“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Lagarto can pretend not to have heard.
Rodrigo Bazilio 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 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.
Past the limit the bank set, which is the line between a club being financed and a club being in trouble. $4.5M is now the number every conversation about this club will start with.
Nobody will confirm it and the team sheets confirm it every week. One error has bought him a spell as second choice that is already longer than the error deserved.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Franco Ramirez was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Another week, another link, another denial nobody quite believes. Lagarto know the market decides these things, not the back pages — but the back pages are louder.
“We keep meeting, and we keep leaving the room with the same numbers we walked in with.” Another round of talks at Lagarto, another week without a signature from Danilo Neves.
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.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Lagarto can pretend not to have heard.
Rodrigo Bazilio 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.
Another week, another link, another denial nobody quite believes. Lagarto know the market decides these things, not the back pages — but the back pages are louder.
5 months left, and both sides know what that means: every week without a signature, the fee Lagarto could ask drops and the wages Douglas Rangel can ask rise.
In brief
SquadQuestions about Danilo Neves on the training pitch
Allef 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.
Past the limit the bank set, which is the line between a club being financed and a club being in trouble. $4.6M is now the number every conversation about this club will start with.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Franco Ramirez was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Gabriel Terra signs something — a contract at Lagarto or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
In brief
The dugoutSamuel Machado asks for a word with the manager
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 14 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Lagarto have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Lagarto asked and Volta Redonda said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
A loan enquiry to Brasil de Pelotas: cover, or a look at somebody the club cannot afford to buy yet. Either way the answer will come back inside the week.