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.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Henrique Amaral was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
The clubs have settled the fee and he has settled his wages. What remains is a medical and a photograph, and around GAS people have started saying his name in the past tense.
“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 The request is on a desk at GAS, and it is not being withdrawn.
The deal with Sousa is done in every sense but the one that puts him on the pitch. Nothing goes wrong at this stage, except on the occasions when it does.
6 goals. Both benches spent the second half looking at each other rather than at the pitch. Purists will complain about GAS and Águia de Marabá in equal measure; everybody else had a wonderful time.
At 35, 3 points below where he was, and a body that has started charging interest. It happens to all of them and it is still the hardest paragraph on this page.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what GAS can pretend not to have heard.
The last thing about a transfer that is still about the player is his signature on his own terms, and it is there. GAS have lost him in all but the paperwork.
Add another name to the list: Goianésia have asked the question everybody in the game has been asking about Ney. The answer from GAS has not changed — yet.
Every club in football 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 somebody has tried it.
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.
2 in front and in complete control, and it finished with Maranhão the happier side. There is no version of this afternoon that GAS will enjoy reviewing.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 37 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
“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 GAS, and it is not being withdrawn.
A defender on the scoresheet, which happens rarely enough that everybody in the ground remembers who took the corner. 1 for him, and a mark of 7.88 for the rest of 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.
Thomaz Kenedi 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.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at GAS this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
The morning the pathway stops being a brochure and becomes a team sheet. Most of them will not be here in three years; all of them have already done the hard part, which was getting to today.
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.
There is no fee, no unveiling and no agent on the steps. Samuel Araujo has been at this club since he was a boy and is now, formally, one of the first-team squad — which for a local readership beats any signing of any size.
Clubs spend fortunes looking for players and occasionally find one down the corridor. Igor Freitas is that, and the reception he gets on his first appearance will be different in kind from the one any signing receives.
Clubs spend fortunes looking for players and occasionally find one down the corridor. Motorzinho is that, and the reception he gets on his first appearance will be different in kind from the one any signing receives.
“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 GAS, and it is not being withdrawn.
Position 3, 29 points, and the result everyone checks first is now theirs. The word is still not being said around the ground, which is how you know everyone is thinking it.
At 21 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.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at GAS this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Juazeirense have kept their man, and GAS go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
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.
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.
The loan was meant to give him football. 0 games and 0 goals later he is back at GAS no further forward, and everybody involved will explain why it was not their doing.
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.
Bruno Martins 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.
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Marcos Rangel signs something — a contract at GAS or anywhere else — this column belongs to 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 GAS 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.
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.
Position 3, 29 points, and every result so far reduced to one line. The second half of the season starts with the same squad and a different set of expectations.
“The players deserve the credit. My job was easy today.” It was not, and everybody in the room knew it; after 1‑0, Marcelo Bezerra could afford to be generous.
0‑3 to Sampaio Corrêa, and it was every bit as bad as the number suggests. There are defeats you argue about and defeats you apologise for; this was the second kind.
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 door stayed shut a long time after the final whistle. What was said in there is between them; whether it worked is between them and Saturday.
The dugout9 Nov 2026
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 0‑3 Marcelo Bezerra left the room before anybody could ask which.
There is no complaint available here and everybody involved knows it, which does not make the walk to the bench any shorter. Form is the only currency in football that cannot be borrowed against.
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Marcos Rangel signs something — a contract at GAS or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what GAS can pretend not to have heard.
Beaten 0‑1, and beaten fairly. The manager kept his words short afterwards, which was probably wise.
Squad14 Sep 2026
Thomaz Kenedi 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.
“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 dugout14 Sep 2026
The view from the dugout
“We will look at it, we will learn from it, and we go again.” The three sentences every manager keeps for a 0‑1 defeat, delivered by Marcelo Bezerra to a room that had heard them before.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at GAS this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
He is doing things on a Saturday afternoon that nobody around him can answer, which is flattering for about one season and a problem after that. GAS will not keep him by pretending otherwise.
Nobody at GAS is suggesting he is out of form. The manager simply wanted somebody with a different set of qualities for ninety specific minutes, and there is nothing a player can train to fix that.