Successful dribbles: 35. 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.
Position 15 and 17 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.
What was said behind closed doors has now been said in front of a microphone. Everybody at Goiatuba can do the arithmetic, including the man it is aimed at.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Goiatuba have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
There is a version of every career where the player ends up somewhere he chose rather than somewhere that chose him. Bastian Kowalczyk is living that version at Goiatuba, and it tends to show in the first month.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Goiatuba this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Luis Felipe was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
In brief
BoardroomWages swallow 218% of the Goiatuba income
A bone, which is the one injury with a calendar attached. Goiatuba will name a return date and, unusually for this business, will probably be right about it.
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.
Ericson 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.
Squad10 May 2027
Luis Felipe 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.
Successful dribbles: 17. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
The dugout10 May 2027
The manager has not finished forgetting Leylon's mistake
Publicly it is behind everybody. It is not behind the man who picks the team, and the only place that shows is a team sheet. He will get another chance; he will get it in a match that matters less.
“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.
The dugout10 May 2027
The view from the dugout
“We did not lose. Some weeks that is all you get, and I would rather have the point than not.” Danilo Fernandes chose the glass-half-full version of 0‑0; the supporters left with the other one.
A bone, which is the one injury with a calendar attached. Goiatuba will name a return date and, unusually for this business, will probably be right about it.
Willian Bahia 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.
Squad25 Jan 2027
Felipe Alves 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.
In brief
Boardroom113% of the income goes out in wages at Goiatuba
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.
Squad18 Jan 2027
13 new faces, and Goiatuba 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 dugout18 Jan 2027
The manager has not finished forgetting Leylon's mistake
Publicly it is behind everybody. It is not behind the man who picks the team, and the only place that shows is a team sheet. He will get another chance; he will get it in a match that matters less.
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Luis Felipe signs something — a contract at Goiatuba or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.