Fee agreed, terms agreed, and a scan that said otherwise. He goes back to Ituano; Iguatu go back to the market; and both will insist there is no story here.
Everything agreed with Santa Cruz, everything agreed with the player; a doctor is the only person left to persuade. The photograph is a day or two away.
Terms were offered and declined. Whether it was the wages, the role or the town, nobody at Palmeiras is saying, and nobody at Iguatu is enjoying the guessing.
$32.0K was the most the club would pay and Atlético Mineiro 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.
Squad21 Dec 2026
Words at Iguatu training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Lima 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.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Iguatu this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Another week, another link, another denial nobody quite believes. Iguatu know the market decides these things, not the back pages — but the back pages are louder.
He is doing things every Saturday that nobody around him can answer. It is flattering for a season and a problem after that, and Iguatu know which stage they are at.
At 33 he is supposed to be managing his minutes. Instead he was marked 8.09 and looked, for ninety minutes, exactly like the player everybody remembers.
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.
Half the programme played, position 6, 24 on the board. Doubling it is the sum every supporter has done and the only one nobody at the club will do out loud.
The dugout30 Nov 2026
The view from the dugout
“We controlled it. There were spells I did not like and we will look at them, but the group showed me something.” Marcos Ribeiro, on a 1‑0 win that he was already picking apart on the walk to the press room.
Badhuga 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.
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.
Marked 8.04 — the sort of number a correspondent writes down twice to be sure. Everything he tried came off, and what he did not try was not worth trying.
The one version of being left out a player cannot argue with, and the one he takes worst. Somebody else has been better and the team sheet says so, in public, every week until it changes.
“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 Iguatu, and it is not being withdrawn.
3 matches, no goals, and a training ground that has tried everything. It will end — droughts always do — but nobody at Iguatu can tell you which week it ends in.
“There are things I liked and things we will be doing on Tuesday until they are right.” 0‑0, and a manager who had already decided what Tuesday looked like.
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.
In brief
The dugoutGuilherme Lima dropped after a run of poor form
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Iguatu this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
It happens to all of them and it is still the hardest paragraph a local paper has to write. 37 years old, 3 points down on where he was, and a body that has started charging interest on a career.
11 new signings in one window. Every one may be an upgrade and the side can still be worse for a while, which is the part of a rebuild the verdicts never mention.
“It is not the end of the world and it is not good enough. Both of those are true.” The manager, after a 0‑0 draw, said the honest thing and then went to say it again inside.
Ninety minutes, no goals, and the argument started before the car park emptied: a point gained, or two thrown away against Sampaio Corrêa? Both sides of it will still be going on Thursday.
Every debut is a small story about the future: Fernando Moreira, 14 years old, off the academy pitches and into the first team. The parents in the stand will keep the programme.
At 18 he is doing things this season that he could not do last season, and doing them every week. Form comes and goes; this has stayed long enough to be called something else.
The most common injury in the game and the most rushed back from. Iguatu will quote 15 days and will be careful with it, because the second one is always worse than the first.
There is no fee, no unveiling and no agent on the steps. Fernando Moreira 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.
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.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Iguatu this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
At 18 he was better than everybody his age in the division for four weeks running, which is harder than one good afternoon. Iguatu will try not to make too much of it.
“It is not the end of the world and it is not good enough. Both of those are true.” The manager, after a 0‑0 draw, said the honest thing and then went to say it again inside.
The manager wanted a different profile for this opponent, which is a real football reason and no consolation. He did nothing wrong and he did not play.
There is a version of every career where the player ends up somewhere he chose rather than somewhere that chose him. Joaquín Jorquera is living that version at Iguatu, and it tends to show in the first month.
He is 18 and the ground already sings his name, which is a thing that happens to local boys and almost never to signings. Everything from here is measured against an affection he did nothing to earn except be from here.
9 signings in three months. Every one of them may be an upgrade and the team can still be worse for a while, which is the part of a rebuild that never appears in the transfer-window verdicts.
“We earned that. I asked them for a reaction and I got one, and now I want the same again on Saturday.” Marcos Ribeiro on a 1‑0 afternoon that pleased him more than he was prepared to show.
Operário Ferroviário go through and Iguatu go home, 0‑1 the scoreline that did it. The dressing room will call the league the priority now, because that is what dressing rooms say.
At 21 he is being sung about by people twice his age, which is an affection a signing has to earn over years and a local kid gets for turning up. It is also the hardest thing in football to live up to.
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Juninho. 2‑0 against Manauara, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
Caio Soares 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 players deserve the credit. My job was easy today.” It was not, and everybody in the room knew it; after 2‑0, Marcos Ribeiro could afford to be generous.
Marquinho is 37 and has run out of things to prove. What he has left is where to stand, when to slow it down and what to say at half-time, and none of that is on a fitness chart.
There is no fee, no unveiling and no agent on the steps. Vitor Peixoto 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.
There is no fee, no unveiling and no agent on the steps. Henrique Guimarães 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.
There is no fee, no unveiling and no agent on the steps. Guilherme Lima 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.
The academy exists for exactly this morning. Juninho 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.
The dugout10 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 0‑2 Marcos Ribeiro left the room before anybody could ask which.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Iguatu this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.