19 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Horizonte lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Horizonte this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
This is not rotation. Antônio Cunha has not been in the manager's plans for some time, and nobody at Horizonte is pretending otherwise.
Squad15 Nov 2027
Words at Horizonte training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Facundo Castillo 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.
He trains hard, says the right things and goes home to an empty flat. Nobody at Horizonte has done anything wrong, which is exactly what makes it so difficult to fix.
26 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Horizonte lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Matheus Henrique had done his part in building a 2-goal cushion. What happened after that was collective, and Tombense were allowed back into a match that had been finished with.
The hardest thing about being 19 in a senior side is that nobody makes allowances. Matheus Henrique did not need any: 7.67, and he looked the most comfortable man on the pitch.
Samuel 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.
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Douglas Dias and Horizonte agree another 2 years.
Squad8 Nov 2027
Samuel Lima 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.
33 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Horizonte lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
“I never wanted to be anywhere else. There is unfinished business here.” Guilherme Pacheco commits to Horizonte for another 3 years.
Squad1 Nov 2027
Words at Horizonte training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Samuel Lima 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.
A 1‑0 win over Juazeirense, earned rather than given, and the sort of afternoon that sends everyone home talking about next week instead of this one.
Player ratings1 Nov 2027
Samuel Lima was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.20. There are performances a supporter describes to somebody who was not there and cannot quite convey; this was one, and the number does not help either.
“If you cannot run for the shirt, somebody else will wear it.” No name was used and none was needed; every player in that room knew who it was for.
The dugout1 Nov 2027
The view from the dugout
“We controlled it. There were spells I did not like and we will look at them, but the group showed me something.” Rodrygo Mendes, on a 1‑0 win that he was already picking apart on the walk to the press room.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Samuel Lima was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
“I have given this everything, but my family is not here and neither am I, not really.” A footballer can be coached out of bad form. Nobody has ever been coached out of this, and Horizonte know it.
The dugout27 Sep 2027
The manager’s verdict
“That is on me. I pick the team and I picked wrong.” Managers say that when they mean it and when they need to be seen to, and after 0‑1 Rodrygo Mendes left the room before anybody could ask which.
The dugout27 Sep 2027
Somebody else is better right now than Líber Méndez
The team sheet says it in public every week until it changes. The only version of being dropped a footballer cannot argue with, and the one he takes hardest.