The Leixões Chronicle
Market14 Aug 2028
Terms done: Lucão is going
Fee agreed, wages agreed, and Lusitânia Lourosa waiting with a shirt. Nobody at Leixões is pretending otherwise, and the supporters have stopped asking whether and started asking when.
Squad14 Aug 2028
7 saves: Marlon Flórez was the team
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the whole of the defence. 7 saves, several of them the kind nobody expects to see made, and ten outfield players who owe him a drink.
Squad14 Aug 2028
Real improvement from Mohamed Bamba at Leixões
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Mohamed Bamba is 23, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
Squad14 Aug 2028
Mohamed Bamba 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 Leixões this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad14 Aug 2028
A late step up for Miguel Reisinho
At 29 the improving is meant to be over. It is not: 4 points better than the mark taken at the start of the year, which is the sort of thing that happens to players who take the boring parts of the job seriously.
Market14 Aug 2028
Rafael Santos wants European nights
The general version of this complaint is that a player wants more. The specific version names the thing: he wants to walk out under floodlights against clubs from other countries, and he has stopped pretending otherwise.
Boardroom14 Aug 2028
Graduation day at Leixões
3 boys move up, and somewhere in the building the people who coached them at twelve are quietly having the best morning of their working year. Nothing about this shows up in a result and it is why the academy exists.
Market14 Aug 2028
Leonardo Moreira steps up from the Leixões academy
There is no fee, no unveiling and no agent on the steps. Leonardo Moreira 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.
Market14 Aug 2028
Daniel Costa steps up from the Leixões academy
There is no fee, no unveiling and no agent on the steps. Daniel 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.
In brief
- Player ratings Werton was on a different afternoon to everybody else
- Player ratings Ninety minutes of Miguel Reisinho at his very best
- Boardroom Leixões board go back on their word