Marked for Zé Leite
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Match27 Feb 2027
No end in sight to Moreirense's wait for a win
17 matches now without a victory, and the excuses have worn thinner than the patience. Somebody at Moreirense has to find a result from somewhere.
Match27 Feb 2027
The goals have deserted Moreirense
5 matches, no goals, and a training ground that has tried everything. It will end — droughts always do — but nobody at Moreirense can tell you which week it ends in.
Squad1 Mar 2027
Kiko Bondoso 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 Moreirense this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad1 Mar 2027
Maracás 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.
Match27 Feb 2027
0‑1 to Vitoria Guimaraes, and no complaints worth printing. The performance asked for nothing more than it got.
Squad1 Mar 2027
Kiko Bondoso has become a man the manager trusts
Nobody at Moreirense will say this on the record and the team sheets have been saying it for weeks. There is a small group in every squad who get picked when the fixture is difficult, and he has joined it.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Match30 Jan 2027
No end in sight to Moreirense's wait for a win
12 matches now without a victory, and the excuses have worn thinner than the patience. Somebody at Moreirense has to find a result from somewhere.
Squad1 Feb 2027
Kiko Bondoso 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 Moreirense this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad1 Feb 2027
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 ratings1 Feb 2027
Successful dribbles: 18. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
Player ratings1 Feb 2027
A masterclass from Zé Leite
Marked 8.00 — the sort of number a correspondent writes down twice to be sure. Everything he tried came off, and what he did not try was not worth trying.
Squad1 Feb 2027
The manager makes an example of Yan Maranhão
“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.
Squad1 Feb 2027
Kiko Bondoso has become a man the manager trusts
Nobody at Moreirense will say this on the record and the team sheets have been saying it for weeks. There is a small group in every squad who get picked when the fixture is difficult, and he has joined it.
Match30 Jan 2027
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
Crisis
Match9 Jan 2027
9 matches without a win for Moreirense
The run now stands at 9, and the questions being asked around Moreirense are no longer polite ones.
Market11 Jan 2027
The offer was not close and it was refused without much discussion. Whether the second one is refused as quickly is another matter.
Market11 Jan 2027
Business is business: Dinis Pinto goes
Benfica paid $2.4M and Moreirense took it, which is the whole story in one sentence. The longer version involves a wage budget and will be told all season.
Squad11 Jan 2027
Kiko Bondoso 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.
Squad11 Jan 2027
Words at Moreirense training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Alexandre Duville-Parsemain 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.
Match9 Jan 2027
The goals have deserted Moreirense
3 matches, no goals, and a training ground that has tried everything. It will end — droughts always do — but nobody at Moreirense can tell you which week it ends in.
Match9 Jan 2027
Beaten 0‑1, and beaten fairly. The manager kept his words short afterwards, which was probably wise.
Squad11 Jan 2027
Nile John 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.
Market11 Jan 2027
“We are a long way apart, and pretending otherwise helps nobody.” Neither side is close, and the calendar is not on the club's side.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Match2 Jan 2027
The wait goes on for Moreirense
8 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.
Squad4 Jan 2027
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the team. 8 saves, several of them the sort nobody expects to see stopped, and a scoreline that flatters everybody in front of him.
Market4 Jan 2027
The offer was not close and it was refused without much discussion. Whether the second one is refused as quickly is another matter.
Squad4 Jan 2027
Kiko Bondoso 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 Moreirense this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad4 Jan 2027
Maracás 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.
Boardroom4 Jan 2027
Nothing happens for months and then he simply arrives, at no cost, having signed a pre-contract while still turning out for somebody else. It is the least dramatic way to sign a footballer and frequently the shrewdest.
Match2 Jan 2027
0‑1 to Sporting CP, and no complaints worth printing. The performance asked for nothing more than it got.
Market4 Jan 2027
“We keep meeting, and we keep leaving the room with the same numbers we walked in with.” Another round of talks at Moreirense, another week without a signature from Dinis Pinto.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Match12 Dec 2026
A European night to remember for Moreirense
0‑0 against Bodo/Glimt, under lights, against people who do not speak the same language as the crowd. These are the evenings a club measures its decade in, and there are never as many of them as anybody expects.
Squad14 Dec 2026
“I remember the meeting. I remember exactly what was promised in it.” Moreirense may remember it differently, which is precisely the problem.
Match12 Dec 2026
The wait goes on for Moreirense
5 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.
Player ratings14 Dec 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.
Squad14 Dec 2026
Kiko Bondoso 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.
Squad14 Dec 2026
The manager makes an example of Dinis Pinto
“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.
Match12 Dec 2026
0‑1 to Famalicao, and no complaints worth printing. The performance asked for nothing more than it got.
Squad14 Dec 2026
Dries Doku left out for the big one
A player who expected to start watched it instead. The manager will call it a decision for the team; Dries Doku will call it something else in private.
Player ratings14 Dec 2026
Zé Leite takes the honours
Marked 7.08 on an afternoon he ran from the first whistle to the last. Whatever else went wrong, Moreirense had the best player on the pitch.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Match3 Oct 2026
A European night to remember for Moreirense
0‑0 against Bodo/Glimt, under lights, against people who do not speak the same language as the crowd. These are the evenings a club measures its decade in, and there are never as many of them as anybody expects.
Squad5 Oct 2026
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 60 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
Squad5 Oct 2026
“I was told what my role would be, and I signed on that basis. It has not happened.” A grievance with a date attached is the hardest kind to settle.
Squad5 Oct 2026
Kiko Bondoso 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 ratings5 Oct 2026
Successful dribbles: 21. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Match3 Oct 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 ratings5 Oct 2026
A performance of 8.12 does not come along often, and when it does the rest of the team becomes scenery. He was magnificent.
Player ratings5 Oct 2026
Some games turn on a moment; this one turned on a man. 7.55 on the card, and the Moreirense support went home talking about one name.
Squad5 Oct 2026
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.
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Player ratings21 Sep 2026
Nobody could get near Nile John
Successful dribbles: 44. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Match19 Sep 2026
Moreirense do the business in Europe
0‑0. Continental football is where a club finds out what it actually is, and Moreirense came through the finding-out well against Djurgarden.
Squad21 Sep 2026
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 78 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
Player ratings21 Sep 2026
7.82, 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.
Squad21 Sep 2026
Kiko Bondoso 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.
Squad21 Sep 2026
Words at Moreirense training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Maracás 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.
Match19 Sep 2026
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Mateja Stjepanović. 2‑1 against AVS, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
The terraces21 Sep 2026
There is a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 22-year-old it feels ownership of. Mateja Stjepanović 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 ratings21 Sep 2026
A masterclass from Zé Leite
Marked 8.16 — the sort of number a correspondent writes down twice to be sure. Everything he tried came off, and what he did not try was not worth trying.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad14 Sep 2026
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Moreirense will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
Squad14 Sep 2026
Kiko Bondoso 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 Moreirense this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad14 Sep 2026
Maracás 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.
Match12 Sep 2026
Benfica left with the points after a 0‑1 defeat that will take some explaining on the terraces.
Squad14 Sep 2026
9 new faces, and Moreirense 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 ratings14 Sep 2026
Successful dribbles: 15. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Player ratings24 Aug 2026
Successful dribbles: 29. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Market24 Aug 2026
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Moreirense can pretend not to have heard.
Market24 Aug 2026
Torreense come back empty-handed
The bid was some way short and Moreirense did not need long over it. Nobody in the game reads a first refusal as the end of anything.
Squad24 Aug 2026
Kiko Bondoso 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.
Match22 Aug 2026
A 2‑1 win over Estoril Praia, earned rather than given, and the sort of afternoon that sends everyone home talking about next week instead of this one.
Player ratings24 Aug 2026
Zé Leite was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.30. 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.
Player ratings24 Aug 2026
Ninety minutes of Dries Doku at his very best
Marked 8.00. Players have careers without a single afternoon like this in them, and he has just had one in front of everybody at Moreirense.
Squad24 Aug 2026
No hiding place for Landerson
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Landerson, and the manager let it.
Squad24 Aug 2026
Hernâni dropped after a run of poor form
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.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Market10 Aug 2026
Braga come back empty-handed
The bid was some way short and Moreirense did not need long over it. Nobody in the game reads a first refusal as the end of anything.
Squad10 Aug 2026
A move Zé Leite would have made for nothing
There is a version of every career where the player ends up somewhere he chose rather than somewhere that chose him. Zé Leite is living that version at Moreirense, and it tends to show in the first month.
Squad10 Aug 2026
Maracás signs on for more
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Maracás and Moreirense agree another 3 years.
Squad10 Aug 2026
Kiko Bondoso 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 Moreirense this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad10 Aug 2026
Maracás 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.
Market10 Aug 2026
The name of Gilberto Batista has come up in conversations Moreirense were not part of. Nothing formal, nothing signed — but nothing about it accidental either.