The Amarante Sentinel
Squad18 Nov 2030
The knee: João Diogo out for 16 days
16 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.
The dugout18 Nov 2030
Daan Erkelens: that is not what I was promised
“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.
Squad18 Nov 2030
Tempers go at Amarante
Jorge Pinto 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.
Squad18 Nov 2030
A row about effort at Amarante
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Óscar Sanz was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Squad18 Nov 2030
7 new faces, and Amarante 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 Nov 2030
No hiding place for Bernardo Canovas
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Bernardo Canovas, and the manager let it.
The dugout18 Nov 2030
The manager has not finished forgetting Alpha Diallo'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.
Looking ahead18 Nov 2030
André Rodrigues faces his old club
Torreense next, and one man in the Amarante dressing room knows their training ground better than his own. The reception will tell him what they thought of him.
The dugout18 Nov 2030
When it matters, Ailton Gomes 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.
In brief
- Market Alejandro Jay runs his contract down
- Boardroom Amarante keep producing them
- Looking ahead Looking ahead: the trip to Torreense