“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what CSA can pretend not to have heard.
Ignacio Sáez 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.
Wages have outrun income and the accountants have started attending meetings they used to send apologies to. Ambition comes second in a season like this.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Lucca Carvalho was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
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.
Not a new contract, not a new number: a new place in the manager’s thinking, which is the only promotion in football that actually matters. Patrick Jorge has moved up it.
A bone, which is the one injury with a calendar attached. CSA will name a return date and, unusually for this business, will probably be right about it.
Player ratings9 Aug 2032
A brace, and Marcos Ortíz takes the afternoon — 8.43
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Marcos Ortíz provided it, and the 8.43 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what CSA can pretend not to have heard.
Pedro Mantovani 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.
9 without defeat on their own grass. The pitch has not changed; the crowd has — louder earlier, and quicker to sense when the opposition would rather be somewhere else.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Lucca Carvalho was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Marked 6.75 on 11 actions at both ends of the pitch. Midfielders like this get described as unspectacular by people who have never tried to play against one.
In brief
Boardroom130% of the income goes out in wages at CSA
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason CSA will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what CSA can pretend not to have heard.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Henrique Melo 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.
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.
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at CSA, and both men came out saying it was fine.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around CSA they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what CSA can pretend not to have heard.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at CSA this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
The approach was made and the answer came back in a sentence. There is no number on the table because there was no number that would have been enough.
Squad19 Jan 2032
Giva Santos 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.
1 months left, and both sides know what that means: every week without a signature, the fee CSA could ask drops and the wages Braian Morales can ask rise.
Gerónimo Ludueña has done the arithmetic and does not like the answer. Nothing corrodes a squad faster, and no club has ever solved it by explaining the wage structure to a footballer.
The words a physio says slowly. 23 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.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Ferroviária will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Ferroviária 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.
“We were not good enough today and I am not going to dress it up.” Interim Coach after 0‑1, in the tone of a man who knows the next question and does not intend to answer it.
In brief
Player ratingsNobody on the pitch touched João Victor
58 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Ferroviária lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Ferroviária will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
Centre-halves are allowed forward twice a season and are judged on what they do when they get there. Bautista Mamousse scored, was marked 7.62, and got back before anybody noticed he had gone.
The deadline has passed and the squad is the squad. 4 arrived, 5 left, and everything else printed about this club last month was a rumour that stayed one.
Nothing happens for months and then he simply arrives, at no cost, having signed a pre-contract while still turning out for somebody else. It is the least dramatic way to sign a footballer and frequently the shrewdest.
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.