94 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Cascavel lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
A bone, which is the one injury with a calendar attached. Cascavel will name a return date and, unusually for this business, will probably be right about it.
Player ratings2 Aug 2027
A brace, and Santino Dudar takes the afternoon — 8.47
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Santino Dudar provided it, and the 8.47 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
Cristian Erbes 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.
Squad2 Aug 2027
Words at Cascavel training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Rodrigo Mazur 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.
There is a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 20-year-old it feels ownership of. Caio Wesley has it now, and everything he does for the rest of his time here will be measured against the goodwill he was handed for free.
A bad atmosphere can be waited out. A group of people meeting afterwards to decide what to do about it cannot, and everybody in the building knows which stage this is.
The words a physio says slowly. 40 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.
Player ratings19 Apr 2027
Caio Wesley could not have asked for more on his first appearance — 7.73
Debuts are survived rather than enjoyed. This one was enjoyed: 7.73, 1 goals, and a manager already being asked whether he starts again next week.
It is a specific kind of quiet, a ground watching a winning position dissolve. Uberlândia kept coming because nothing stopped them, and Cascavel will be asked about the last half hour all week.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Cascavel have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the whole of the defence. 8 saves, several of them the kind nobody expects to see made, and ten outfield players who owe him a drink.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 20 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Cascavel this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
In brief
Boardroom2 academy players handed senior numbers at Cascavel
48 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Cascavel 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 Cascavel will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
Cristian Erbes 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.
Footballers are asked about their boyhood club so often that nobody listens to the answer. Fernando Asafe has just signed for Cascavel, and for once the answer mattered.
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Cascavel, and both men came out saying it was fine.
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Alípio signs something — a contract at Cascavel or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
56 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Cascavel lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
The board’s statement ran to three sentences and one of them mentioned results. Matheus Braga has managed long enough to translate: win soon, or the next statement is shorter.
A bone, which is the one injury with a calendar attached. Cascavel will name a return date and, unusually for this business, will probably be right about it.
Cristian Erbes 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.
Every squad is half players the manager chose and half players he inherited. Cristian Erbes was chosen, the man who chose him has gone, and he starts again from nothing under the next one.
64 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Cascavel 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 Cascavel will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
He is doing his job and he is not settling. Cascavel were supposed to be a step up in his own reckoning, and his own reckoning has been adjusted since he arrived.
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.
71 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Cascavel lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
The terraces22 Mar 2027
The mood at Cascavel has turned into something else
Supporters who sing when it goes badly are supporters. Supporters who gather afterwards are a problem, and everybody inside the building knows which of the two this now is.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Cascavel 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 Cascavel this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Nobody will confirm this and nothing else explains the last month of selections. A costly error buys a player a period of being second choice that is always longer than the error was.
In brief
SquadWords at Cascavel training over how hard people work
The dugoutThe manager makes an example of Leonardo Gomes
The words a physio says slowly. 78 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 Cascavel will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
Cristian Erbes 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.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Rodrigo Mazur was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Horizonte will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
“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 Horizonte, and it is not being withdrawn.
The clubs have settled the fee and he has settled his wages. What remains is a medical and a photograph, and around Horizonte people have started saying his name in the past tense.
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.
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 19 he is doing things at this level he could not do at the start of the season, and the coaching staff will tell you exactly which of them.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Botafogo have kept their man, and Horizonte go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
Every club pays most of what it earns to its players. Paying nearly all of it is a different arrangement, and it has ended the same way every time it has been tried.
“I am grateful for the games, but I did not become a footballer to be somebody else's spare part.” He wants to be at Horizonte, and 0 appearances in 0 say he has earned the hearing.
A bone, which is the one injury with a calendar attached. Horizonte will name a return date and, unusually for this business, will probably be right about it.
The last thing about a transfer that is still about the player is his signature on his own terms, and it is there. Horizonte have lost him in all but the paperwork.
A medical, a signature, a shirt held up in front of a sponsor’s board. Horizonte have done the hard part with Água Santa, and the part that remains is the part supporters actually see.
At 19 he is doing things this season that he could not do last season, and doing them every week. Form comes and goes; this has stayed long enough to be called something else.
Eduardo Soares 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.
Horizonte asked and Santa Cruz said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
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.
Nobody at Horizonte will say this on the record and the team sheets have been saying it for weeks. There is a small group in every squad who get picked when the fixture is difficult, and he has joined it.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Horizonte will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
The offer from Atlético Goianiense for Daniel Peralta was heard out and sent back the same day. First bids are rarely meant to succeed; they are meant to find out how loudly the door closes.
The last thing about a transfer that is still about the player is his signature on his own terms, and it is there. Horizonte have lost him in all but the paperwork.
There are footballers who have a good season and footballers a season is remembered for, and the second kind get their names read out in a hall in the summer. Horizonte will be quietly delighted and privately nervous.
A medical, a signature, a shirt held up in front of a sponsor’s board. Horizonte have done the hard part with Atlético Mineiro, and the part that remains is the part supporters actually see.
At 17 he is doing things this season that he could not do last season, and doing them every week. Form comes and goes; this has stayed long enough to be called something else.
The one award on the pitch nobody else can win. 13 games in a season in which nobody scored past him, and a career that will be measured against this one.
In brief
The dugoutThe manager makes an example of Alex Machado
Transfer targetsA loan move for Gabriel Souza is in the works
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Horizonte will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
The clubs have settled the fee and he has settled his wages. What remains is a medical and a photograph, and around Horizonte people have started saying his name in the past tense.
The manager has re-ordered his thinking and Vitor Xavier has come out of it lower. He will be told it is temporary, and the players who have heard that before will avoid his eye.
Atlético Mineiro have been asked whether they would lend him. Loans are agreed quickly or not at all, and this one will be one or the other by the weekend.
Horizonte have made the call to Londrina. No fee, a share of the wages, and a spare shirt in the position where the squad has been thinnest all season.
A bone, which is the one injury with a calendar attached. Horizonte will name a return date and, unusually for this business, will probably be right about it.
40 points, and the rest of the division looking up. Every side that finishes first spends the season pretending it is not thinking about it, and this one has started pretending.
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Victor Rodrigues provided it, and the 8.85 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
It is not a grievance and it is not a demand: he wants to play continental football, and he has stopped hiding it. Whether Horizonte can give him that is a question about the club, not about him.
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.
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.
There is a figure at which a wage bill stops being ambitious and becomes the reason nothing else is possible, and this club has reached it. Nothing is left over for a transfer, a stand or a rainy afternoon.
A bone, which is the one injury with a calendar attached. Horizonte will name a return date and, unusually for this business, will probably be right about it.
The first defeat in 11 matches. The manager will say it had to come; the dressing room will say it did not have to come against Sousa; the supporters will say both, in that order, all week.
Victor Rodrigues 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.
“The supporters are entitled to be angry. So am I. We will put it right.” 0‑2, a manager saying the necessary things, and a dressing room that heard a different version of them.
The one version of being left out a player cannot argue with, and the one he takes worst. Somebody else has been better and the team sheet says so, in public, every week until it changes.
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Renato Pereira signs something — a contract at Horizonte or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
A bone, which is the one injury with a calendar attached. Horizonte will name a return date and, unusually for this business, will probably be right about it.
Victor Rodrigues 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.
Squad16 Nov 2026
Lucas Borges 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 manager did not use many words, and he did not need to.” Samuel Peixoto has his answer from Horizonte; what he does with it is the next window’s story.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Thiago Correia trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 115 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
Player ratings9 Nov 2026
A brace, and Lucas Borges takes the afternoon — 8.33
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Lucas Borges provided it, and the 8.33 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
3 wins on the spin now, and the question has changed from whether the run ends to who ends it. Confidence like this cannot be bought; it has to be earned exactly this way.
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Lucas Borges. 3‑1 against Jequié, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
8 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.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 122 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
34 points, and the rest of the division looking up. Every side that finishes first spends the season pretending it is not thinking about it, and this one has started pretending.
“I want to be playing for trophies while my legs still let me.” Nothing in that sentence is a transfer request, and nobody at Horizonte heard it as anything else.
At 20 he is being sung about by people twice his age, which is an affection a signing has to earn over years and a local kid gets for turning up. It is also the hardest thing in football to live up to.
“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 Horizonte, and it is not being withdrawn.
Lucas Borges 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.
Everybody saw it before anybody said it. At 35 the numbers say 3 points down on what he was, and the question for Horizonte is how to handle a man they owe a great deal.
“It is not the end of the world and it is not good enough. Both of those are true.” The manager, after a 0‑0 draw, said the honest thing and then went to say it again inside.
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.
“I have given everything here and I need a new challenge.” The request is formal, and the relationship will never be quite the same again.
Squad12 Oct 2026
Words at Horizonte training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Lucas Borges 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.
The fixture the rest of the division is looking forward to more than either of the sides in it. Both know a win changes the season and a defeat does not end it, which is what makes it hard to play.
Nobody at Horizonte will say this on the record and the team sheets have been saying it for weeks. There is a small group in every squad who get picked when the fixture is difficult, and he has joined it.
Another week, another link, another denial nobody quite believes. Horizonte know the market decides these things, not the back pages — but the back pages are louder.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 21 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
The award is a small thing with a heavy meaning: for four weeks nobody in this division did his job better. Horizonte have the trophy on a shelf and the player in the side.
The manager has re-ordered his thinking and Bicho has come out of it lower. He will be told it is temporary, and the players who have heard that before will avoid his eye.
Nobody at Horizonte will say this on the record and the team sheets have been saying it for weeks. There is a small group in every squad who get picked when the fixture is difficult, and he has joined it.