60 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Santos lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
“This is not anger. I have thought about it for months, and nothing that has happened lately changed my mind.” The request is on a desk at Santos, and it is not being withdrawn.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Santos is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
There is no worse way to lose a footballer. Rúben Ismael has pre-agreed a move away, which means every appearance between now and June is made by a man the club can no longer sell, and somebody upstairs will be asked why the contract was allowed to get here.
Squad9 Apr 2029
Words at Santos training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Álvaro Barreal 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.
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Gabriel Sara signs something — a contract at Santos or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
Every manager keeps a short list in his head of the men he wants on the pitch when the stakes rise, and it is never published. The team sheets for the big afternoons say Matheus Bahia is on it.
In brief
The dugoutAlexis Duarte knocks on the manager’s door
Gabriel Sara 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.
Footballers are asked about their boyhood club so often that nobody listens to the answer. Vitinho has just signed for Santos, and for once the answer mattered.
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.
He is not being dropped. There is simply nowhere in the formation Santos are playing to put a man who does what he does, which is a harder thing to be told than any team sheet.
Nobody at Santos will say this on the record and the team sheets have been saying it for weeks. There is a small group in every squad who get picked when the fixture is difficult, and he has joined it.
Fee agreed, wages agreed, and Central Espanol waiting with a shirt. Nobody at Santos is pretending otherwise, and the supporters have stopped asking whether and started asking when.
“It was not right for me. I am not going to explain why to anybody except the people I owe an explanation to.” A deal agreed between two clubs, and a player who declined to be part of it.
Santos had done everything except persuade the man himself. He stays at Bahia, and the manager goes back to the drawing board with the money still in the bank.
Gabriel Sara and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Squad26 Jun 2028
Words at Santos training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Neymar 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.
Santos asked and Sport Recife said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
“This is not anger. I have thought about it for months, and nothing that has happened lately changed my mind.” The request is on a desk at Santos, and it is not being withdrawn.
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.
“I am grateful for the games, but I did not become a footballer to be somebody else's spare part.” He wants to be at Santos, and 0 appearances in 17 say he has earned the hearing.
Squad1 May 2028
Words at Santos training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Rodinei 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.
200 games in the shirt. Nobody sets out to build a record like that; it happens to a certain kind of player at a certain kind of club, and this town knows what it has.
Behind, and beaten by any honest reading, until minute 91. Bragantino had the points in their pocket and a corner of the ground still believed, which is generally when it happens.
“We keep meeting, and we keep leaving the room with the same numbers we walked in with.” Another round of talks at Santos, another week without a signature from Luan Peres.