1‑0 against São Paulo, and the songs went on long after the whistle. League positions come and go; days like this get retold at family dinners for years.
3‑1 against Llaneros, and a performance that will be described to people who were not there for the rest of the season. Memphis Depay was at the centre of the description.
There are goals, and then there are goals against that particular opponent. The Corinthians support have their bragging rights for a year and they know exactly whose name is on them.
“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 Corinthians hears a sentence like that exactly as it was built.
Yuri Alberto 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.
Squad9 Nov 2026
Words at Corinthians training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Gabriel Paulista 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 have ambitions, and I would like the club to share them.” Nobody has asked to leave and nobody has been shown the door — but a player chooses that sentence carefully, and a boardroom hears it exactly as it was meant.
Kaio César 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.
Marked 8.24 — 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.
4‑1 against Llaneros, and a performance that will change how the rest of the competition talks about this club. Reputations in continental football are built in single evenings and this was one.
Two goals and a mark of 8.93 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
At 35 he is supposed to be managing his minutes. Instead he was marked 8.94 and looked, for ninety minutes, exactly like the player everybody remembers.
Successful dribbles: 25. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
Squad26 Oct 2026
Words at Corinthians training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Gabriel Paulista 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 was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Corinthians this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
In brief
SquadDefences have started doubling up on Yuri Alberto
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Corinthians this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 20 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.
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 kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Raniele provided it, and the 9.54 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
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.
Yuri Alberto 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.
2‑2 against Independiente Medellin, and a performance that will be described to people who were not there for the rest of the season. Yuri Alberto was at the centre of the description.
Headers, blocks, tackles, interceptions — 26 of them, and not one goal behind him. The sort of performance that never makes a highlight reel and wins football matches.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Corinthians 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.
Marked 9.07 — 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.
Yuri Alberto 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.
It finished 2‑1, and it was Memphis Depay’s afternoon: on the scoresheet when it mattered, and the reason the points belong to Corinthians.
Player ratings28 Sep 2026
Pedro Raul was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.84. 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.
Player ratings28 Sep 2026
Yuri Alberto was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.71. 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.
Squad28 Sep 2026
Words at Corinthians training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Breno Bidon 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.
Pedro Raul had done his part in building a 2-goal cushion. What happened after that was collective, and Defensor Sporting were allowed back into a match that had been finished with.
There is an age at which every good afternoon gets described as a throwback, which is unfair and also accurate. 8.52 at 35, and nobody on the pitch was better.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Corinthians this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Marked 8.72 — 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.
Derby days make names, and Dieguinho made his against Palmeiras. 2‑1, bragging rights secured, and one half of town will be tired of hearing about him by Tuesday.
“I have ambitions, and I would like the club to share them.” Nobody has asked to leave and nobody has been shown the door — but a player chooses that sentence carefully, and a boardroom hears it exactly as it was meant.
Beat anybody else and it is three points. Beat them and it is a story a city tells for a decade. Corinthians have their man.
Squad14 Sep 2026
Words at Corinthians training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Gabriel Paulista 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 was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Corinthians this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Corinthians 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.
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Kaio César. 2‑1 against Sport Recife, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
A performance of 8.66 does not come along often, and when it does the rest of the team becomes scenery. He was magnificent.
Player ratings7 Sep 2026
Kaio César was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.66. 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.
An error at the back is a moment; an error in goal is a goal. Matheus Donelli knows it, the crowd knew it instantly, and there was nobody behind him to make it anything else.
In brief
Loan watchThe goals keep arriving from Félix Torres’s exile
The terracesEverybody has an opinion about Zakaria Labyad
1‑2 against Vitória, and the road stops here. Cup exits are quick deaths — no second leg, no next week, just the league from now until May.
Player ratings31 Aug 2026
Dieguinho, 18, plays like he has been here for years — 8.17
A mark of 8.17 means one thing beside a twenty-nine-year-old's name and something else entirely beside a 18-year-old's. Nobody at the ground needed telling which this was.
Yuri Alberto 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.
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.
Marked 8.66 — 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.
Conceding is one thing; the response is what tells you about a dressing room. Yuri Alberto had Corinthians level again within 3 minutes, and Vasco da Gama never got to play with a lead at all.
Cup ties wait for somebody to seize them, and Kaio César obliged against Juventude. 1‑0 on the night, and the name in the next round’s hat is Corinthians.
The board had gone up, the arguing had started, and then the ball was in the net in the 92th minute. Juventude will replay every second of the added time for a week.
Player ratings24 Aug 2026
André, 20, plays like he has been here for years — 7.80
A mark of 7.80 means one thing beside a twenty-nine-year-old's name and something else entirely beside a 20-year-old's. Nobody at the ground needed telling which this was.
Player ratings24 Aug 2026
A first appearance Araujo will want to forget — 5.79
Everybody's debut is one of two stories and this was the other one. 5.79, and the only consolation available is that nobody's career has ever been decided by ninety minutes in a shirt he had just been given.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Corinthians 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.
21 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.
Yuri Alberto 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.
Defensive actions: 22. He was first to everything and second to nothing, and the goalkeeper had an easy day because of it.
Squad17 Aug 2026
Words at Corinthians training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Matheus Bidu 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.
Nobody at Corinthians 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 have ambitions, and I would like the club to share them.” Nobody has asked to leave and nobody has been shown the door — but a player chooses that sentence carefully, and a boardroom hears it exactly as it was meant.
Yuri Alberto 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.
2 goals inside twenty minutes with Memphis Depay in the middle of it, and Botafogo unable to get near the ball long enough to change anything. Some matches are won before the first drink.
“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 Corinthians hears a sentence like that exactly as it was built.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Corinthians 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.
“Nobody here is above being told.” It was not said with a name attached, but the dressing room can count, and so can everybody who was listening.
Player ratings3 Aug 2026
Yuri Alberto was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.93. 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.
Player ratings3 Aug 2026
Memphis Depay was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.28. 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 8.26 — 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.