13 games unbeaten now. Some were earned and some were survived, but a habit is forming — and habits are the hardest thing in football to play against.
Player ratings4 Jan 2027
A brace, and Memphis Depay takes the afternoon — 9.72
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Memphis Depay provided it, and the 9.72 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
The clubs have settled the fee and he has settled his wages. What remains is a medical and a photograph, and around Corinthians people have started saying his name in the past tense.
The kind of year that ends with a name being read out in a hall. Corinthians had the benefit of it every week and now have the problem of everybody else knowing.
$4.3M was the most the club would pay and Mirassol were asking for more. Deals like this are revived in the last week of a window roughly half the time, and everybody involved knows 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 Corinthians this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Léo Agostinho will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Corinthians the goodbyes have quietly begun.
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 22 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.
The offer from Santos for Breno Bidon 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.
Corinthians offered $3.4M; Bahia said it was not close. The manager will be told the money is still there for the right player, which is what managers are told.
There is a version of every career where the player ends up somewhere he chose rather than somewhere that chose him. André Luís is living that version at Corinthians, and it tends to show in the first month.
“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.
Done, and with games to spare. Next season has floodlit nights against clubs from other countries in it, and the accounts have a line they did not have last year.
$15.5M was the most the club would pay and Flamengo were asking for more. Deals like this are revived in the last week of a window roughly half the time, and everybody involved knows it.
“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.
The offer from Vasco da Gama for Matheus Bidu 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.
8 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 offer went to Flamengo 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.
Player ratings7 Dec 2026
A brace, and Rodrigo Garro takes the afternoon — 8.64
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Rodrigo Garro provided it, and the 8.64 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
Fee agreed, wages agreed, and Sampaio Correa waiting with a shirt. Nobody at Corinthians is pretending otherwise, and the supporters have stopped asking whether and started asking when.
Transfer targets7 Dec 2026
$1.7M settles it between the clubs for Wallace Yan
Bragantino have accepted the money. What Corinthians do not yet have is the man, and between here and the photograph is a conversation about wages that both sides are dreading.
Corinthians have gone to Mirassol 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.
Add another name to the list: Huracán have asked the question everybody in the game has been asking about Gui Negão. The answer from Corinthians has not changed — yet.
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.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Corinthians have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
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.
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 8.51 — 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 Matheus Bidu was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
There is a particular helplessness in conceding 2 times before the twentieth minute. Grêmio tried to reorganise, Corinthians did not allow it, and the result was written long before it was confirmed.
6 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.
Position 3, 39 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.
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.
Juventude made Corinthians work for it, but the scoreboard read 1‑0 at the end and the table does not ask how.
Squad23 Nov 2026
Words at Corinthians training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Rafael Carioca 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.
Marked 8.13 — 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.
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 dugout23 Nov 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.” Rafael Araujo kept it short after the 1‑0 win, which is what managers do when they are happy.
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.
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 Santos, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
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 Memphis Depay is on it.
“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.
At 22 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.
Squad9 Nov 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.
“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.
3 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.
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.
Match31 Oct 2026
Another one collected away from home
3 on the bounce on the road for Corinthians. The coaches leave early, arrive at unlovely grounds in the dark, and keep coming home with three points.
Vitória made Corinthians work for it, but the scoreboard read 1‑0 at the end and the table does not ask how.
Squad2 Nov 2026
Words at Corinthians training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Rafael Carioca 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.
Marked 8.01 — 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.
Marked 9.67 — 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.
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.
The paperwork is done long before the player is. Cédric Soares has agreed terms to come here when his current deal runs out, which means Corinthians have spent a summer's transfer budget on a phone call.
Yuri Alberto 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.
Squad19 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.
Bahia made Corinthians work for it, but the scoreboard read 2‑1 at the end and the table does not ask how.
Player ratings19 Oct 2026
Kaio César was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.02. 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.
It is not much of a headline and it is the reason players believe the next promise. Corinthians told Yuri Alberto something would happen and then it happened, which in this industry passes for remarkable.
9 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 dugout19 Oct 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.” Rafael Araujo kept it short after the 2‑1 win, which is what managers do when they are happy.
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.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Rafael Carioca was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
“I have given this everything, but my family is not here and neither am I, not really.” A footballer can be coached out of bad form. Nobody has ever been coached out of this, and Corinthians know it.
“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.
The dugout12 Oct 2026
The manager’s verdict
“I am frustrated, honestly. We did enough to win and we did not win.” Rafael Araujo was not hiding it after 0‑0, and nobody in the Corinthians dressing room was either.
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.
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 Jesse Lingard is on it.
Successful dribbles: 12. 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.
0‑3 to Cruzeiro, and it was every bit as bad as the number suggests. There are defeats you argue about and defeats you apologise for; this was the second kind.
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 21 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.
There is a version of every career where the player ends up somewhere he chose rather than somewhere that chose him. Martín Espinoza is living that version at Corinthians, and it tends to show in the first 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.
“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.
Boardroom5 Oct 2026
Nobody left the Corinthians dressing room in a hurry
The door stayed shut a long time after the final whistle. What was said in there is between them; whether it worked is between them and Saturday.
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 0‑3 Rafael Araujo left the room before anybody could ask which.
Fluminense will want this one forgotten quickly: 4‑1, every duel lost, and a long ride home. Corinthians were ruthless in the way good sides are ruthless.
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 22 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.
Vasco da Gama will keep picking him until June and will get nothing for him after it. Jair has pre-agreed a move to Corinthians, and the only people who lose in that arrangement are the ones who let the contract run down.
There is a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 22-year-old it feels ownership of. Kaio César 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.
Marked 8.55. Players have careers without a single afternoon like this in them, and he has just had one in front of everybody at Corinthians.
Squad28 Sep 2026
Matheus Bidu 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.
Yuri Alberto 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 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.
8 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.
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 8.39 — 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.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the whole of the defence. 11 saves, several of them the kind nobody expects to see made, and ten outfield players who owe him a drink.
“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.
Every run ends on an afternoon somebody had marked down as routine. This one went 9 matches, which is long enough that a town had stopped counting, and short enough that it will remember exactly who stopped it.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Gabriel Paulista was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Alex Santana 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.
Squad14 Sep 2026
8 new faces, and Corinthians 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.
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.
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.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Gabriel Paulista was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Palmeiras next, which means a week that starts on Monday. Everything else on this page will be forgotten by Saturday; this fixture will not be forgotten for a year.
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.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Rafael Carioca was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
There were 87 minutes on the clock and Ceará had all but banked the point. Football rarely reads the room, and Corinthians did not stop to explain themselves.
The offer from Tammeka for Alex Santana 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.
Yuri Alberto 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.
He is 22 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.
Oeste are out and Corinthians go through, 3‑1 the final word. The bracket opens up a little, and everyone allows themselves a look at it.
Player ratings17 Aug 2026
Gui Negão, 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.
There is an age at which every good afternoon gets described as a throwback, which is unfair and also accurate. 8.29 at 33, and nobody on the pitch was better.
The offer from Alanyaspor for Gui Negão 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.
Yuri Alberto and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
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.
He is not being dropped. There is simply nowhere in the formation Corinthians are playing to put a man who does what he does, which is a harder thing to be told than any team sheet.
8 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.
Every footballer has an answer to the question about his boyhood club, and most of them never get to act on it. Arthur has, at Corinthians, and the first month will show what that does to a man.
“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.
The paperwork is done long before the player is. Renê has agreed terms to come here when his current deal runs out, which means Corinthians have spent a summer's transfer budget on a phone call.
The academy exists for exactly this morning. Samuel Silva 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. João Queiroz is that, and the reception he gets on his first appearance will be different in kind from the one any signing receives.
The academy exists for exactly this morning. Pedro Braga 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.
Two goals and a mark of 8.48 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
There is a version of every career where the player ends up somewhere he chose rather than somewhere that chose him. Rafael Carioca is living that version at Corinthians, and it tends to show in the first month.
“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.
Everything agreed with another club, everything agreed with the player; a doctor is the only person left to persuade. The photograph is a day or two away.
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.
Squad3 Aug 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.