Luiz Otávio 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.
“The supporters are entitled to be angry. So am I. We will put it right.” 1‑4, a manager saying the necessary things, and a dressing room that heard a different version of them.
The dugout14 Dec 2026
Diogo Pereira is still being punished for one mistake
Nobody will confirm it and the team sheets confirm it every week. One error has bought him a spell as second choice that is already longer than the error deserved.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Modou Jarju was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Diogo Pereira 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.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Luiz Otávio was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
He found out with everybody else, an hour before kick-off, from a sheet of paper on a wall. Nobody at Paredes pretended it was anything other than a decision about him.
Squad7 Dec 2026
8 new faces, and Paredes 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.
Somebody else has been better, the manager has said so with a team sheet, and there is no argument to be had. He will get the shirt back the only way it can be got back.
Bruno Menezes 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.
Squad16 Nov 2026
Words at Paredes training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Luiz Otávio 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.
Every squad has one of these fixtures for somebody every season. This one is Fábio Matos’s: the club that knew him first, the supporters who will decide in the first minute whether to applaud, and Paredes needing him to play as if none of it matters.
A conversation in the manager’s office, and a commitment that came out of it. Promises like that are cheap to make and expensive to break, and Imerson has written the date down.
He trains hard, says the right things and goes home to an empty flat. Nobody at Paredes has done anything wrong, which is exactly what makes it so difficult to fix.
Position 6, 14 points, and a run-in that decides whether next season has Thursday nights in it. Nobody is calling it a race yet, which is what people say during one.
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Paredes, and both men came out saying it was fine.
The language has come, the shrug has gone, and he argues in training like a man who expects to be here next year. None of it shows up on a fee and all of it shows up on the pitch.
Position 8 and 10 points, and the table gets read bottom-up in this part of town. The calendar has stopped being a schedule and started being a countdown.
Bruno Menezes 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.
Squad26 Oct 2026
Luiz Otávio 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 a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 20-year-old it feels ownership of. Sorriso 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.
5 without a win is the sort of run that changes how a town talks about its club, and Varzim were the afternoon it stopped. Nothing is fixed by one result and everything feels different by one.
It is a specific kind of quiet, a ground watching a winning position dissolve. Fafe kept coming because nothing stopped them, and Paredes will be asked about the last half hour all week.
1 for Diogo Pereira, marked 7.70, and a centre-half's name in the part of the report he normally only reaches by mistake. He will not be allowed to forget it in the dressing room for a month.
Luiz Otávio 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
Words at Paredes training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Bruno Menezes 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 finished 2‑2, and it somehow always looked like it would. One of those afternoons where the table moves less than the tempers.
The dugout19 Oct 2026
The manager has not finished forgetting Imerson'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.
The team sheet says it in public every week until it changes. The only version of being dropped a footballer cannot argue with, and the one he takes hardest.
Every footballer has an answer to the question about his boyhood club, and most of them never get to act on it. Luiz Otávio has, at Paredes, and the first month will show what that does to a man.
Terms were offered and declined. Whether it was the wages, the role or the town, nobody at Estrela da Amadora is saying, and nobody at Paredes is enjoying the guessing.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Paredes this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Luiz Otávio was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Every shape has positions in it and this one does not have his. Paredes will either change the shape, change his job, or change his club, and he is waiting to hear which.
“It is not the end of the world and it is not good enough. Both of those are true.” The manager, after a 0‑0 draw, said the honest thing and then went to say it again inside.
Successful dribbles: 12. He went past people as if he had been told there was a prize for it, and by the end the full-back had stopped pretending to try.
The clubs had agreed and the player had not. A snub, and a public one: Benfica keep him, and the supporters here are left wondering what he had heard about the place.
Diogo Pereira 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.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Sporting CP have kept their man, and Paredes go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
Squad17 Aug 2026
Words at Paredes training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Miguel Moreno 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.
Marked 8.05 — 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.
Conceding is one thing; the response is what tells you about a dressing room. André Shinyashiki had Paredes level again within 3 minutes, and Braga B never got to play with a lead at all.
He is not being dropped. There is simply nowhere in the formation Paredes are playing to put a man who does what he does, which is a harder thing to be told than any team sheet.
In brief
Player ratingsThe one thing Rúben Fonseca could not do
The deal with Estoril Praia is done in every sense but the one that puts him on the pitch. Nothing goes wrong at this stage, except on the occasions when it does.
Paredes had done everything except persuade the man himself. He stays at Santa Clara, and the manager goes back to the drawing board with the money still in the bank.
Miguel Moreno 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 no fee, no unveiling and no agent on the steps. Francisco Teixeira 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.
The academy exists for exactly this morning. Alexandre Machado has come through every age group the club runs and has now been handed a senior number, and the people who coached him at twelve will be the proudest in the building.
There is no fee, no unveiling and no agent on the steps. Afonso Teixeira 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.
In brief
The dugoutThe manager makes an example of André Coutinho
The dugoutFábio Matos asks for a word with the manager
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Miguel Moreno was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Erik Santana 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.
Paredes have made the call to Santa Clara. No fee, a share of the wages, and a spare shirt in the position where the squad has been thinnest all season.
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Paredes, and both men came out saying it was fine.
A decision that decides nothing on the pitch and everything in the room. The manager has said, without saying it, whose voice he wants heard when his own is not there.