Feirense will want this one forgotten quickly: 4‑0, every duel lost, and a long ride home. Felgueiras were ruthless in the way good sides are ruthless.
João Pedro 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.
18 days, the scan says, and scans are kinder than reality. The fixtures in that window have just become somebody else’s job.
Squad14 Feb 2028
Ismaël Gharbi 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.
“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 The request is on a desk at Felgueiras, and it is not being withdrawn.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the team. 6 saves, several of them the sort nobody expects to see stopped, and a scoreline that flatters everybody in front of him.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Felgueiras have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
4 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.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Felgueiras this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad3 Jan 2028
Words at Felgueiras training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Ismaël Gharbi 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 ratingsIsmaël Gharbi was on a different afternoon to everybody else
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the team. 6 saves, several of them the sort nobody expects to see stopped, and a scoreline that flatters everybody in front of him.
João Pedro 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.
Squad27 Dec 2027
Ismaël Gharbi 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.
Player ratings27 Dec 2027
Jalen Blesa was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.03. There are performances a supporter describes to somebody who was not there and cannot quite convey; this was one, and the number does not help either.
Max Thompson 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 is a version of every career where the player ends up somewhere he chose rather than somewhere that chose him. Riccardo Gnudi is living that version at Felgueiras, and it tends to show in the first month.
Squad11 Oct 2027
Words at Felgueiras training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Ismaël Gharbi 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.
3 games without scoring. Strikers stop looking up, midfielders take the extra touch, and every shot that clears the bar is followed by a groan that has been building since the last goal.
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Guilherme Ribeiro is 21, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Felgueiras this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad20 Sep 2027
Afonso Freitas has improved at 27, which nobody expected
Careers are supposed to plateau and then decline, and the players who ignore that are always the ones who were listening on the training ground. 3 points of it, over months, at an age where the direction normally only goes one way.
Squad20 Sep 2027
Ismaël Gharbi 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.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Felgueiras have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
The chase for Jalen Blesa ended with $3.9M changing hands and Rio Ave out of reasons to say no. The supporters will judge the fee the only way that matters: on Saturdays.
“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 Felgueiras, and it is not being withdrawn.
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 23 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.
Max Thompson 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.
Boards get told what they have done wrong for years and hear nothing on the days they get it right. This is one of those days: Jalen Blesa from Rio Ave for $3.9M, and a ticket office having a very good morning.
Squad30 Aug 2027
Words at Felgueiras training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Léo Teixeira 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.
“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 Felgueiras, and it is not being withdrawn.
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 21 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.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Felgueiras this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad23 Aug 2027
Léo Teixeira 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.
Careers are supposed to plateau and then decline, and the players who ignore that are always the ones who were listening on the training ground. 3 points of it, over months, at an age where the direction normally only goes one way.
What was said behind closed doors has now been said in front of a microphone. Everybody at Felgueiras can do the arithmetic, including the man it is aimed at.
Léo Teixeira 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.
Squad2 Aug 2027
Words at Felgueiras training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Michel Costa 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.
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Michel Costa signs something — a contract at Felgueiras or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Tiago Leite will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Felgueiras the goodbyes have quietly begun.
The terraces15 Feb 2027
The ground has had enough
“We travel everywhere and we get this.” 6 of the 29 senior players heard it walking off, and the ones who did not hear it were not playing.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Felgueiras this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Felgueiras is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
Player ratings18 Jan 2027
Oumar Camara, 19, plays like he has been here for years — 8.03
A mark of 8.03 means one thing beside a twenty-nine-year-old's name and something else entirely beside a 19-year-old's. Nobody at the ground needed telling which this was.
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 Felgueiras this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
74 days, the scan says, and scans are kinder than reality. The fixtures in that window have just become somebody else’s job.
Squad18 Jan 2027
Words at Felgueiras training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. João Pedro 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.
At 19 he is being sung about by people twice his age, which is an affection a signing has to earn over years and a local kid gets for turning up. It is also the hardest thing in football to live up to.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Felgueiras this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad14 Dec 2026
Words at Felgueiras training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Léo Teixeira 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.
“We keep meeting, and we keep leaving the room with the same numbers we walked in with.” Another round of talks at Felgueiras, another week without a signature from Filipe Cruz.
Marked 5.58. Nothing he attempted worked and by the hour mark he had stopped attempting much, which is the part a manager notices rather than the mistakes.
“We pay for this every fortnight. The least we want is somebody who looks like he cares.” 5 of the 25 senior players walked off into it; the rest were not playing.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Felgueiras this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad26 Oct 2026
Words at Felgueiras training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. João Pedro 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.
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.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Felgueiras this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
The unbeaten run reaches 6. Some of them were wins and some were escapes, but a side that refuses to lose is a side other dressing rooms talk about.
Squad19 Oct 2026
Words at Felgueiras training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Léo Teixeira 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.
“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 Felgueiras, and it is not being withdrawn.
Tiago Leite 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.
Squad24 Aug 2026
João Pedro 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.
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.