Pedro Costa 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.
Wages have outrun income and the accountants have started attending meetings they used to send apologies to. Ambition comes second in a season like this.
Squad18 Oct 2027
Words at Lagarto training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Matheus Destro 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.
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.
Successful dribbles: 17. 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.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the team. 6 saves, several of them the sort nobody expects to see stopped, and a scoreline that flatters everybody in front of him.
There is no worse way to lose a footballer. Benjamín Córdova has pre-agreed a move away, which means every appearance between now and June is made by a man the club can no longer sell, and somebody upstairs will be asked why the contract was allowed to get here.
Successful dribbles: 20. 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.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Matheus Destro was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
A point taken on 91 minutes is worth exactly one point and considerably more than that to a dressing room. This side does not stop, which is a reputation worth more than the result.
It needed He Shaolin to find the net to bring anything home at all: 1‑1 against América de Natal, and half the dressing room will call it a point won.
The dugout16 Aug 2027
The manager’s verdict
“I am frustrated, honestly. We did enough to win and we did not win.” Tiago Nardo was not hiding it after 1‑1, and nobody in the Lagarto dressing room was either.
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.
Pedro Costa 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.
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.
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.
“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.
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Vitor Silva is 17, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
Squad28 Dec 2026
Words at Lagarto training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Matheus Destro 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.
Lagarto have made the call to Portuguesa. No fee, a share of the wages, and a spare shirt in the position where the squad has been thinnest all season.
In brief
The dugoutThe manager makes an example of Márcio Martins
Lagarto asked and Maringá said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Sandy was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Lagarto have made the call to Santa Cruz. No fee, a share of the wages, and a spare shirt in the position where the squad has been thinnest all season.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Lagarto 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.
“I have given this everything, but my family is not here and neither am I, not really.” A footballer can be coached out of bad form. Nobody has ever been coached out of this, and Lagarto know it.