Marked for Samu
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Match5 Dec 2026
The run now stands at 5, and the questions being asked around Vitoria Guimaraes are no longer polite ones.
Player ratings7 Dec 2026
Successful dribbles: 21. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
Squad7 Dec 2026
Miguel Maga 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.
Match7 Dec 2026
16 points at the turn. The first half of a season is a promise; the second is a bill, and the town is about to find out which of the two this one was.
Squad7 Dec 2026
“The easiest signature of my career.” Guilherme Ribeiro and Vitoria Guimaraes agree another 5 years, and the manager can plan around him rather than about him.
Loan watch7 Dec 2026
“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 Vitoria Guimaraes, and 2 appearances in 17 say he has earned the hearing.
The dugout7 Dec 2026
The manager makes an example of Fabio Blanco
“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
A place in the month's best eleven for Miguel Nogueira
Four or five weekends of consistency, judged against everybody in the division doing his job. Miguel Nogueira has come out of that comparison in the side, and Vitoria Guimaraes have had the benefit of every one of those afternoons.
Squad7 Dec 2026
Somebody has moved past him. It is not a dropping and it is worse than one, because a dropping is about a Saturday and this is about where he stands.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Player ratings2 Nov 2026
A brace, and Mateus Mané takes the afternoon — 8.97
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Mateus Mané provided it, and the 8.97 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
Player ratings2 Nov 2026
Successful dribbles: 24. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
Match31 Oct 2026
A 3‑1 win over Moreirense, earned rather than given, and the sort of afternoon that sends everyone home talking about next week instead of this one.
Squad2 Nov 2026
Miguel Maga 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 Vitoria Guimaraes this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
The terraces2 Nov 2026
There is a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 23-year-old it feels ownership of. Rodrigo Macedo has it now, and everything he does for the rest of his time here will be measured against the goodwill he was handed for free.
Player ratings2 Nov 2026
There is a version of this player everybody suspected was in there, and on this evidence it is. 8.02, and no argument anywhere in the ground.
Squad2 Nov 2026
Mateus Mané is the month’s best young player
At 19 he was better than everybody his age in the division for four weeks running, which is harder than one good afternoon. Vitoria Guimaraes will try not to make too much of it.
The dugout2 Nov 2026
The manager makes an example of Arnel Jakupović
“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.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad19 Oct 2026
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Juan Diego Castillo is 23, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
Squad19 Oct 2026
João Mendes 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.
Squad19 Oct 2026
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Miguel Maga was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Player ratings19 Oct 2026
Samu beats them one at a time
Successful dribbles: 16. There was always a defender in front of him and there was never a defender in front of him for long.
The dugout19 Oct 2026
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Fabio Blanco, and the manager let it.
The dugout19 Oct 2026
“A point is a point and I will take it, but we should have had all three.” Ricardo Silva after the 0‑0 draw, and the sentence every manager in the country said at some stage this weekend.
Player ratings19 Oct 2026
11 attempts, none of them in. He got into the right places all afternoon, which is the hard part, and did the easy part badly — and that is the version of a bad day a manager can live with.
Match17 Oct 2026
Ninety minutes, two goalkeepers with clean gloves, and not one finish worth keeping. Tondela will be the happier side with the point.
Market19 Oct 2026
The Mateus Mané story refuses to die
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Mateus Mané signs something — a contract at Vitoria Guimaraes or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Player ratings5 Oct 2026
Oumar Camara, 19, steals the show — 7.76
Marked 7.76 at 19, in a side that makes no allowances for age. He did not need any, and he looked the least nervous man on the pitch.
Squad5 Oct 2026
João Mendes 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 Vitoria Guimaraes this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Match3 Oct 2026
It had gone 6 games. The players did not celebrate like men who had won a match; they celebrated like men who had been let out of something.
The dugout5 Oct 2026
No hiding place for Samu
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Samu, and the manager let it.
Player ratings5 Oct 2026
Nélson Oliveira did the work nobody counts — 6.75
12 combined actions and 6.75. The job he did is the one that shows up as other people looking good, and the only reliable way to notice it is to watch what happens on the afternoons he is missing.
The terraces5 Oct 2026
There is a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 22-year-old it feels ownership of. Tony Strata has it now, and everything he does for the rest of his time here will be measured against the goodwill he was handed for free.
Player ratings5 Oct 2026
Mateus Mané beats them one at a time
Successful dribbles: 19. There was always a defender in front of him and there was never a defender in front of him for long.
Squad5 Oct 2026
Words at Vitoria Guimaraes training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Miguel Maga 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.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Market3 Aug 2026
The bid was some way short and Vitoria Guimaraes did not need long over it. Nobody in the game reads a first refusal as the end of anything.
Market3 Aug 2026
It is the most legitimate ambition in the sport and the hardest for most clubs to satisfy. Gustavo Silva wants continental football; whether Vitoria Guimaraes can provide it is a question about the next two seasons, not about him.
Transfer targets3 Aug 2026
Vitoria Guimaraes asked and Maritimo said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
Squad3 Aug 2026
Samu signs on for more
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Samu and Vitoria Guimaraes agree another 3 years.
Squad3 Aug 2026
Óscar Rivas 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
Oumar Camara 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.
Market3 Aug 2026
The name of Miguel Vaz has come up in conversations Vitoria Guimaraes were not part of. Nothing formal, nothing signed — but nothing about it accidental either.
Market3 Aug 2026
36 months and counting on Samu
Still no offer on the table, and Samu’s deal keeps shrinking. In boardroom language, silence this long stops being an oversight and starts being an answer.
Squad3 Aug 2026
9 new faces, and Vitoria Guimaraes 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.