The Ceará Chronicle
Squad26 Feb 2029
Vinicius Zanocelo 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 Ceará this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Boardroom26 Feb 2029
Ceará beat the market to Rodrigo Piñeiro from Náutico
Náutico will keep picking him until June and will get nothing for him after it. Rodrigo Piñeiro has pre-agreed a move to Ceará, and the only people who lose in that arrangement are the ones who let the contract run down.
Squad26 Feb 2029
A row about effort at Ceará
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Adriano Bispo was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
The dugout26 Feb 2029
No hiding place for Mateus Jorge
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Mateus Jorge, and the manager let it.
Market26 Feb 2029
Vinicius Zanocelo linked with a move away
The name of Vinicius Zanocelo keeps appearing in other people's back pages. Ceará say nothing, which says plenty.
The dugout26 Feb 2029
Melk knocks on the manager’s door
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Melk trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
The dugout26 Feb 2029
Adriano Bispo gets picked when it counts
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 Adriano Bispo is on it.
The dugout26 Feb 2029
The manager makes Vina a promise
Nothing in writing and nothing in public: a word about playing time, given face to face at Ceará. The team sheets over the next month will show whether it was worth having.
Boardroom26 Feb 2029
Ceará keep producing them
27 graduates from an academy now rated 9 out of 20. A club this size does not survive any other way, and every name on that list is known in the town.
In brief
- Squad Rafael Moreira finally belongs at Ceará
- Loan watch Rodrigo Garro has made Vitoria Guimaraes’s shirt his own
- Squad Danilo Borges is out on the grass again