a signature from Silvério Júnio.
12 signings in three months. Every one of them may be an upgrade and the team can still be worse for a while, which is the part of a rebuild that never appears in the transfer-window verdicts.