Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Azuriz will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
It had gone 6 games. The players did not celebrate like men who had won a match; they celebrated like men who had been let out of something.
The terraces9 Nov 2026
Azuriz supporters have found a favourite in Marcão
There is a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 21-year-old it feels ownership of. Marcão 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.
The academy exists for exactly this morning. Felipe Fonseca 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.
The academy exists for exactly this morning. Felipe Xavier 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.
A bone, which is the one injury with a calendar attached. Azuriz will name a return date and, unusually for this business, will probably be right about it.
4 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.
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.
Another week, another link, another denial nobody quite believes. Azuriz know the market decides these things, not the back pages — but the back pages are louder.
In brief
The dugoutRei left out for tactical reasons at Azuriz
“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.
Squad28 Sep 2026
Words at Azuriz training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Xavier 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.
“We were not good enough today and I am not going to dress it up.” Wesley Cunha after 1‑2, in the tone of a man who knows the next question and does not intend to answer it.
The dugout28 Sep 2026
Somebody else is better right now than Edú Azañero
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.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Edú Azañero trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
In brief
Player ratingsThiago Sales could not find anything
1 for Filipe Alves, marked 7.72, 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.
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.
At 21 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.
The academy exists for exactly this morning. Juninho 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 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.
The dugout14 Sep 2026
The manager’s verdict
“I am not going to get carried away and I will not let them either. It was a good day. There will be harder ones.” Wesley Cunha kept it short after the 1‑0 win, which is what managers do when they are happy.
Xavier 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 Lucão was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
There is a level at which a footballer stops being tested and starts being contained, and he reached it some time ago. Azuriz know it, and so does everybody who watches him.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Xavier trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
6 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.
He is doing things every Saturday that nobody around him can answer. It is flattering for a season and a problem after that, and Azuriz know which stage they are at.
“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.
3 saves does not settle the argument about whose fault it was, and the argument will run all week. Goalkeepers carry these scorelines whoever caused them.
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.
“We were not good enough today and I am not going to dress it up.” Wesley Cunha after 0‑1, in the tone of a man who knows the next question and does not intend to answer it.
5 new signings in one window. Every one may be an upgrade and the side can still be worse for a while, which is the part of a rebuild the verdicts never mention.
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.