Marked for Marcelo Bezerra
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Squad22 Jul 2030
15 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Lagarto lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
Squad22 Jul 2030
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the whole of the defence. 8 saves, several of them the kind nobody expects to see made, and ten outfield players who owe him a drink.
The dugout22 Jul 2030
“I was told what my role would be, and I signed on that basis. It has not happened.” A grievance with a date attached is the hardest kind to settle.
Boardroom22 Jul 2030
Window shuts: 1 in, 8 out at Lagarto
The deadline has passed and the squad is the squad. 1 arrived, 8 left, and everything else printed about this club last month was a rumour that stayed one.
Squad22 Jul 2030
Rodrigo Bazilio 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.
Transfer targets22 Jul 2030
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Joinville have kept their man, and Lagarto go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
Match20 Jul 2030
A bad afternoon for Lagarto against Central
0‑2 to Central, and no complaints worth printing. The performance asked for nothing more than it got.
The dugout22 Jul 2030
The manager makes an example of Paulinho
“If you cannot run for the shirt, somebody else will wear it.” No name was used and none was needed; every player in that room knew who it was for.
Boardroom22 Jul 2030
The borrowing at Lagarto reaches $5.1M
Past the limit the bank set, which is the line between a club being financed and a club being in trouble. $5.1M is now the number every conversation about this club will start with.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Crisis
The terraces15 Jul 2030
Supporters organise against the Lagarto 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.
Squad15 Jul 2030
A knee injury of the worst kind for Marcelo Bezerra
22 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Lagarto lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Match13 Jul 2030
Chastening afternoon for Lagarto
A 1‑4 beating by Penedense was the sort of result that empties a stadium long before the final whistle.
Transfer targets15 Jul 2030
The approach was made and the answer came back in a sentence. There is no number on the table because there was no number that would have been enough.
Boardroom15 Jul 2030
No signings allowed at Lagarto
The manager may talk to whoever he likes and may pay nobody. A squad survives a window like this by borrowing, by promoting, and by hoping the injuries land somewhere else.
Player ratings15 Jul 2030
Felipe Rangel was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.22. There are performances a supporter describes to somebody who was not there and cannot quite convey; this was one, and the number does not help either.
Squad15 Jul 2030
100 games in these colours. Service of that kind gets rarer every season, and the crowd knows it.
The dugout15 Jul 2030
Caio Ribeiro gets it from the manager
“Nobody here is above being told.” It was not said with a name attached, but the dressing room can count, and so can everybody who was listening.
Boardroom15 Jul 2030
Nobody left the Lagarto dressing room in a hurry
The door stayed shut a long time after the final whistle. What was said in there is between them; whether it worked is between them and Saturday.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Squad8 Jul 2030
A knee injury of the worst kind for Marcelo Bezerra
29 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Lagarto lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Match6 Jul 2030
4‑0, and the margin flattered nobody — it could have carried another goal or two without complaint. Afternoons like this are why people keep coming.
Boardroom8 Jul 2030
The board have said in public what they had been saying in private. Results between now and the next meeting decide it, and everybody in the building knows the arithmetic.
Boardroom8 Jul 2030
Crisis meeting at Lagarto
The official line will be that it was routine. It was not routine, the timing says so, and every person in that room knows what the next bad result costs.
Player ratings8 Jul 2030
Two goals and a mark of 8.38 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
Match6 Jul 2030
It had gone 8 games. The players did not celebrate like men who had won a match; they celebrated like men who had been let out of something.
Transfer targets8 Jul 2030
$3.0K was the most the club would pay and Náutico 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.
Boardroom8 Jul 2030
$325.9K of the owner's money at Lagarto
The shortfall was covered from upstairs again. Supporters are entitled to be relieved and entitled to ask what happens the month it is not, and both feelings usually arrive together.
Transfer targets8 Jul 2030
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Barra have kept their man, and Lagarto go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Squad1 Jul 2030
36 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Lagarto lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
Match29 Jun 2030
Chastening afternoon for Lagarto
A 0‑4 beating by Juazeirense was the sort of result that empties a stadium long before the final whistle.
Boardroom1 Jul 2030
Pressure builds in the Lagarto boardroom
The directors have stopped offering the manager public warmth. In football that is usually the stage before the short statement.
Match29 Jun 2030
No end in sight to Lagarto's wait for a win
8 matches now without a victory, and the excuses have worn thinner than the patience. Somebody at Lagarto has to find a result from somewhere.
Squad1 Jul 2030
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.
Transfer targets1 Jul 2030
Lagarto have gone to Náutico 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.
Transfer targets1 Jul 2030
$400.00 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.
Match29 Jun 2030
The goals have deserted Lagarto
3 matches, no goals, and a training ground that has tried everything. It will end — droughts always do — but nobody at Lagarto can tell you which week it ends in.
Transfer targets1 Jul 2030
Door shut on Pablo
Lagarto asked and América Mineiro said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
In brief
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Squad
Allef in a row with a teammate
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Boardroom
Doors closed at Lagarto
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The dugout
The manager’s verdict
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad24 Jun 2030
A knee injury of the worst kind for Marcelo Bezerra
43 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Lagarto lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Match22 Jun 2030
The wait goes on for Lagarto
7 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.
Transfer targets24 Jun 2030
No thanks: Genílson rejects the move
Lagarto had done everything except persuade the man himself. He stays at Fortaleza, and the manager goes back to the drawing board with the money still in the bank.
Player ratings24 Jun 2030
Successful dribbles: 22. 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.
Squad24 Jun 2030
Rodrigo Bazilio 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.
Market24 Jun 2030
Emiliano Cuero has left for Santa Cruz in a $35.0K deal. The accountants are pleased; the supporters are less certain.
Transfer targets24 Jun 2030
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Figueirense have kept their man, and Lagarto go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
Boardroom24 Jun 2030
The Lagarto debt reaches $5.0M
Football clubs borrow; that is not the story. Borrowing more than the facility allows is, because from here it is the owner's money or somebody else's decision, and neither of those belongs to the board.
Squad24 Jun 2030
Allef is slowing down
At 35, 3 points below where he was, and a body that has started charging interest. It happens to all of them and it is still the hardest paragraph on this page.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
The terraces13 Aug 2029
The mood at Lagarto 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.
Squad13 Aug 2029
Henrique Silva damages knee ligaments — 112 days out
The words a physio says slowly. 112 days is what the club will announce and everybody who has heard this diagnosis before knows the number is the least of it: the knee comes back before the player does.
Match13 Aug 2029
Lagarto sink to position 15
11 points, and a fixture list that is running out. The mathematics are not yet cruel, but they are no longer kind.
Match11 Aug 2029
4 matches without a win for Lagarto
The run now stands at 4, and the questions being asked around Lagarto are no longer polite ones.
Squad13 Aug 2029
A falling-out at Lagarto
Rodrigo Bazilio and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Match11 Aug 2029
3 matches without a goal for Lagarto
The chances are being made and something is happening between the making and the finishing. 3 matches now, and the anxiety in the ground arrives a little earlier every week.
Market13 Aug 2029
Clubs spend fortunes looking for players and occasionally find one down the corridor. Matheus Araujo is that, and the reception he gets on his first appearance will be different in kind from the one any signing receives.
Market13 Aug 2029
There is no fee, no unveiling and no agent on the steps. Bruno Soares 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.
Market13 Aug 2029
There is no fee, no unveiling and no agent on the steps. Eduardo Costa 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.