Marked for Denis Huseinbašić
From our football correspondent
Steady
Match19 Sep 2028
Braga do the business in Europe
0‑0. Continental football is where a club finds out what it actually is, and Braga came through the finding-out well against Sion.
Player ratings25 Sep 2028
Nobody could get near Pau Víctor
Successful dribbles: 24. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Squad25 Sep 2028
Tempers go at Braga
Roberto Fernández 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.
Squad25 Sep 2028
Víctor Gómez 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.
Match23 Sep 2028
Beaten 0‑1, and beaten fairly. The manager kept his words short afterwards, which was probably wise.
Squad25 Sep 2028
A player who expected to start watched it instead. The manager will call it a decision for the team; João Moutinho will call it something else in private.
Squad25 Sep 2028
João Moutinho 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.
Market25 Sep 2028
The name of Víctor Gómez keeps appearing in other people's back pages. Braga say nothing, which says plenty.
Market25 Sep 2028
The list is a quiet document with a loud meaning. Gastón Mansilla may talk to anybody who asks, and everybody at the club understands what that means.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Triumph
Match9 Sep 2028
Braga make home a hard place to visit
30 without defeat on their own grass. The pitch has not changed; the crowd has — louder earlier, and quicker to sense when the opposition would rather be somewhere else.
Squad11 Sep 2028
“I remember the meeting. I remember exactly what was promised in it.” Braga may remember it differently, which is precisely the problem.
Match9 Sep 2028
Braga make it 6 in a row
Momentum is a hard thing to buy and an easy thing to lose, and right now Braga have 6 straight wins of it.
Player ratings11 Sep 2028
Ricardo Horta, 34, rolls back the years — 8.47
There is an age at which every good afternoon gets described as a throwback, which is unfair and also accurate. 8.47 at 34, and nobody on the pitch was better.
Squad11 Sep 2028
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Braga this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad11 Sep 2028
Ricardo Horta 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.
Squad11 Sep 2028
“The easiest signature of my career.” Denis Huseinbašić and Braga agree another 4 years, and the manager can plan around him rather than about him.
Match9 Sep 2028
Three points for Braga, 2‑1 the final word against Rio Ave in a contest settled by the finer margins.
Market11 Sep 2028
“The manager did not use many words, and he did not need to.” Adrian Bajrami has his answer from Braga; what he does with it is the next window’s story.
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Market10 Jul 2028
“I want to be playing for trophies while my legs still let me.” Nothing in that sentence is a transfer request, and nobody at Braga heard it as anything else.
Squad10 Jul 2028
Tempers go at Braga
Roberto Fernández 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.
Squad10 Jul 2028
Rúben Furtado is a better footballer than he was
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.
Squad10 Jul 2028
Words at Braga training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Ricardo Horta 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.
Squad10 Jul 2028
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Denis Huseinbašić and Braga agree another 4 years.
Market10 Jul 2028
The Fran Navarro story refuses to die
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Fran Navarro signs something — a contract at Braga or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Match11 Sep 2027
2 goals to the good, and then a slow surrender of everything that had been earned. Mario Dorgeles will not be the one blamed for it, but nobody at Braga escapes the conversation that follows a collapse like this.
Match11 Sep 2027
Still nobody has beaten Braga
The unbeaten run reaches 12. Some of them were wins and some were escapes, but a side that refuses to lose is a side other dressing rooms talk about.
Squad13 Sep 2027
“I remember the meeting. I remember exactly what was promised in it.” Braga may remember it differently, which is precisely the problem.
Market13 Sep 2027
Víctor Gómez wants to know where this is going
“I want to win things, and I would like to do it here.” Nothing has been demanded and nothing has been threatened — but a boardroom at Braga hears a sentence like that exactly as it was built.
Squad13 Sep 2027
Tempers go at Braga
Ricardo Horta 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.
Squad13 Sep 2027
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Francisco Chissumba is 22, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
Player ratings13 Sep 2027
One scored and one made, which is a different afternoon from scoring twice and an easier one to overlook. Marked 7.95, and involved in 2 of his side's goals.
Squad13 Sep 2027
Víctor Gómez 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.
Match11 Sep 2027
The run at home goes on for Braga
8 matches unbeaten here. Every visiting manager is asked about it in the week before, which is precisely why it keeps going.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Player ratings23 Aug 2027
Successful dribbles: 40. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Market23 Aug 2027
Benfica come back empty-handed
The bid was some way short and Braga did not need long over it. Nobody in the game reads a first refusal as the end of anything.
Match21 Aug 2027
Whatever happens, Braga do not lose
9 games unbeaten now. Some were earned and some were survived, but a habit is forming — and habits are the hardest thing in football to play against.
Squad23 Aug 2027
“Some mornings you wake up and you are still a long way from everything you know.” It is not the football and it never was; Braga are dealing with a man who wants a different country.
Squad23 Aug 2027
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Braga this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad23 Aug 2027
Diogo Travassos is a better footballer than he was
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.
Squad23 Aug 2027
At 26 the improving is meant to be over. It is not: 3 points better than the mark taken at the start of the year, which is the sort of thing that happens to players who take the boring parts of the job seriously.
Loan watch23 Aug 2027
“I watch every Braga game from here. That says everything about where my head is.” The loan at Felgueiras runs its course, but his heart never made the trip.
Market23 Aug 2027
Every press conference now starts and ends the same way: with Roberto Fernández’s future. The manager has run out of new ways to say nothing.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Match5 Jul 2027
Braga up to position 1
82 points on the board and a place in the leading group. Nobody at the ground is saying the word out loud yet.
Market5 Jul 2027
“I have given everything here and I need a new challenge.” The request is formal, and the relationship will never be quite the same again.
Squad5 Jul 2027
Tempers go at Braga
Roberto Fernández 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.
Squad5 Jul 2027
Words at Braga training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Ricardo Horta 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.
Market5 Jul 2027
Ismaël Gharbi comes back from a loan that worked
42 appearances and 3 goals away from here, and a player the manager did not have in August. Loans are sent out hoping for exactly this and most of them do not deliver it.
Squad5 Jul 2027
“The easiest signature of my career.” Denis Huseinbašić and Braga agree another 4 years, and the manager can plan around him rather than about him.
Market5 Jul 2027
Felgueiras are about to pick up the phone
A conversation is coming this week. Braga will put a number on him, and from there it stops being football and becomes arithmetic.
Boardroom5 Jul 2027
Braga release $13.0M for the manager
The board have put money on the table rather than an encouraging word. What happens to it now is somebody else's problem, and somebody else's job.
Squad5 Jul 2027
12 new faces, and Braga 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.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Match10 May 2027
Braga refuse to drop out of the race
Position 1, 82 points, and the result everyone checks first is now theirs. The word is still not being said around the ground, which is how you know everyone is thinking it.
Squad10 May 2027
18 days, the scan says, and scans are kinder than reality. The fixtures in that window have just become somebody else’s job.
Squad10 May 2027
Tempers go at Braga
Ricardo Horta 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.
Squad10 May 2027
Words at Braga training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Fran Navarro 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.
Squad10 May 2027
“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.
Market10 May 2027
Another week, another link, another denial nobody quite believes. Braga know the market decides these things, not the back pages — but the back pages are louder.
Loan watch10 May 2027
The goals keep arriving from João Marques’s exile
6 goals in 31 games at Torreense — numbers that travel home faster than he does. Somebody at Braga updates a spreadsheet every Monday, and it makes better reading each week.
Loan watch10 May 2027
“I am playing every week here and I feel like a footballer again.” 11 appearances and 10 goals on loan, and a decision waiting in the summer.
Boardroom10 May 2027
The Braga production line keeps running
9 graduates out of an academy now rated 11 out of 20. Clubs this size survive on exactly that, and the town knows every name.