61 points, and the rest of the division looking up. Every side that finishes first spends the season pretending it is not thinking about it, and this one has started pretending.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Botafogo this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad15 Feb 2027
Words at Botafogo training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Artur 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.
10 goals in 25 games at Ludogorets — numbers that travel home faster than he does. Somebody at Botafogo updates a spreadsheet every Monday, and it makes better reading each week.
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 Vitinho is on it.
“I know what people will say. I know what I want, and it is here.” Mladost Lucani had the fee agreed and the shirt ready; they did not have the player, and now they will not.
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 Botafogo this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
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 Alex Telles is on it.
Nothing in writing and nothing in public: a word about playing time, given face to face at Botafogo. The team sheets over the next month will show whether it was worth having.
The shrug has gone, the language is coming, and he now argues in training like somebody who expects to be here next year. Half a signing's value is this and none of it appears on a fee.
Alex Telles 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 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 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. Botafogo know the market decides these things, not the back pages — but the back pages are louder.
Alex Telles 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 Artur 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.
Nothing in writing and nothing in public: a word about playing time, given face to face at Botafogo. The team sheets over the next month will show whether it was worth having.
He is going to FC Augsburg, the club has $26.0M it did not have on Friday, and the phone-ins have already decided how they feel about that. Selling well and selling somebody they loved are not the same skill.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Botafogo this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad18 Jan 2027
Words at Botafogo training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Artur 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 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.
“This is not anger. I have thought about it for months, and nothing that has happened lately changed my mind.” The request is on a desk at Botafogo, and it is not being withdrawn.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Cristian Medina was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
It is not much of a headline and it is the reason players believe the next promise. Botafogo told Nahuel Ferraresi something would happen and then it happened, which in this industry passes for remarkable.
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 Botafogo, and both men came out saying it was fine.
There are footballers who have a good season and footballers a season is remembered for, and the second kind get their names read out in a hall in the summer. Botafogo will be quietly delighted and privately nervous.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Artur 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 19-year-old it feels ownership of. Álvaro Montoro 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.
90 minutes played. Cristian Medina found the finish in time that only existed because of earlier delays, and Atlético Mineiro went from a point to nothing inside one movement.
Botafogo asked and Shakhtar said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
“This is not anger. I have thought about it for months, and nothing that has happened lately changed my mind.” The request is on a desk at Botafogo, and it is not being withdrawn.
Arthur Cabral 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 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.
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Cristian Medina. 2‑1 against Atlético Mineiro, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
Marked 8.34 — 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.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Cristian Medina was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
10 goals in 19 games at Ludogorets — numbers that travel home faster than he does. Somebody at Botafogo updates a spreadsheet every Monday, and it makes better reading each week.
Nobody at Botafogo 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.
In brief
The dugoutBotafogo pick somebody else ahead of Allan
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Mirassol have kept their man, and Botafogo go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
There are footballers who have a good season and footballers a season is remembered for, and the second kind get their names read out in a hall in the summer. Botafogo will be quietly delighted and privately nervous.
There is no worse way to lose a footballer. Rafael Porfírio 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.
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Arthur Cabral. 2‑1 against Flamengo, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
There comes a point where a club either backs its own ambition or admits it does not have any. Botafogo have paid $3.6M for Rodriguinho, which is the loudest way there is of saying which one it chose.
Player ratings7 Dec 2026
Álvaro Montoro, 19, plays like he has been here for years — 8.18
A mark of 8.18 means one thing beside a twenty-nine-year-old's name and something else entirely beside a 19-year-old's. Nobody at the ground needed telling which this was.
The offer went to Vasco da Gama this week and it is theirs to answer. First bids are rarely meant to succeed; they are meant to find out how loud the door closes.
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.
Gabriel Batista 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.
Squad30 Nov 2026
Words at Botafogo training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Cristian Medina 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.
Minute 91, against Juventude, and a goal that felt like a win to everybody who had stayed. It was a draw. Nobody leaving the ground will describe it as one.
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.
16 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.
The words a physio says slowly. 15 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.
47 points, and the rest of the division looking up. Every side that finishes first spends the season pretending it is not thinking about it, and this one has started pretending.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Botafogo this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
15 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.
The words a physio says slowly. 24 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.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Cristian Medina was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Player ratings16 Nov 2026
Danilo was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.40. There are performances a supporter describes to somebody who was not there and cannot quite convey; this was one, and the number does not help either.
In brief
Player ratingsNinety minutes of Júnior Santos at his very best
14 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.
31 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Botafogo lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
Two goals and a mark of 9.60 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
12 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.
39 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Botafogo lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
2 goals, and the second was the one that settled it. Marked 8.44, and he could have had a third with better luck at the near post.
Player ratings2 Nov 2026
Álvaro Montoro, 19, plays like he has been here for years — 7.94
A mark of 7.94 means one thing beside a twenty-nine-year-old's name and something else entirely beside a 19-year-old's. Nobody at the ground needed telling which this was.
“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 Botafogo hears a sentence like that exactly as it was built.
5 straight away victories. Sides that win away are usually sides that can defend and can counter, and the table has begun to reflect what those journeys have earned.
Luan Polli 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.
12 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.
47 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Botafogo lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Two goals and a mark of 9.23 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
35 points and nobody above them. The word is not being said around the ground yet, and it is being thought in every seat.
Player ratings26 Oct 2026
Álvaro Montoro, 19, plays like he has been here for years — 7.91
A mark of 7.91 means one thing beside a twenty-nine-year-old's name and something else entirely beside a 19-year-old's. Nobody at the ground needed telling which this was.
11 home matches unbeaten. Visiting sides arrive already talking about the atmosphere, which is usually the sign that they have half-lost before kickoff.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Botafogo this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Position 2, 32 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.
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.
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.
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Danilo. 2‑0 against Bragantino, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
9 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.
Gabriel Batista 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.
At 20 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.
Successful dribbles: 17. 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.
8 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.
Alex Telles 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 Cristian Medina was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Player ratings5 Oct 2026
Arthur Cabral was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.92. There are performances a supporter describes to somebody who was not there and cannot quite convey; this was one, and the number does not help either.
Marked 8.29 — 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.
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.
The hardest thing about being 19 in a senior side is that nobody makes allowances. Álvaro Montoro did not need any: 8.16, and he looked the most comfortable man on the pitch.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Botafogo this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
A season average of 7.31 with 12 goals behind it. Opponents have started planning around him, which is the sincerest compliment football pays.
Squad28 Sep 2026
Words at Botafogo training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Cristian Medina 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.
He is 19 and the ground already sings his name, which is a thing that happens to local boys and almost never to signings. Everything from here is measured against an affection he did nothing to earn except be from here.
A 2‑0 win over Internacional, earned rather than given, and the sort of afternoon that sends everyone home talking about next week instead of this one.
Momentum is a hard thing to buy and an easy thing to lose, and right now Botafogo have 6 straight wins of it.
Player ratings21 Sep 2026
Álvaro Montoro, 19, plays like he has been here for years — 8.02
A mark of 8.02 means one thing beside a twenty-nine-year-old's name and something else entirely beside a 19-year-old's. Nobody at the ground needed telling which this was.
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Arthur Cabral. 2‑0 against Palmeiras, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
There is a version of this player everybody suspected was in there, and on this evidence it is. 8.30, and no argument anywhere in the ground.
Player ratings21 Sep 2026
Arthur Cabral was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.27. There are performances a supporter describes to somebody who was not there and cannot quite convey; this was one, and the number does not help either.
Successful dribbles: 17. There was always a defender in front of him and there was never a defender in front of him for long.
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.” Willian Peixoto, on a 2‑0 win that he was already picking apart on the walk to the press room.
22 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Botafogo lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
5 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.
Squad14 Sep 2026
Words at Botafogo training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Cristian Medina 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.
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Arthur Cabral. 1‑0 against Sport Recife, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
A season average of 7.21 with 10 goals behind it. Opponents have started planning around him, which is the sincerest compliment football pays.
Squad14 Sep 2026
13 new faces, and Botafogo 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.
Nobody at Botafogo 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.
29 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Botafogo lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Marked 9.82 — 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.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Cristian Medina was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
2 goals inside twenty minutes with Arthur Cabral in the middle of it, and Vasco da Gama unable to get near the ball long enough to change anything. Some matches are won before the first drink.
Luan Polli 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.
In brief
BoardroomThe Botafogo board find $7.2M for the manager
The dugoutThe manager makes an example of Luan Polli
The words a physio says slowly. 39 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.
Cup ties wait for somebody to seize them, and Matheus Martins obliged against Vitória. 4‑0 on the night, and the name in the next round’s hat is Botafogo.
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Matheus Martins provided it, and the 8.61 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
At 19 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.
There is a particular helplessness in conceding 2 times before the twentieth minute. Ceará tried to reorganise, Botafogo did not allow it, and the result was written long before it was confirmed.
The words a physio says slowly. 47 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.
A shoot-out is remembered by its ending, and this one ends with Gabriel Batista: 2 kept out, and a set of supporters who will describe every one of them for the next twenty years.
Fee agreed, wages agreed, and Kifisia waiting with a shirt. Nobody at Botafogo is pretending otherwise, and the supporters have stopped asking whether and started asking when.
Marked 9.74 — 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.
Alex Telles 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.
6 goals. Both benches spent the second half looking at each other rather than at the pitch. Purists will complain about Botafogo and Parana in equal measure; everybody else had a wonderful time.
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 23-year-old it feels ownership of. Matheus Martins 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.
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Júnior Santos. 2‑0 against Atlético Mineiro, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
In brief
Player ratingsNinety minutes of Matheus Martins at his very best
“I know what people will say. I know what I want, and it is here.” Radnicki 1923 had the fee agreed and the shirt ready; they did not have the player, and now they will not.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Botafogo this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
The academy exists for exactly this morning. Renato Correia 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. Alex Rangel 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. Gabigol is that, and the reception he gets on his first appearance will be different in kind from the one any signing receives.
Squad10 Aug 2026
12 new faces, and Botafogo 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.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Vitinho trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
It is a specific kind of quiet, a ground watching a winning position dissolve. Flamengo kept coming because nothing stopped them, and Botafogo will be asked about the last half hour all week.
Two goals and a mark of 8.28 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
Alex Telles 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.
“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 Botafogo hears a sentence like that exactly as it was built.
There is a version of every career where the player ends up somewhere he chose rather than somewhere that chose him. Paulinho Boia is living that version at Botafogo, and it tends to show in the first month.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Cristian Medina was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
The name of Kadir Barría has come up in conversations Botafogo were not part of. Nothing formal, nothing signed — but nothing about it accidental either.