Everyone has stopped pretending: Wuhan Three Towns will make the call about Del Piage this week. Avaí have a number in mind, and the number is not shy.
It is never announced and it is entirely visible: the biggest afternoons of the season keep containing him. A press box works this out long before anybody at the club confirms a word of it.
Another week, another link, another denial nobody quite believes. Avaí know the market decides these things, not the back pages — but the back pages are louder.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Avaí is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
“I am grateful for the games, but I did not become a footballer to be somebody else's spare part.” He wants to be at Avaí, and 0 appearances in 5 say he has earned the hearing.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Zé Ricardo trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
Nobody at Avaí 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.
“I listened, I thought about it, and I am staying. That is the whole story.” The clubs had agreed a fee. Del Piage had not agreed to go, which turned out to be the part that mattered.
Emiliano Martínez 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.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Rafael Bilu trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
He used to be one of the options. He is now one of the men the options are picked around, and the change happened quietly enough that only the dressing room noticed on the day.
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 Del Piage is on it.
“I listened, I thought about it, and I am staying. That is the whole story.” The clubs had agreed a fee. Gaspar had not agreed to go, which turned out to be the part that mattered.
Del Piage 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.
Nobody at Avaí 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.
The offer from Beijing Guoan for Igor Bohn was heard out and sent back the same day. First bids are rarely meant to succeed; they are meant to find out how loudly the door closes.
Add another name to the list: Zhejiang FC have asked the question everybody in the game has been asking about Del Piage. The answer from Avaí has not changed — yet.
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 Otávio Passos is on it.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Avaí is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Valladolid have kept their man, and Avaí go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Avaí 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 Allyson was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
It is never announced and it is entirely visible: the biggest afternoons of the season keep containing him. A press box works this out long before anybody at the club confirms a word of it.
His past walked in ahead of him. Players who have been where he has been get a hearing in a dressing room before they have earned one, and he has it for as long as his form does.
“I did not come here to warm up in front of people.” He is out of contract eventually, he is old enough to count the weeks, and Avaí will have to give him a reason to stay or an exit.
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Avaí, and both men came out saying it was fine.
In brief
MarketThe window shut and Otávio Passos is still in the building
The last thing about a transfer that is still about the player is his signature on his own terms, and it is there. Avaí have lost him in all but the paperwork.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Avaí have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Everybody at Avaí saw it before anybody said it, which is how this always goes. At 36 the decline is real and measurable — 3 points — and the only question left is how the club handles somebody it owes a great deal to.
A deal that was a phone call from completion at lunchtime was dead by midnight. Avaí will try again when the window opens; Volta Redonda may not be selling by then.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Allyson was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Clubs make promises constantly and the page usually only hears about them when they are broken. This one was honoured, and the dressing room noticed that faster than any supporter did.
The last thing about a transfer that is still about the player is his signature on his own terms, and it is there. Avaí have lost him in all but the paperwork.
“It was not right for me. I am not going to explain why to anybody except the people I owe an explanation to.” A deal agreed between two clubs, and a player who declined to be part of it.
Avaí and Volta Redonda have settled on $290.0K. The rest belongs to the player and his agent, and a supporter who has watched one of these before knows not to buy the shirt yet.
It is the most legitimate ambition in the sport and the hardest for most clubs to satisfy. Alef Manga wants continental football; whether Avaí can provide it is a question about the next two seasons, not about him.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Avaí this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
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.
In brief
Transfer targetsA loan move for Charles is in the works
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 19 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
The offer from Iguatu for Gabriel Simples was heard out and sent back the same day. First bids are rarely meant to succeed; they are meant to find out how loudly the door closes.
Avaí have gone to Grêmio with a bid, and the supporters have gone to the internet with an opinion about it. Whether either changes anything is up to the selling club.
It is not a grievance and it is not a demand: he wants to play continental football, and he has stopped hiding it. Whether Avaí can give him that is a question about the club, not about him.
Add another name to the list: Maranhão have asked the question everybody in the game has been asking about Gaspar. The answer from Avaí has not changed — yet.
He is not being dropped. There is simply nowhere in the formation Avaí are playing to put a man who does what he does, which is a harder thing to be told than any team sheet.
A loan enquiry to Vitoria Guimaraes: cover, or a look at somebody the club cannot afford to buy yet. Either way the answer will come back inside the week.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Avaí will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
The last thing about a transfer that is still about the player is his signature on his own terms, and it is there. Avaí have lost him in all but the paperwork.
A medical, a signature, a shirt held up in front of a sponsor’s board. Avaí have done the hard part with Palmeiras, and the part that remains is the part supporters actually see.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Avaí this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
It is never announced and it is entirely visible: the biggest afternoons of the season keep containing him. A press box works this out long before anybody at the club confirms a word of it.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Allyson trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
A new face in his position and a shirt he thought he owned suddenly up for discussion. Avaí have promised nothing, which is what clubs promise at this stage.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Avaí will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
Two goals and a mark of 8.34 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
At 33 he is supposed to be managing his minutes. Instead he was marked 8.00 and looked, for ninety minutes, exactly like the player everybody remembers.
$1.6M on the table at Vasco da Gama. The manager wanted him, the board agreed a number, and the only voices still to be heard are the ones at the other club.
The number the board signed off was not enough. It has been asked again and raised its own offer to $1.8M — a club that wants Daniel Fuzato enough to be asked twice.
Luiz Henrique 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.
Squad7 Dec 2026
Daniel Penha 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.
In brief
Player ratingsAlef Manga was on a different afternoon to everybody else
Luiz Henrique 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.
Cuiabá left with the points after a 0‑1 defeat that will take some explaining on the terraces.
Squad30 Nov 2026
Daniel Penha 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.
Clubs make promises constantly and the page usually only hears about them when they are broken. This one was honoured, and the dressing room noticed that faster than any supporter did.
The dugout30 Nov 2026
The manager’s verdict
“That is on me. I pick the team and I picked wrong.” Managers say that when they mean it and when they need to be seen to, and after 0‑1 Sérgio Barbosa left the room before anybody could ask which.
“I respect the manager and I am not going to sit here and pretend I am happy.” It is the most common sentence in football and it has never once been the end of a story.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Avaí have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Every touch is being weighed now, in print and everywhere else. Some players grow into that and some are quietly ruined by it, and nobody knows which in advance.
Successful dribbles: 13. 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.
Nobody at Avaí 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.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Avaí this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Daniel Penha 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.
Something was said to Wenderson and then it happened. In this industry that passes for remarkable, and the dressing room noticed faster than any supporter could.
Nobody at Avaí 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.
Every squad has one of these fixtures for somebody every season. This one is Wesley Gasolina’s: the club that knew him first, the supporters who will decide in the first minute whether to applaud, and Avaí needing him to play as if none of it matters.
Numbers do not stay secret in a dressing room. He is not asking for more than he is worth; he is asking why somebody beside him is worth more, and Avaí have no good answer.
There is an age at which every good afternoon gets described as a throwback, which is unfair and also accurate. 9.99 at 33, and nobody on the pitch was better.
Defending was optional and nobody took up the option. 6 goals between Avaí and Paysandu, and not one of the people who paid to be there will ask for the money back.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Daniel Penha 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.
“I remember the meeting. I remember exactly what was promised in it.” Avaí may remember it differently, which is precisely the problem.
Player ratings2 Nov 2026
A brace, and Alef Manga takes the afternoon — 8.58
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Alef Manga provided it, and the 8.58 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
It is not much of a headline and it is the reason players believe the next promise. Avaí told Zé Ricardo something would happen and then it happened, which in this industry passes for remarkable.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the whole of the defence. 7 saves, several of them the kind nobody expects to see made, and ten outfield players who owe him a drink.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Avaí is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
The general version of this complaint is that a player wants more. The specific version names the thing: he wants to walk out under floodlights against clubs from other countries, and he has stopped pretending otherwise.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Daniel Penha was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Marked 8.33 — 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.
18 defensive actions and a clean sheet at the end of them. A defender's afternoon can only be told by what did not happen, which is why nobody makes a highlights package out of one and every manager in the division would take it.
16 signings in three months. Every one of them may be an upgrade and the team can still be worse for a while, which is the part of a rebuild that never appears in the transfer-window verdicts.
The general version of this complaint is that a player wants more. The specific version names the thing: he wants to walk out under floodlights against clubs from other countries, and he has stopped pretending otherwise.
At 21 he is doing things this season that he could not do last season, and doing them every week. Form comes and goes; this has stayed long enough to be called something else.
3 matches, no goals, and a training ground that has tried everything. It will end — droughts always do — but nobody at Avaí can tell you which week it ends in.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Avaí 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 Allyson was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
It is never announced and it is entirely visible: the biggest afternoons of the season keep containing him. A press box works this out long before anybody at the club confirms a word of it.
Everybody saw it before anybody said it. At 35 the numbers say 3 points down on what he was, and the question for Avaí is how to handle a man they owe a great deal.
Luiz Henrique 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.
The system has changed and his position has not. A footballer can improve his form; he cannot improve the manager’s formation, and that is the whole of the problem.
Volta Redonda next, and one man in the Avaí dressing room knows their training ground better than his own. The reception will tell him what they thought of him.
It is never announced and it is entirely visible: the biggest afternoons of the season keep containing him. A press box works this out long before anybody at the club confirms a word of it.
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Avaí, and both men came out saying it was fine.
Nothing in writing and nothing in public: a word about playing time, given face to face at Avaí. The team sheets over the next month will show whether it was worth having.
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Jean Lucas signs something — a contract at Avaí or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
Luiz Henrique 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.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Allyson was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
It happens to all of them and it is still the hardest paragraph a local paper has to write. 36 years old, 3 points down on where he was, and a body that has started charging interest on a career.
The manager has re-ordered his thinking and Allyson 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.
The dugout5 Oct 2026
The manager’s verdict
“That is on me. I pick the team and I picked wrong.” Managers say that when they mean it and when they need to be seen to, and after 0‑1 Sérgio Barbosa left the room before anybody could ask which.
Nobody at Avaí is suggesting he is out of form. The manager simply wanted somebody with a different set of qualities for ninety specific minutes, and there is nothing a player can train to fix that.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 20 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Avaí they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
The rules permit it and it stings anyway. Luiz Henrique has agreed terms with Cuiabá for the summer, and until then he pulls on this shirt as a player who has already chosen his next one.
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.
15 signings in three months. Every one of them may be an upgrade and the team can still be worse for a while, which is the part of a rebuild that never appears in the transfer-window verdicts.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Wenderson trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
The dugout28 Sep 2026
The manager’s verdict
“I am frustrated, honestly. We did enough to win and we did not win.” Sérgio Barbosa was not hiding it after 0‑0, and nobody in the Avaí dressing room was either.
A bone, which is the one injury with a calendar attached. Avaí will name a return date and, unusually for this business, will probably be right about it.
A defender on the scoresheet, which happens rarely enough that everybody in the ground remembers who took the corner. 1 for him, and a mark of 7.82 for the rest of it.
Zé Ricardo 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.
Successful dribbles: 16. 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 dugout21 Sep 2026
The view from the dugout
“We controlled it. There were spells I did not like and we will look at them, but the group showed me something.” Sérgio Barbosa, on a 2‑1 win that he was already picking apart on the walk to the press room.
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 Gaspar is on it.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Luiz Henrique trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
There is a version of every career where the player ends up somewhere he chose rather than somewhere that chose him. Matheus Jussa is living that version at Avaí, and it tends to show in the first month.
The rules permit it and it stings anyway. Kauã Fernandes has agreed terms with Tombense for the summer, and until then he pulls on this shirt as a player who has already chosen his next one.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Allyson was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
The system has changed and his position has not. A footballer can improve his form; he cannot improve the manager’s formation, and that is the whole of the problem.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Allyson was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
“We keep meeting, and we keep leaving the room with the same numbers we walked in with.” Another round of talks at Avaí, another week without a signature from Luiz Henrique.
Not a new contract, not a new number: a new place in the manager’s thinking, which is the only promotion in football that actually matters. Wenderson has moved up it.
It is never announced and it is entirely visible: the biggest afternoons of the season keep containing him. A press box works this out long before anybody at the club confirms a word of it.
3 months left, and both sides know what that means: every week without a signature, the fee Avaí could ask drops and the wages Luiz Henrique can ask rise.
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Wallison signs something — a contract at Avaí or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
14 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Avaí lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
There were 88 minutes on the clock and Ituano had all but banked the point. Football rarely reads the room, and Avaí did not stop to explain themselves.
It is not a grievance and it is not a demand: he wants to play continental football, and he has stopped hiding it. Whether Avaí can give him that is a question about the club, not about him.
Successful dribbles: 23. 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.
There is a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 21-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.
The words a physio says slowly. 21 days is what the club will announce and everybody who has heard this diagnosis before knows the number is the least of it: the knee comes back before the player does.
The offer from Ravan for Jefferson Maciel was heard out and sent back the same day. First bids are rarely meant to succeed; they are meant to find out how loudly the door closes.
The general version of this complaint is that a player wants more. The specific version names the thing: he wants to walk out under floodlights against clubs from other countries, and he has stopped pretending otherwise.
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.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Avaí this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Successful dribbles: 15. 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.
31 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Avaí lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Two goals and a mark of 8.73 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the team. 7 saves, several of them the sort nobody expects to see stopped, and a scoreline that flatters everybody in front of him.
Player ratings17 Aug 2026
Sorriso, 21, plays like he has been here for years — 7.76
A mark of 7.76 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.
At 33 he is supposed to be managing his minutes. Instead he was marked 8.34 and looked, for ninety minutes, exactly like the player everybody remembers.
There is no worse way to lose a footballer. Jamerson has pre-agreed a move away, which means every appearance between now and June is made by a man the club can no longer sell, and somebody upstairs will be asked why the contract was allowed to get here.
Defending was optional and nobody took up the option. 6 goals between Avaí and Santa Cruz de Natal, and not one of the people who paid to be there will ask for the money back.
In brief
SquadWords at Avaí training over how hard people work
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.
He left as a boy and has come back still knowing where the away end is. Most signings have to be explained to a town; this one needed a photograph and nothing else.
The academy exists for exactly this morning. Willian Guimarães 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.
Clubs spend fortunes looking for players and occasionally find one down the corridor. Marcelo Martins is that, and the reception he gets on his first appearance will be different in kind from the one any signing receives.
Successful dribbles: 18. 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 goal that put Botafogo-SP ahead was still being replayed on the concourse when Avaí equalised, 1 minutes later. Leads are only worth what you do with them.
The system has changed and his position has not. A footballer can improve his form; he cannot improve the manager’s formation, and that is the whole of the problem.
Successful dribbles: 27. 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.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Avaí 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 Allyson was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
There is a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 21-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.
Still no offer on the table, and Zé Ricardo’s deal keeps shrinking. In boardroom language, silence this long stops being an oversight and starts being an answer.
13 signings in three months. Every one of them may be an upgrade and the team can still be worse for a while, which is the part of a rebuild that never appears in the transfer-window verdicts.