Marked for Tom van de Looi
From our football correspondent
Steady
Player ratings26 Oct 2026
Successful dribbles: 37. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Match25 Oct 2026
No end in sight to Famalicao's wait for a win
4 matches now without a victory, and the excuses have worn thinner than the patience. Somebody at Famalicao has to find a result from somewhere.
The terraces26 Oct 2026
He is 23 and the ground already sings his name, which is a thing that happens to local boys and almost never to signings. Everything from here is measured against an affection he did nothing to earn except be from here.
Squad26 Oct 2026
Leonardo Realpe 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.
Squad26 Oct 2026
12 new faces, and Famalicao are still learning each other
A squad rebuilt inside one window pays for it in a currency nobody budgets for. The football is not worse than the sum of the players; it is worse than the sum of the players who have played together before.
Player ratings26 Oct 2026
Marked 7.74. Ask anyone leaving the ground what settled it and you will get one name, which is the only award that has ever really counted.
The dugout26 Oct 2026
It is not much of a headline and it is the reason players believe the next promise. Famalicao told Tom van de Looi something would happen and then it happened, which in this industry passes for remarkable.
Match25 Oct 2026
A 1‑1 draw with Estoril Praia leaves the dressing room somewhere between relief and regret.
The dugout26 Oct 2026
“There are things I liked and things we will be doing on Tuesday until they are right.” 1‑1, and a manager who had already decided what Tuesday looked like.
In brief
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The dugout
The manager makes an example of Renan
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The dugout
Kévin Zohi asks for a word with the manager
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Looking ahead
A reunion for Gil Dias
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Squad5 Oct 2026
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 23 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
Player ratings5 Oct 2026
Successful dribbles: 30. There was always a defender in front of him and there was never a defender in front of him for long.
Squad5 Oct 2026
There were 6 saves in it, and at least three that had no business being saves at all. The ten outfield players owe him a drink and they know it.
Squad5 Oct 2026
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Famalicao this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad5 Oct 2026
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Otso Liimatta is 22, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
Match3 Oct 2026
Beaten 0‑1, and beaten fairly. The manager kept his words short afterwards, which was probably wise.
The dugout5 Oct 2026
The view from the dugout
“We will look at it, we will learn from it, and we go again.” The three sentences every manager keeps for a 0‑1 defeat, delivered by Daniel Fonseca to a room that had heard them before.
The dugout5 Oct 2026
Pedro Santos gets it from the manager
“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.
Market5 Oct 2026
Every press conference now starts and ends the same way: with Mathias De Amorim’s future. The manager has run out of new ways to say nothing.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad28 Sep 2026
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 31 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
Squad28 Sep 2026
At 20 he is doing things this season that he could not do last season, and doing them every week. Form comes and goes; this has stayed long enough to be called something else.
Squad28 Sep 2026
Mathias De Amorim and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Player ratings28 Sep 2026
Nobody could get near Gil Dias
Successful dribbles: 19. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Market28 Sep 2026
It is not a grievance and it is not a demand: he wants to play continental football, and he has stopped hiding it. Whether Famalicao can give him that is a question about the club, not about him.
Squad28 Sep 2026
Leonardo Realpe 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.
Match26 Sep 2026
Famalicao rescue it on 91 minutes
Behind, and beaten by any honest reading, until minute 91. Santa Clara had the points in their pocket and a corner of the ground still believed, which is generally when it happens.
The dugout28 Sep 2026
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Tom van de Looi, and the manager let it.
Match26 Sep 2026
1‑1, and both dressing rooms will call it two points lost. A draw that asked plenty of questions and answered none of them.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Market7 Sep 2026
“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.
Squad7 Sep 2026
55 days out for António Machado after a fracture
A bone, which is the one injury with a calendar attached. Famalicao will name a return date and, unusually for this business, will probably be right about it.
Transfer targets7 Sep 2026
A deal that was a phone call from completion at lunchtime was dead by midnight. Famalicao will try again when the window opens; Viktoria Plzen may not be selling by then.
Transfer targets7 Sep 2026
No deal for Isaac James at that price
Famalicao offered $2.9M; Alverca said it was not close. The manager will be told the money is still there for the right player, which is what managers are told.
Boardroom7 Sep 2026
Deadline passes with 13 signed and 14 gone
That is the business done at Famalicao until the window opens again. Whether it was enough will be answered on Saturdays rather than in a column, and the first Saturday is close.
Squad7 Sep 2026
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Famalicao this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad7 Sep 2026
The manager has re-ordered his thinking and Paulo Moreira has come out of it lower. He will be told it is temporary, and the players who have heard that before will avoid his eye.
Squad7 Sep 2026
Words at Famalicao training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Marcos Peña 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.
The dugout7 Sep 2026
Gil Dias knocks on the manager's door
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Famalicao, and both men came out saying it was fine.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad3 Aug 2026
“I never wanted to be anywhere else. There is unfinished business here.” Paulo Moreira commits to Famalicao for another 4 years.
Squad3 Aug 2026
Paulo Moreira and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Squad3 Aug 2026
A row about effort at Famalicao
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Rodrigo Pinheiro was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Market3 Aug 2026
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.
Squad3 Aug 2026
“I have tried. I have really tried, and every day I wake up in the wrong place.” Nobody at Famalicao can coach that out of a man, and nobody there is pretending to.
The dugout3 Aug 2026
Lazar Carević 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 Lazar Carević trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.