Marked for Tuta
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Squad18 Oct 2027
108 days out for Rodrigo Negueba after a fracture
A bone, which is the one injury with a calendar attached. Porto Velho will name a return date and, unusually for this business, will probably be right about it.
Squad18 Oct 2027
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the team. 11 saves, several of them the sort nobody expects to see stopped, and a scoreline that flatters everybody in front of him.
Match16 Oct 2027
0‑4 against Pouso Alegre, and no complaints that would survive the replay. The manager spoke about character afterwards; the terraces used shorter words.
Market18 Oct 2027
“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.
Squad18 Oct 2027
Eduardo Salva and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Boardroom18 Oct 2027
The numbers do not look good at Porto Velho
Wages have outrun income and the accountants have started attending meetings they used to send apologies to. Ambition comes second in a season like this.
Squad18 Oct 2027
Toró falls out with a teammate over standards
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.
Player ratings18 Oct 2027
Tuta ran the middle of the pitch — 6.42
He won it back and then made something of it, which is two jobs and the reason the scoreline looks the way it does. 12 combined actions and a mark of 6.42, and not one of them will make a highlights package.
The dugout18 Oct 2027
“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.
In brief
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Boardroom
Nobody left the Porto Velho dressing room in a hurry
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The dugout
Arthur Ribeiro: “No excuses”
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The dugout
Gadiel has become a man the manager trusts
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Crisis
The terraces22 Feb 2027
Supporters organise against the Porto Velho 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.
Squad22 Feb 2027
Eduardo Salva 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.
Squad22 Feb 2027
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Mauricio Luiz was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Squad15 Feb 2027
Eduardo Salva and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Squad15 Feb 2027
Toca falls out with a teammate over standards
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.
The dugout15 Feb 2027
No hiding place for Gadiel
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Gadiel, and the manager let it.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Match8 Feb 2027
6 points, and a fixture list that is running out. The mathematics are not yet cruel, but they are no longer kind.
Boardroom8 Feb 2027
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.
Squad8 Feb 2027
Daelson 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.
Squad8 Feb 2027
Gadiel falls out with a teammate over standards
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.
Market8 Feb 2027
One of our own: Tuta joins the Porto Velho first team
Clubs spend fortunes looking for players and occasionally find one down the corridor. Tuta is that, and the reception he gets on his first appearance will be different in kind from the one any signing receives.
The dugout8 Feb 2027
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Rafael Farias, and the manager let it.
The dugout8 Feb 2027
Igor without the man who signed him
Every squad is half players the manager chose and half players he inherited. Igor was chosen, the man who chose him has gone, and he starts again from nothing under the next one.
The dugout8 Feb 2027
Gadiel asks for a word with the manager
“I would rather say it to his face than read about it.” The meeting was requested by the player, which tells you most of what you need to know.
The dugout8 Feb 2027
Nobody will confirm this and nothing else explains the last month of selections. A costly error buys a player a period of being second choice that is always longer than the error was.