Marked for Danilo Mendes
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Squad25 Sep 2028
Matheus Fernandes damages knee ligaments — 86 days out
The words a physio says slowly. 86 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.
Squad25 Sep 2028
Danilo Mendes breaks a bone — 15 days out
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 15 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
Market25 Sep 2028
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Amazonas can pretend not to have heard.
Squad25 Sep 2028
A falling-out at Amazonas
Pedro Castro and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Squad25 Sep 2028
Gabriel Taliari 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.
Match23 Sep 2028
0‑1 to Paysandu, and no complaints worth printing. The performance asked for nothing more than it got.
Boardroom25 Sep 2028
127% of the income goes out in wages at Amazonas
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 dugout25 Sep 2028
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Luiz Henrique, and the manager let it.
The dugout25 Sep 2028
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 0‑1 José Machado left the room before anybody could ask which.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad18 Sep 2028
Matheus Fernandes damages knee ligaments — 94 days out
The words a physio says slowly. 94 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.
Squad18 Sep 2028
3 goals in one afternoon from one man. The other players were also present, a witness confirmed.
Squad18 Sep 2028
A fracture rules Danilo Mendes out for 22 days
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Amazonas will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
Market18 Sep 2028
It is the most legitimate ambition in the sport and the hardest for most clubs to satisfy. Bruno Bertinato wants continental football; whether Amazonas can provide it is a question about the next two seasons, not about him.
Squad18 Sep 2028
Pedro Castro in a row with a teammate
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Amazonas this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Match16 Sep 2028
It had gone 6 games. The players did not celebrate like men who had won a match; they celebrated like men who had been let out of something.
Player ratings18 Sep 2028
Ninety minutes of Gabriel Taliari at his very best
Marked 8.39. Players have careers without a single afternoon like this in them, and he has just had one in front of everybody at Amazonas.
The dugout18 Sep 2028
Clubs make promises constantly and the page usually only hears about them when they are broken. This one was honoured, and the dressing room noticed that faster than any supporter did.
In brief
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The dugout
Marcelo Carné gets it from the manager
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The dugout
The view from the dugout
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The dugout
Somebody else is better right now than Fernando Ceará
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad11 Sep 2028
Matheus Fernandes damages knee ligaments — 101 days out
The words a physio says slowly. 101 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.
Squad11 Sep 2028
A fracture rules Danilo Mendes out for 29 days
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Amazonas will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
Market11 Sep 2028
Hítalo puts it in writing
“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 Amazonas, and it is not being withdrawn.
Squad11 Sep 2028
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Amazonas this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad11 Sep 2028
Pedro Castro 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 dugout11 Sep 2028
Lucas André gets it from the manager
“Nobody here is above being told.” It was not said with a name attached, but the dressing room can count, and so can everybody who was listening.
Market11 Sep 2028
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Alexandro Bernabei signs something — a contract at Amazonas or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
Market11 Sep 2028
“They were honest with me, and I would rather know.” Francisco Russo has been informed he is not in the manager's thinking at Amazonas.
The dugout11 Sep 2028
Cristiano 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 Cristiano has written the date down.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Squad4 Sep 2028
108 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Amazonas lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
Market4 Sep 2028
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Amazonas can pretend not to have heard.
Squad4 Sep 2028
Danilo Mendes breaks a bone — 37 days out
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.
Match2 Sep 2028
No end in sight to Amazonas's wait for a win
6 matches now without a victory, and the excuses have worn thinner than the patience. Somebody at Amazonas has to find a result from somewhere.
The dugout4 Sep 2028
“I was told what my role would be, and I signed on that basis. It has not happened.” A grievance with a date attached is the hardest kind to settle.
Player ratings4 Sep 2028
Tomás Villoldo, 33, rolls back the years — 7.84
There is an age at which every good afternoon gets described as a throwback, which is unfair and also accurate. 7.84 at 33, and nobody on the pitch was better.
Market4 Sep 2028
“I have ambitions, and I would like the club to share them.” Nobody has asked to leave and nobody has been shown the door — but a player chooses that sentence carefully, and a boardroom hears it exactly as it was meant.
Squad4 Sep 2028
Bruno Bertinato 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.
Squad4 Sep 2028
Words at Amazonas training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Gabriel Taliari 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.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad28 Aug 2028
115 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Amazonas lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
Squad28 Aug 2028
Danilo Mendes breaks a bone — 45 days out
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 45 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
The dugout28 Aug 2028
Nicolás Caprio: that is not what I was promised
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Amazonas have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Match26 Aug 2028
The wait goes on for Amazonas
5 without a win now, and the ground has developed the special quiet of a crowd that expects the worst. One scrappy 1-0 would cure most of it; that is the maddening part.
Squad28 Aug 2028
Pedro Castro in a row with a teammate
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Amazonas this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad28 Aug 2028
A row about effort at Amazonas
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Gabriel Taliari was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Market28 Aug 2028
The name of João Pedro has come up in conversations Amazonas were not part of. Nothing formal, nothing signed — but nothing about it accidental either.
Boardroom28 Aug 2028
Wages swallow 113% of the Amazonas income
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.
Player ratings28 Aug 2028
7.74, and no serious argument from anybody who was there. Amazonas had eleven men on the pitch and one of them decided how it went.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad1 May 2028
A knee injury of the worst kind for Danilo Mendes
20 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Amazonas lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Match25 Apr 2028
The 86th minute, half the ground already edging towards the exits, and Patrick Luan decided nobody was going anywhere. Ypiranga had no time left to answer.
Market1 May 2028
“I want to win things, and I would like to do it here.” Nothing has been demanded and nothing has been threatened — but a boardroom at Amazonas hears a sentence like that exactly as it was built.
Squad1 May 2028
Words exchanged at Amazonas
Alexandro Bernabei 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.
Match25 Apr 2028
It finished 1‑0, and it was Patrick Luan’s afternoon: on the scoresheet when it mattered, and the reason the points belong to Amazonas.
Squad1 May 2028
Tomás Villoldo 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 ratings1 May 2028
Successful dribbles: 16. He went past people as if he had been told there was a prize for it, and by the end the full-back had stopped pretending to try.
Market1 May 2028
No place for Hítalo in the plan
“The manager did not use many words, and he did not need to.” Hítalo has his answer from Amazonas; what he does with it is the next window’s story.
The dugout1 May 2028
No hiding place for Bianconi
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Bianconi, and the manager let it.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad24 Apr 2028
27 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Amazonas lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
Market24 Apr 2028
Athyla hands in a written request
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Amazonas can pretend not to have heard.
Squad24 Apr 2028
Words exchanged at Amazonas
Pedro Castro 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.
Squad24 Apr 2028
A row about effort at Amazonas
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Gabriel Taliari was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
The dugout24 Apr 2028
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Juan Sebastián Ostos, and the manager let it.
Match22 Apr 2028
It needed Gabriel Taliari to find the net to bring anything home at all: 1‑1 against Maringá, and half the dressing room will call it a point won.
The dugout24 Apr 2028
The view from the dugout
“We did not lose. Some weeks that is all you get, and I would rather have the point than not.” José Machado chose the glass-half-full version of 1‑1; the supporters left with the other one.
The dugout24 Apr 2028
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.
The dugout24 Apr 2028
The plan did not have a place for Wendel
Nobody at Amazonas 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.