“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 The request is on a desk at Tondela, and it is not being withdrawn.
2 in front and in complete control, and it finished with Casa Pia the happier side. There is no version of this afternoon that Tondela will enjoy reviewing.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Tondela this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad18 Jan 2027
Words at Tondela training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Carraça 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.
Rony Lopes 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.
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.
There is no complaint available here and everybody involved knows it, which does not make the walk to the bench any shorter. Form is the only currency in football that cannot be borrowed against.
A season-long audition: Nacional still own him, but the shirt and the minutes are Tondela's to give. A loan is a bet both clubs believe they are winning.
341 appearances across 8 seasons in one shirt. Nobody builds a career like that on purpose any more; it happens to a certain kind of footballer at a certain kind of club.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Tondela this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
The phone has started ringing about Yaya Sithole again, and this time the name on the line is Rio Ave. Tondela are listening politely and promising nothing.
Nobody makes a documentary about a hamstring and everybody in the game fears one. Tondela will be careful with the return date, because the second one is always worse than the first.
Successful dribbles: 17. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
Squad4 Jan 2027
Words at Tondela training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Carraça 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.
Brayan Medina 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.
The chances are being made and something is happening between the making and the finishing. 4 matches now, and the anxiety in the ground arrives a little earlier every week.
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.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Tondela is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Tondela this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
3 matches, no goals, and a training ground that has tried everything. It will end — droughts always do — but nobody at Tondela can tell you which week it ends in.
Clubs make promises constantly and the page usually only hears about them when they are broken. This one was honoured, and the dressing room noticed that faster than any supporter did.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Tondela can pretend not to have heard.
Rony Lopes 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.
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.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Tondela this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
“If you cannot run for the shirt, somebody else will wear it.” No name was used and none was needed; every player in that room knew who it was for.
Squad7 Dec 2026
Words at Tondela training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Carraça 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.
14 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Tondela lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
The 85th minute, half the ground already edging towards the exits, and Arjen van der Heide decided nobody was going anywhere. Famalicao had no time left to answer.
Rony Lopes 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.
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Arjen van der Heide. 2‑1 against Famalicao, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
The words a physio says slowly. 22 days is what the club will announce and everybody who has heard this diagnosis before knows the number is the least of it: the knee comes back before the player does.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Tondela they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Tondela this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
30 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Tondela lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Rony Lopes 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.
Two of the goals had his name somewhere on them, which is the afternoon a manager wants from anybody asked to both create and finish. 7.96, and 2 involvements.
The words a physio says slowly. 45 days is what the club will announce and everybody who has heard this diagnosis before knows the number is the least of it: the knee comes back before the player does.
3 kept out in the shoot-out, and a stadium that will still be describing them in twenty years. A goalkeeper only needs one of these to be remembered forever.
7 without a win now, and the ground has developed the special quiet of a crowd that expects the worst. One scrappy 1-0 would cure most of it; that is the maddening part.
Rony Lopes 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.
10 goals. Both benches spent the second half looking at each other rather than at the pitch. Purists will complain about Tondela and Leiria in equal measure; everybody else had a wonderful time.
The words a physio says slowly. 52 days is what the club will announce and everybody who has heard this diagnosis before knows the number is the least of it: the knee comes back before the player does.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Tondela this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Successful dribbles: 19. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Squad26 Oct 2026
Words at Tondela training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Carraça 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.
Rony Lopes 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.
The one version of being left out a player cannot argue with, and the one he takes worst. Somebody else has been better and the team sheet says so, in public, every week until it changes.
Ninety minutes, no goals, and the argument started before the car park emptied: a point gained, or two thrown away against Vitoria Guimaraes? Both sides of it will still be going on Thursday.
7.62, 1 on the scoresheet, and the specific comedy of a back-four player celebrating like somebody who does this every week. He does not, and that is exactly why the ground reacted the way it did.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Tondela this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 22 he is doing things at this level he could not do at the start of the season, and the coaching staff will tell you exactly which of them.
At 24 the improving is meant to be over. It is not: 3 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.
Squad12 Oct 2026
Words at Tondela training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Carraça 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.
In brief
Player ratingsThe afternoon belonged to Makan Aïko
Rony Lopes 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.
There was one mistake and it ended in the net. Defenders are judged on the worst thing they did rather than on the eighty-nine minutes either side of it, which is unfair and is also the job.
Squad5 Oct 2026
The manager has not finished forgetting Carraça's mistake
Publicly it is behind everybody. It is not behind the man who picks the team, and the only place that shows is a team sheet. He will get another chance; he will get it in a match that matters less.
There is no complaint available here and everybody involved knows it, which does not make the walk to the bench any shorter. Form is the only currency in football that cannot be borrowed against.
Two goals and a mark of 7.95 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
He will play here until the summer and then walk out of the door for free, having already signed elsewhere. Supporters will manage the first part of that sentence; it is the second they will struggle with.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Tondela this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
8 goals in one match, Arjen van der Heide on the scoresheet, and a scoreline that will look like a misprint. Neutrals could not have asked more of Tondela and Porto.
Beaten 4 times, with 5 saves for company. Goalkeepers carry these scorelines on their record whoever actually caused them, which is the quiet injustice of the job.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Tondela this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad14 Sep 2026
Brayan Medina 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.
There is no complaint available here and everybody involved knows it, which does not make the walk to the bench any shorter. Form is the only currency in football that cannot be borrowed against.
Nobody sells a season ticket on a signing like this. Every manager who has been through a bad October wants one anyway, and Tondela have gone and got theirs early.
It is the least glamorous business a club does and the reason seasons do not collapse in February. Marcinho is here for the weeks when three men are injured and somebody still has to play.
Rony Lopes 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.
Squad7 Sep 2026
Words at Tondela training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Brayan Medina 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 one version of being left out a player cannot argue with, and the one he takes worst. Somebody else has been better and the team sheet says so, in public, every week until it changes.
1‑4 to Benfica, and it was every bit as bad as the number suggests. There are defeats you argue about and defeats you apologise for; this was the second kind.
“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 Tondela, and it is not being withdrawn.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Tondela this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
The manager kept them in and said what needed saying. A response is expected on Saturday, and if it does not come the questions move upstairs.
Squad31 Aug 2026
Words at Tondela training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Carraça 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.
Whether it was the goalkeeper or the ten in front of him is the argument that will fill every conversation in town this week. 2 saves does not settle it either way.
“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 Tondela, and it is not being withdrawn.
Squad24 Aug 2026
Words at Tondela training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Rony Lopes 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.
Bebeto 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.
Everyone has stopped pretending: Gil Vicente will make the call about Pedro Maranhão this week. Tondela have a number in mind, and the number is not shy.
A defender's mistake gets tidied up by somebody else; a goalkeeper's ends up in the net. He knew before the ball crossed the line, and so did everybody in the ground.
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.
The chase for Tiago Leite ended with $980.0K changing hands and Felgueiras out of reasons to say no. The supporters will judge the fee the only way that matters: on Saturdays.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Tondela this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
4 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.
Clubs spend fortunes looking for players and occasionally find one down the corridor. Fernando Carvalho is that, and the reception he gets on his first appearance will be different in kind from the one any signing receives.
There is no fee, no unveiling and no agent on the steps. Bruno Pereira 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.
Clubs spend fortunes looking for players and occasionally find one down the corridor. Marco Silva is that, and the reception he gets on his first appearance will be different in kind from the one any signing receives.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Tondela this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad10 Aug 2026
Brayan Medina 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.