Marked for Cavi
From our football correspondent
Triumph
Match7 Nov 2026
Nobody wants to play Sampaio Corrêa right now
9 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.
Squad9 Nov 2026
19 goals and a season average of 7.33. Form like that gets noticed well beyond this town.
Player ratings9 Nov 2026
Up for the corner, and Jean Mangabeira delivers — 7.52
Centre-halves are allowed forward twice a season and are judged on what they do when they get there. Jean Mangabeira scored, was marked 7.52, and got back before anybody noticed he had gone.
Squad9 Nov 2026
Riquelmo 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 Sampaio Corrêa this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Match7 Nov 2026
It finished 2‑1, and it was Jean Mangabeira’s afternoon: on the scoresheet when it mattered, and the reason the points belong to Sampaio Corrêa.
The dugout9 Nov 2026
The manager makes an example of Cavi
“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 ratings9 Nov 2026
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.
Player ratings9 Nov 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.
The dugout9 Nov 2026
João Borges: “That is the standard”
“That is what I want every week. Not the result, the way they went about it.” The manager, after 2‑1, already talking about the next one.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Triumph
Match24 Oct 2026
Trem will want this one forgotten quickly: 4‑0, every duel lost, and a long ride home. Sampaio Corrêa were ruthless in the way good sides are ruthless.
Match24 Oct 2026
7 wins on the spin now, and the question has changed from whether the run ends to who ends it. Confidence like this cannot be bought; it has to be earned exactly this way.
Player ratings26 Oct 2026
Riquelmo scores twice — 8.39
Two goals and a mark of 8.39 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
Squad26 Oct 2026
16 goals and a season average of 7.25. Form like that gets noticed well beyond this town.
Squad26 Oct 2026
Thiago Rodrigues 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.
Squad26 Oct 2026
Words at Sampaio Corrêa training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Andrés Galetto 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.
Player ratings26 Oct 2026
A performance of 8.62 does not come along often, and when it does the rest of the team becomes scenery. He was magnificent.
Player ratings26 Oct 2026
A performance of 8.26 does not come along often, and when it does the rest of the team becomes scenery. He was magnificent.
The dugout26 Oct 2026
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Lautaro Calderón, and the manager let it.
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Market7 Sep 2026
The shirt still fits. Riquelmo is back at Sampaio Corrêa, and half the ground remembers him in these colours already. Some signings need selling to the town; this one sold itself.
Squad7 Sep 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 Sampaio Corrêa this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad7 Sep 2026
Riquelmo has outgrown this division
There is a level at which a footballer stops being tested and starts being contained, and he reached it some time ago. Sampaio Corrêa know it, and so does everybody who watches him.
Squad7 Sep 2026
Alex Sandre is no longer first choice
The manager has re-ordered his thinking and Alex Sandre has come out of it lower. He will be told it is temporary, and the players who have heard that before will avoid his eye.
Market7 Sep 2026
“There is a gap, and pretending there is not helps nobody.” Neither side has moved, and the calendar is working for exactly one of them.
Squad7 Sep 2026
Four weeks in which nobody in the division did his job better. The award goes on a shelf and the player goes back into the side, which is the order Sampaio Corrêa prefer.
The dugout7 Sep 2026
Peu gets picked when it counts
Every manager keeps a short list in his head of the men he wants on the pitch when the stakes rise, and it is never published. The team sheets for the big afternoons say Peu is on it.
Looking ahead7 Sep 2026
A reunion for Cavi
He used to wear the other shirt. On Saturday he plays against Maranhão in this one, and whatever he says this week about it being just another game will be untrue.
From our football correspondent
Triumph
Match15 Aug 2026
17‑0, and the margin flattered nobody — it could have carried another goal or two without complaint. Afternoons like this are why people keep coming.
Squad17 Aug 2026
The match ball belongs to Luan Borges, whose 5 goals turned a difficult afternoon into a procession.
Squad17 Aug 2026
The match ball belongs to Gustavo Furtado, whose 5 goals turned a difficult afternoon into a procession.
Match12 Aug 2026
A 6‑0 win over Cascavel, and the draw for the next round can be watched with some interest for once.
Player ratings17 Aug 2026
Both of them Cavi's — 8.47
2 goals, and the second was the one that settled it. Marked 8.47, and he could have had a third with better luck at the near post.
Squad17 Aug 2026
The match ball belongs to Pedro Emanuel, whose 3 goals turned a difficult afternoon into a procession.
Player ratings17 Aug 2026
A brace, and Walterson takes the afternoon — 8.20
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Walterson provided it, and the 8.20 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
Player ratings17 Aug 2026
Adriano Rodrigues, 21, plays like he has been here for years — 9.06
A mark of 9.06 means one thing beside a twenty-nine-year-old's name and something else entirely beside a 21-year-old's. Nobody at the ground needed telling which this was.
Player ratings17 Aug 2026
2 goals, and the second was the one that settled it. Marked 8.19, and he could have had a third with better luck at the near post.