“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Santa Cruz de Natal can pretend not to have heard.
The phone has started ringing about Dudu again, and this time the name on the line is Humaitá. Santa Cruz de Natal are listening politely and promising nothing.
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.
Everybody at Santa Cruz de Natal saw it before anybody said it, which is how this always goes. At 35 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.
Santa Cruz de Natal have made the call to Boavista. No fee, a share of the wages, and a spare shirt in the position where the squad has been thinnest all season.
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Luis Miranda signs something — a contract at Santa Cruz de Natal or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
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.
Riquelme Felipe 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.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and André Santos was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
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.
Every squad has one of these fixtures for somebody every season. This one is Geovani’s: the club that knew him first, the supporters who will decide in the first minute whether to applaud, and Santa Cruz de Natal needing him to play as if none of it matters.
A year in and the language has not come, the city has not opened up, and he eats alone more often than anybody at Santa Cruz de Natal would like to admit. It is showing on Saturdays.
Peu arrived with a record at a bigger club than this one, and the room has treated him accordingly. The young ones watch him train; the senior ones watch to see whether it lasts.
“We were not good enough today and I am not going to dress it up.” Carlos Freitas after 1‑2, in the tone of a man who knows the next question and does not intend to answer it.
82 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Santa Cruz de Natal lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
The instruction has come from upstairs rather than from the dugout, which is the version of this conversation no manager enjoys. Somebody in that squad is now available whether the man who picks the team thinks so or not.
André Santos 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.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Gustavo Telles 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.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Jequié have kept their man, and Santa Cruz de Natal go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
Clubs spend fortunes looking for players and occasionally find one down the corridor. Marcelo Lima is that, and the reception he gets on his first appearance will be different in kind from the one any signing receives.
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.