Marked for Samuel Lopes
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Match7 Nov 2026
7 unbeaten for Goiânia
Hard to beat is not the same as winning, but 7 matches without defeat is a foundation Goiânia did not have in the autumn.
Squad9 Nov 2026
A falling-out at Goiânia
Tiago Porto and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Squad9 Nov 2026
Danilo Oliveira 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.
Player ratings9 Nov 2026
Successful dribbles: 17. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
Player ratings9 Nov 2026
Marked 7.64 on an afternoon he ran from the first whistle to the last. Whatever else went wrong, Goiânia had the best player on the pitch.
Squad9 Nov 2026
“The easiest signature of my career.” Wang Shixin and Goiânia agree another 2 years, and the manager can plan around him rather than about him.
The dugout9 Nov 2026
The manager’s verdict
“I am frustrated, honestly. We did enough to win and we did not win.” Guilherme Porto was not hiding it after 0‑0, and nobody in the Goiânia dressing room was either.
Player ratings9 Nov 2026
14 defensive actions and a clean sheet at the end of them. A defender's afternoon can only be told by what did not happen, which is why nobody makes a highlights package out of one and every manager in the division would take it.
Market9 Nov 2026
No place for Leão in the plan
“The manager did not use many words, and he did not need to.” Leão has his answer from Goiânia; what he does with it is the next window’s story.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad12 Oct 2026
A falling-out at Goiânia
Tiago Porto and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Market12 Oct 2026
The name of Vinícius Fonseca keeps appearing in other people's back pages. Goiânia say nothing, which says plenty.
The dugout12 Oct 2026
Sérgio Gomes knocks on the manager’s door
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Sérgio Gomes trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
Squad12 Oct 2026
The training reports on Samuel Lopes are not good
A bad Saturday is forgiven; a bad Tuesday is chosen. Standards have slipped and in a building where everybody watches everybody, it has been noticed.
Squad12 Oct 2026
The penny has dropped for Wesllen Reis
He looks like a man who lives here now rather than one who is working here. It took most of a season, and at Goiânia the difference is visible from the back of the stand.
Looking ahead12 Oct 2026
They sit in position 15 and they will be waiting. Away form is where a season shows its true character, and this side has a point to make about its own.
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Match26 Sep 2026
3‑0, and Samuel Lopes took the headlines on an afternoon when everything Goiânia tried came off. Days like this are retold all winter.
Market28 Sep 2026
“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 Goiânia, and it is not being withdrawn.
Player ratings28 Sep 2026
A defender's goal wins it for Goiânia — 7.98
1 for Samuel Lopes, marked 7.98, and a centre-half's name in the part of the report he normally only reaches by mistake. He will not be allowed to forget it in the dressing room for a month.
Squad28 Sep 2026
16 goals and a season average of 7.24. Form like that gets noticed well beyond this town.
Market28 Sep 2026
It is the most legitimate ambition in the sport and the hardest for most clubs to satisfy. Júnior Tavares wants continental football; whether Goiânia can provide it is a question about the next two seasons, not about him.
Squad28 Sep 2026
Tiago Porto 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.
Player ratings28 Sep 2026
A performance of 8.54 does not come along often, and when it does the rest of the team becomes scenery. He was magnificent.
Player ratings28 Sep 2026
Matheus Moreira was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.30. 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.
Squad28 Sep 2026
A row about effort at Goiânia
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Danilo Oliveira was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad14 Sep 2026
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.
Match12 Sep 2026
Bruno Rangel scored, and precious little else went right: 1‑2 to Goianésia, and a quiet walk to the dressing room.
Squad14 Sep 2026
Danilo Oliveira 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.
The dugout14 Sep 2026
“We were not good enough today and I am not going to dress it up.” Guilherme Porto after 1‑2, in the tone of a man who knows the next question and does not intend to answer it.
The dugout14 Sep 2026
Somebody else has been better, the manager has said so with a team sheet, and there is no argument to be had. He will get the shirt back the only way it can be got back.
Looking ahead14 Sep 2026
Every squad has one of these fixtures for somebody every season. This one is Wesllen Reis’s: the club that knew him first, the supporters who will decide in the first minute whether to applaud, and Goiânia needing him to play as if none of it matters.
The dugout14 Sep 2026
Ninety specific minutes wanted a different sort of player, and the manager picked one. He is not out of form and he is not in the side, and both are true.
Market14 Sep 2026
Every press conference now starts and ends the same way: with Samuel Lopes’s future. The manager has run out of new ways to say nothing.
The dugout14 Sep 2026
Leão has been promised minutes
A conversation in the manager’s office, and a commitment that came out of it. Promises like that are cheap to make and expensive to break, and Leão has written the date down.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad17 Aug 2026
Tiago Porto takes the match ball home
5 goals in one afternoon from one man. The other players were also present, a witness confirmed.
Match15 Aug 2026
15‑0, and the margin flattered nobody — it could have carried another goal or two without complaint. Afternoons like this are why people keep coming.
Match12 Aug 2026
The small margins put Goiânia out
Out, 0‑4 to Vila Nova, and the long argument about which of the small moments decided it. The league is all there is now, and everybody knows it.
Player ratings17 Aug 2026
No sign of nerves from João Guimarães at 21 — 9.58
The hardest thing about being 21 in a senior side is that nobody makes allowances. João Guimarães did not need any: 9.58, and he looked the most comfortable man on the pitch.
Squad17 Aug 2026
3 goals in one afternoon from one man. The other players were also present, a witness confirmed.
Squad17 Aug 2026
3 goals in one game. The first was taken well, the second was taken greedily, and by the third the crowd were simply waiting for him to get the ball.
Player ratings17 Aug 2026
Two goals and a mark of 8.33 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
The terraces17 Aug 2026
A cup hiding at Vila Nova leaves Goiânia explaining themselves
0-4, and long before the end the away end had switched from encouragement to something considerably more pointed. Nobody rings a phone-in about losing narrowly.
Player ratings17 Aug 2026
Up for the corner, and Samuel Lopes delivers — 7.71
Centre-halves are allowed forward twice a season and are judged on what they do when they get there. Samuel Lopes scored, was marked 7.71, and got back before anybody noticed he had gone.