The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Ceilândia is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Jefferson Maciel was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Felipe Zamboni 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.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Orlando Neto was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
“We keep meeting, and we keep leaving the room with the same numbers we walked in with.” Another round of talks at Ceilândia, another week without a signature from Lucas Werneck.
The name of Márcio Bezerra has come up in conversations Ceilândia were not part of. Nothing formal, nothing signed — but nothing about it accidental either.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Orlando Neto was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Ceilândia asked and Penedense said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
Squad18 Jan 2027
11 new faces, and Ceilândia 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.
Every shape has positions in it and this one does not have his. Ceilândia will either change the shape, change his job, or change his club, and he is waiting to hear which.
“We keep meeting, and we keep leaving the room with the same numbers we walked in with.” Another round of talks at Ceilândia, another week without a signature from Kevinho.
A new face in his position, and Reinaldo Dutra suddenly has to win back what he thought he owned. Ceilândia have promised nothing — clubs rarely do at this stage.
A season-long look at somebody else’s player: Dyllan Bustamante arrives from Bahia with something to prove and a return ticket in the drawer. Good loans make everybody richer; this one starts Saturday.
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 21 he is doing things at this level he could not do at the start of the season, and the coaching staff will tell you exactly which of them.
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.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Atlético Mineiro have kept their man, and Ceilândia go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
Clubs spend fortunes looking for players and occasionally find one down the corridor. Leonardo 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. Pedro Alves 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.
Felipe Zamboni 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.
Ceilândia have made the call to Botafogo-SP. No fee, a share of the wages, and a spare shirt in the position where the squad has been thinnest all season.
18 points at the turn. The first half of a season is a promise; the second is a bill, and the town is about to find out which of the two this one was.
The dugout30 Nov 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 Guilherme Peixoto left the room before anybody could ask which.
The dugout30 Nov 2026
The manager has not finished forgetting Andrei'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.
Marked 5.08. Nothing he attempted worked and by the hour mark he had stopped attempting much, which is the part a manager notices rather than the mistakes.
Behind, and beaten by any honest reading, until minute 92. Pouso Alegre had the points in their pocket and a corner of the ground still believed, which is generally when it happens.
“It is not the end of the world and it is not good enough. Both of those are true.” The manager, after a 2‑2 draw, said the honest thing and then went to say it again inside.
Nobody at Ceilândia is suggesting he is out of form. The manager simply wanted somebody with a different set of qualities for ninety specific minutes, and there is nothing a player can train to fix that.
Chances created: 6. Nothing on the scoresheet and everything in the match: the pass before the pass, over and over, until the defence stopped guessing right.
“If we are going to be beaten, let it not be because somebody in here could not be bothered.” He stood up and said it in front of everybody, which is a thing a squad remembers about a man for years.
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Ceilândia, and both men came out saying it was fine.
Everybody at Ceilândia saw it before anybody said it, which is how this always goes. At 39 the decline is real and measurable — 3 points — and the only question left is how the club handles somebody it owes a great deal to.
Clubs spend fortunes looking for players and occasionally find one down the corridor. Marcelo Assis is that, and the reception he gets on his first appearance will be different in kind from the one any signing receives.
Squad12 Oct 2026
14 new faces, and Ceilândia 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.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Carioca trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the team. 7 saves, several of them the sort nobody expects to see stopped, and a scoreline that flatters everybody in front of him.
Every footballer has an answer to the question about his boyhood club, and most of them never get to act on it. Warlen has, at Ceilândia, and the first month will show what that does to a man.
Everything agreed with another club, everything agreed with the player; a doctor is the only person left to persuade. The photograph is a day or two away.
He is doing things every Saturday that nobody around him can answer. It is flattering for a season and a problem after that, and Ceilândia know which stage they are at.
At 14 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.
The one goal a footballer does not get to celebrate and does not get to forget either. His name is in the wrong column and nothing about it was meant.
Squad17 Aug 2026
5 new faces, and Ceilândia 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.
The dugout17 Aug 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.” Guilherme Peixoto, on a 2‑1 win that he was already picking apart on the walk to the press room.