Marked for Cristiano Cunha
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Squad16 Jul 2029
17 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Monte Azul lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
Squad16 Jul 2029
Evandro breaks a bone — 32 days out
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 32 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
Match16 Jul 2029
Every point is an argument now for Monte Azul
Position 15 and 11 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.
Transfer targets16 Jul 2029
The clubs have shaken hands with Internacional; the player has not yet. Personal terms are next, and personal terms are where more deals die than anybody prints.
Market16 Jul 2029
“I have given everything here and I need a new challenge.” The request is formal, and the relationship will never be quite the same again.
Market16 Jul 2029
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Monte Azul is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
Squad16 Jul 2029
Ruan Carlos 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 Monte Azul this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Transfer targets16 Jul 2029
$700.00 was the most the club would pay and Cianorte were asking for more. Deals like this are revived in the last week of a window roughly half the time, and everybody involved knows it.
Match14 Jul 2029
Beaten 0‑2, and beaten fairly. The manager kept his words short afterwards, which was probably wise.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Steady
The terraces9 Jul 2029
The mood at Monte Azul has turned into something else
Supporters who sing when it goes badly are supporters. Supporters who gather afterwards are a problem, and everybody inside the building knows which of the two this now is.
Squad9 Jul 2029
A knee injury of the worst kind for Cristiano Cunha
24 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Monte Azul lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Squad9 Jul 2029
Evandro breaks a bone — 39 days out
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 39 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
Market9 Jul 2029
“I have given everything here and I need a new challenge.” The request is formal, and the relationship will never be quite the same again.
Market9 Jul 2029
The last thing about a transfer that is still about the player is his signature on his own terms, and it is there. Monte Azul have lost him in all but the paperwork.
Transfer targets9 Jul 2029
The clubs have shaken hands with Goianésia; the player has not yet. Personal terms are next, and personal terms are where more deals die than anybody prints.
Market9 Jul 2029
The offer from Ferroviária for Lautaro Moyano was heard out and sent back the same day. First bids are rarely meant to succeed; they are meant to find out how loudly the door closes.
Squad9 Jul 2029
Ruan Carlos and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Transfer targets9 Jul 2029
An offer of $700.00 for Euller
Monte Azul have gone to Cianorte with a bid, and the supporters have gone to the internet with an opinion about it. Whether either changes anything is up to the selling club.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Squad2 Jul 2029
A knee injury of the worst kind for Cristiano Cunha
31 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Monte Azul lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Squad2 Jul 2029
Evandro breaks a bone — 46 days out
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 46 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
Market2 Jul 2029
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Monte Azul can pretend not to have heard.
The terraces2 Jul 2029
Supporters turn on the $130.0K sale of Daniel Orduz
He is going to Londrina, the club has $130.0K it did not have on Friday, and the phone-ins have already decided how they feel about that. Selling well and selling somebody they loved are not the same skill.
Match30 Jun 2029
The wait goes on for Monte Azul
4 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.
Squad2 Jul 2029
Ruan Carlos 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.
Squad2 Jul 2029
“I never wanted to be anywhere else. There is unfinished business here.” David Cunha commits to Monte Azul for another 2 years.
Market2 Jul 2029
Londrina pay $130.0K, and the deal is done. The number reads well on a balance sheet; whether it reads well on the pitch is next season's question.
Boardroom2 Jul 2029
The owner puts $446.6K into Monte Azul
This is money that keeps the lights on rather than money that buys a centre-half, and the difference is the whole story. A club funded by its owner rather than by its football has exactly one conversation left ahead of it.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Squad25 Jun 2029
38 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Monte Azul lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
Squad25 Jun 2029
54 days out for Evandro after a fracture
A bone, which is the one injury with a calendar attached. Monte Azul will name a return date and, unusually for this business, will probably be right about it.
Market25 Jun 2029
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Monte Azul can pretend not to have heard.
Market25 Jun 2029
The offer from Ceará for Daniel Orduz was heard out and sent back the same day. First bids are rarely meant to succeed; they are meant to find out how loudly the door closes.
Transfer targets25 Jun 2029
The clubs had agreed and the player had not. A snub, and a public one: Sport Recife keep him, and the supporters here are left wondering what he had heard about the place.
Match23 Jun 2029
The goals have deserted Monte Azul
3 matches, no goals, and a training ground that has tried everything. It will end — droughts always do — but nobody at Monte Azul can tell you which week it ends in.
Transfer targets25 Jun 2029
Door shut on Kayck
Monte Azul asked and Criciúma said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
Squad25 Jun 2029
Denilson 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 Monte Azul this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Boardroom25 Jun 2029
Wages swallow 257% of the Monte Azul 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.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
The terraces16 Apr 2029
Supporters organise against the Monte Azul board
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.
Squad16 Apr 2029
A knee injury of the worst kind for Rodrigo Peixoto
18 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Monte Azul lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Market16 Apr 2029
Only the photograph left for Zuconelli
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Zuconelli will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Monte Azul the goodbyes have quietly begun.
Squad16 Apr 2029
Ruan Carlos 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.
Boardroom16 Apr 2029
6 academy graduates step up at Monte Azul
Senior shirt numbers handed to boys the coaches have known since they were twelve. Most will not make it and all of them have already done the hard part.
Market16 Apr 2029
There is no fee, no unveiling and no agent on the steps. Cristiano Cunha 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.
Market16 Apr 2029
Clubs spend fortunes looking for players and occasionally find one down the corridor. Luís Soares is that, and the reception he gets on his first appearance will be different in kind from the one any signing receives.
Market16 Apr 2029
There is no fee, no unveiling and no agent on the steps. Luís Rangel 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.
Squad16 Apr 2029
A row about effort at Monte Azul
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Andriw was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.