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.
Position 14 and 15 points, and the table gets read bottom-up in this part of town. The calendar has stopped being a schedule and started being a countdown.
Everything agreed with Atlético Mineiro, everything agreed with the player; a doctor is the only person left to persuade. The photograph is a day or two away.
The clubs had agreed and the player had not. A snub, and a public one: Atlético Mineiro keep him, and the supporters here are left wondering what he had heard about the place.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Porto Velho this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
The approach was made and the answer came back in a sentence. There is no number on the table because there was no number that would have been enough.
Squad27 Dec 2027
Words at Porto Velho training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Vinícius 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.
Porto Velho have made the call to Ituano. No fee, a share of the wages, and a spare shirt in the position where the squad has been thinnest all season.
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.
Christopher Ojeda 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 had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Porto Velho, and both men came out saying it was fine.
A year in and the city has not opened up, the language has not come, and lunch is eaten alone more often than anybody at Porto Velho would admit. It shows on Saturdays.
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.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Porto Velho this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Successful dribbles: 16. There was always a defender in front of him and there was never a defender in front of him for long.
Boardroom17 May 2027
99% of the income goes out in wages at Porto Velho
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.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the whole of the defence. 10 saves, several of them the kind nobody expects to see made, and ten outfield players who owe him a drink.
4 games without scoring. Strikers stop looking up, midfielders take the extra touch, and every shot that clears the bar is followed by a groan that has been building since the last goal.
0‑1 to Capital, and no complaints worth printing. The performance asked for nothing more than it got.
The dugout24 Aug 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 0‑1 Éder Araujo left the room before anybody could ask which.
0‑5 to Maricá, 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.
São Paulo go through and Porto Velho go home, 0‑11 the scoreline that did it. The dressing room will call the league the priority now, because that is what dressing rooms say.
The run now stands at 4, and the questions being asked around Porto Velho are no longer polite ones.
Match12 Aug 2026
Nobody could stop scoring
11 goals. Both benches spent the second half looking at each other rather than at the pitch. Purists will complain about Porto Velho and São Paulo in equal measure; everybody else had a wonderful time.
3 games without scoring. Strikers stop looking up, midfielders take the extra touch, and every shot that clears the bar is followed by a groan that has been building since the last goal.
The dugout17 Aug 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 0‑5 defeat, delivered by Éder Araujo to a room that had heard them before.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the whole of the defence. 13 saves, several of them the kind nobody expects to see made, and ten outfield players who owe him a drink.
Beaten 0‑9 by Portuguesa, and beaten everywhere it matters. The inquest starts on the training pitch on Monday morning.
The terraces10 Aug 2026
The boos come down from three sides
“We pay for this every fortnight. The least we want is somebody who looks like he cares.” 7 of the 13 senior players walked off into it; the rest were not playing.
Match8 Aug 2026
Nobody could stop scoring
9 goals. Both benches spent the second half looking at each other rather than at the pitch. Purists will complain about Porto Velho and Portuguesa in equal measure; everybody else had a wonderful time.
Clubs spend fortunes looking for players and occasionally find one down the corridor. André Lima is that, and the reception he gets on his first appearance will be different in kind from the one any signing receives.
The academy exists for exactly this morning. Rafael Silva has come through every age group the club runs and has now been handed a senior number, and the people who coached him at twelve will be the proudest in the building.
There is no fee, no unveiling and no agent on the steps. Craque 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. Marcelo Tavares is that, and the reception he gets on his first appearance will be different in kind from the one any signing receives.
Boardroom10 Aug 2026
Nobody left the Porto Velho dressing room in a hurry
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.