Marked for Jakub Brabec
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Market7 Dec 2026
The interest is real enough to have reached print. Rio Ave have said nothing, which in a transfer window is its own kind of answer.
Match5 Dec 2026
Nobody wants to play Rio Ave right now
3 wins in a row changes how opponents warm up: quieter, more glances across. Runs end, everybody knows that — but nobody in this dressing room is planning for it.
Squad7 Dec 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 Rio Ave this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad7 Dec 2026
Ole Pohlmann 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.
Match5 Dec 2026
A 1‑0 win over Casa Pia, earned rather than given, and the sort of afternoon that sends everyone home talking about next week instead of this one.
Player ratings7 Dec 2026
Ninety minutes of Ole Pohlmann at his very best
Marked 8.44. Players have careers without a single afternoon like this in them, and he has just had one in front of everybody at Rio Ave.
Squad7 Dec 2026
The manager makes an example of Jakub Brabec
“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.
Player ratings7 Dec 2026
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.
Squad7 Dec 2026
Defences have started doubling up on Ole Pohlmann
7 goals and a season average of 7.23 will do that. The space he used to find has gone; he keeps scoring anyway, which is the mark of the real thing.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Squad16 Nov 2026
There were 12 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.
Squad16 Nov 2026
Cezary Miszta 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.
Player ratings16 Nov 2026
Successful dribbles: 22. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Squad16 Nov 2026
Words at Rio Ave training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Ole Pohlmann 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.
Squad16 Nov 2026
“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.
Match14 Nov 2026
A bad afternoon for Rio Ave against Benfica
0‑2 to Benfica, and no complaints worth printing. The performance asked for nothing more than it got.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad12 Oct 2026
Marios Vrousai damages knee ligaments — 58 days out
The words a physio says slowly. 58 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.
Player ratings12 Oct 2026
Successful dribbles: 26. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
Squad12 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 Rio Ave this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad12 Oct 2026
Ole Pohlmann 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.
Squad12 Oct 2026
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Jakub Brabec, and the manager let it.
Match10 Oct 2026
Ninety minutes, two goalkeepers with clean gloves, and not one finish worth keeping. Nacional will be the happier side with the point.