The Tondela Gazette
Squad6 Mar 2028
A knee injury of the worst kind for Leonardo Marques
14 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Tondela lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Match6 Mar 2028
Tondela up to position 2
60 points on the board and a place in the leading group. Nobody at the ground is saying the word out loud yet.
Squad6 Mar 2028
Ruben Martins breaks a bone — 26 days out
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 26 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
Market6 Mar 2028
Zé Ricardo asks to leave Tondela
“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.
Player ratings6 Mar 2028
Joe Hodge was immovable
25 times he got in the way of something. Centre-halves get written about when they make mistakes and ignored when they do not, so an afternoon like this needs saying out loud: he is the reason the scoreline reads as it does.
Match4 Mar 2028
The run at home goes on for Tondela
11 matches unbeaten here. Every visiting manager is asked about it in the week before, which is precisely why it keeps going.
Match4 Mar 2028
Tondela cannot stop winning
3 wins on the spin now, and the question has changed from whether the run ends to who ends it. Confidence like this cannot be bought; it has to be earned exactly this way.
Squad6 Mar 2028
Rony Lopes signs on for more
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Rony Lopes and Tondela agree another 2 years.
Squad6 Mar 2028
Harry Maguire 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 Tondela this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
In brief
- Match Tondela see off Vizela
- Boardroom Tondela release $7.8M for the manager
- Player ratings The afternoon belonged to Charlie McNeill