Cafu

Attacking Midfielder (R) - Criciuma U18
21 Nov 2027
Sunday
Process

Marked for Cafu

38 Edition

The Criciuma Gazette

19 Apr 2027
From our football correspondent Triumph

Squad

A knee injury of the worst kind for Nicolas

38 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Criciuma lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.

Player ratings

Nobody could get near Sandry

Successful dribbles: 34. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.

Player ratings

A defender's goal wins it for Criciuma — 7.60

1 for César Martins, marked 7.60, 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.

Match

Nobody wants to play Criciuma right now

3 wins in a row changes how opponents warm up: quieter, more glances across. Runs end, everybody knows that — but nobody in this dressing room is planning for it.

Squad

Tempers go at Criciuma

Yuri Tanque 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.

Market

Criciuma may not be able to give Marcelo Hermes what he wants

It is the most legitimate ambition in the sport and the hardest for most clubs to satisfy. Marcelo Hermes wants continental football; whether Criciuma can provide it is a question about the next two seasons, not about him.

Boardroom

6 academy players handed senior numbers at Criciuma

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.

Match

César Martins sends Criciuma past São Paulo

It finished 2‑1, and it was César Martins’s afternoon: on the scoresheet when it mattered, and the reason the points belong to Criciuma.

Market

Cafu steps up from the Criciuma academy

There is no fee, no unveiling and no agent on the steps. Cafu 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.

In brief