Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Retrô will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Pedro Milans 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.
Squad18 Jan 2027
15 new faces, and Retrô are still learning each other
A squad rebuilt inside one window pays for it in a currency nobody budgets for. The football is not worse than the sum of the players; it is worse than the sum of the players who have played together before.
Retrô have made the call to Itabaiana. No fee, a share of the wages, and a spare shirt in the position where the squad has been thinnest all season.
The dugout18 Jan 2027
The manager has not finished forgetting Júnior Costa's mistake
Publicly it is behind everybody. It is not behind the man who picks the team, and the only place that shows is a team sheet. He will get another chance; he will get it in a match that matters less.
A season-long look at somebody else’s player: Rafael Soares arrives from Londrina with something to prove and a return ticket in the drawer. Good loans make everybody richer; this one starts Saturday.
A season-long look at somebody else’s player: Felipe Costa arrives from Porto Velho with something to prove and a return ticket in the drawer. Good loans make everybody richer; this one starts Saturday.
A medical, a signature, a shirt held up in front of a sponsor’s board. Retrô have done the hard part with Corinthians, and the part that remains is the part supporters actually see.
Ezequiel and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
The terraces21 Dec 2026
Retrô spend $690.0K on the signing the town wanted
It is the rarest sequence in football: supporters ask for something, and the club goes and does it. $690.0K for Cristhian Loor, and for one week nobody is complaining about anything.
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.
Retrô asked and Ponte Preta said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
Cristhian Loor is 20, and Retrô have signed him for the player he will be rather than the one he is. The first team can wait; the point of a deal like this is the years it buys.
Squad21 Dec 2026
8 new faces, and Retrô are still learning each other
A squad rebuilt inside one window pays for it in a currency nobody budgets for. The football is not worse than the sum of the players; it is worse than the sum of the players who have played together before.
He is not being dropped. There is simply nowhere in the formation Retrô are playing to put a man who does what he does, which is a harder thing to be told than any team sheet.
7 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.
“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.
Ninety minutes, two goalkeepers with clean gloves, and not one finish worth keeping. Anápolis will be the happier side with the point.
The dugout23 Nov 2026
The manager has not finished forgetting Júnior Costa's mistake
Publicly it is behind everybody. It is not behind the man who picks the team, and the only place that shows is a team sheet. He will get another chance; he will get it in a match that matters less.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Iury 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.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Iury was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
The music was off and the showers ran late. What was said in that dressing room stays there, but Saturday will publish the minutes.
Squad26 Oct 2026
7 new faces, and Retrô are still learning each other
A squad rebuilt inside one window pays for it in a currency nobody budgets for. The football is not worse than the sum of the players; it is worse than the sum of the players who have played together before.
“We were not good enough today and I am not going to dress it up.” Daniel Porto after 0‑4, in the tone of a man who knows the next question and does not intend to answer it.
Successful dribbles: 14. 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.
In brief
The dugoutThe manager makes an example of Sérgio Gomes
10 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.
9 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.
Goalkeepers do not get to make mistakes; they get to make goals. He made one, he knew it instantly, and there was nobody behind him to make it anything else.
“We were not good enough today and I am not going to dress it up.” Daniel Porto after 0‑5, in the tone of a man who knows the next question and does not intend to answer it.
Squad28 Sep 2026
5 new faces, and Retrô are still learning each other
A squad rebuilt inside one window pays for it in a currency nobody budgets for. The football is not worse than the sum of the players; it is worse than the sum of the players who have played together before.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the whole of the defence. 15 saves, several of them the kind nobody expects to see made, and ten outfield players who owe him a drink.
0‑5 to Brusque, 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.
0‑3 to Confiança, 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.
5 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 supporters are entitled to be angry. So am I. We will put it right.” 0‑5, a manager saying the necessary things, and a dressing room that heard a different version of them.
Boavista go through and Retrô go home, 0‑6 the scoreline that did it. The dressing room will call the league the priority now, because that is what dressing rooms say.
The terraces17 Aug 2026
Retrô are taken apart by Boavista — and the town wants answers
It finished 0-6. A cup exit is a disappointment; this was a public dismantling, and the difference between the two is the number of people who will still be talking about it in August.
Defending was optional and nobody took up the option. 6 goals between Retrô and Boavista, and not one of the people who paid to be there will ask for the money back.
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.
There is a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 14-year-old it feels ownership of. Douglas Costa has it now, and everything he does for the rest of his time here will be measured against the goodwill he was handed for free.
There was one mistake and it ended in the net. Defenders are judged on the worst thing they did rather than on the eighty-nine minutes either side of it, which is unfair and is also the job.
“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.
There is exactly one of these per career and it does not usually go like this. 1 on the scoresheet, 7.49 beside the name, and a crowd that had never seen him before chanting it by the end.
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 14 senior players walked off into it; the rest were not playing.
Player ratings10 Aug 2026
A first appearance Igor Peixoto will want to forget — 5.55
Everybody's debut is one of two stories and this was the other one. 5.55, and the only consolation available is that nobody's career has ever been decided by ninety minutes in a shirt he had just been given.
Defending was optional and nobody took up the option. 10 goals between Retrô and Londrina, and not one of the people who paid to be there will ask for the money back.
There is no fee, no unveiling and no agent on the steps. Rodrygo Rocha 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. Gabriel 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.