The deal with Fortaleza is done in every sense but the one that puts him on the pitch. Nothing goes wrong at this stage, except on the occasions when it does.
Words at Cuiabá training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Gabriel Knesowitsch 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.
Half the programme played, position 5, 31 on the board. Doubling it is the sum every supporter has done and the only one nobody at the club will do out loud.
“We were not good enough today and I am not going to dress it up.” Willian Figueiredo after 1‑2, in the tone of a man who knows the next question and does not intend to answer it.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Cuiabá have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Fernando Sobral 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.
It is not a grievance and it is not a demand: he wants to play continental football, and he has stopped hiding it. Whether Cuiabá can give him that is a question about the club, not about him.
It finished 1‑0, and it was Rodrigo Rodrigues’s afternoon: on the scoresheet when it mattered, and the reason the points belong to Cuiabá.
Squad30 Nov 2026
Words at Cuiabá training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Gabriel Knesowitsch 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.
17 times he got in the way of something. Centre-halves get written about when they make mistakes and ignored when they do not, so an afternoon like this needs saying out loud: he is the reason the scoreline reads as it does.
“We earned that. I asked them for a reaction and I got one, and now I want the same again on Saturday.” Willian Figueiredo on a 1‑0 afternoon that pleased him more than he was prepared to show.
Successful dribbles: 21. 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.
Yamil Asad 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.
There is a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 22-year-old it feels ownership of. Léo Ataíde 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.
Three points for Cuiabá, 1‑0 the final word against Volta Redonda in a contest settled by the finer margins.
Squad23 Nov 2026
Words at Cuiabá training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Guilherme Mariano 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.
Some games turn on a moment; this one turned on a man. 7.71 on the card, and the Cuiabá support went home talking about one name.
The dugout23 Nov 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 Figueiredo, on a 1‑0 win that he was already picking apart on the walk to the press room.
14 times he got in the way of something. Centre-halves get written about when they make mistakes and ignored when they do not, so an afternoon like this needs saying out loud: he is the reason the scoreline reads as it does.
Every squad has one of these fixtures for somebody every season. This one is Émerson Ramon’s: the club that knew him first, the supporters who will decide in the first minute whether to applaud, and Cuiabá needing him to play as if none of it matters.
“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 Cuiabá, and it is not being withdrawn.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Cuiabá 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 Knesowitsch was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Nobody at Cuiabá 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.
2 months left, and both sides know what that means: every week without a signature, the fee Cuiabá could ask drops and the wages Yamil Asad can ask rise.
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Vitão signs something — a contract at Cuiabá or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Émerson Ramon will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Cuiabá the goodbyes have quietly begun.
Successful dribbles: 24. 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.
Fernando Sobral 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 academy exists for exactly this morning. Perninha 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.
0‑1 to CRB, and no complaints worth printing. The performance asked for nothing more than it got.
Squad9 Nov 2026
Words at Cuiabá training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Gabriel Knesowitsch 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.
“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 dugout9 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 Willian Figueiredo left the room before anybody could ask which.
“We keep meeting, and we keep leaving the room with the same numbers we walked in with.” Another round of talks at Cuiabá, another week without a signature from Émerson Ramon.
Successful dribbles: 26. 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.
Fernando Sobral 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 most common injury in the game and the most rushed back from. Cuiabá will quote 14 days and will be careful with it, because the second one is always worse than the first.
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.
100 games in the shirt. Nobody sets out to build a record like that; it happens to a certain kind of player at a certain kind of club, and this town knows what it has.
A point taken on 90 minutes is worth exactly one point and considerably more than that to a dressing room. This side does not stop, which is a reputation worth more than the result.
Émerson Ramon 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.
A 1‑0 win over Novorizontino, earned rather than given, and the sort of afternoon that sends everyone home talking about next week instead of this one.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Gabriel Knesowitsch was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
7.78, and no serious argument from anybody who was there. Cuiabá had eleven men on the pitch and one of them decided how it went.
Squad26 Oct 2026
10 new faces, and Cuiabá 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 players deserve the credit. My job was easy today.” It was not, and everybody in the room knew it; after 1‑0, Willian Figueiredo could afford to be generous.
He used to wear the other shirt. On Saturday he plays against Operário Ferroviário in this one, and whatever he says this week about it being just another game will be untrue.
In brief
The dugoutGabriel Rangel has become a man the manager trusts
He will play here until the summer and then walk out of the door for free, having already signed elsewhere. Supporters will manage the first part of that sentence; it is the second they will struggle with.
At 18 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.
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 26 the improving is meant to be over. It is not: 3 points better than the mark taken at the start of the year, which is the sort of thing that happens to players who take the boring parts of the job seriously.
Émerson Ramon 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.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Cuiabá they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
Fernando Sobral 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 shirt still fits. Raul is back at Cuiabá, and half the ground remembers him in these colours already. Some signings need selling to the town; this one sold itself.
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 not being dropped. There is simply nowhere in the formation Cuiabá are playing to put a man who does what he does, which is a harder thing to be told than any team sheet.
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. Cuiabá know the market decides these things, not the back pages — but the back pages are louder.
3 months left, and both sides know what that means: every week without a signature, the fee Cuiabá could ask drops and the wages Émerson Ramon can ask rise.
A year in and the language has not come, the city has not opened up, and he eats alone more often than anybody at Cuiabá would like to admit. It is showing on Saturdays.
In brief
The dugoutThiago Mendes asks for a word with the manager
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Cuiabá is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
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.
He will play here until the summer and then walk out of the door for free, having already signed elsewhere. Supporters will manage the first part of that sentence; it is the second they will struggle with.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Cuiabá 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.
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 Willian Figueiredo left the room before anybody could ask which.
Four or five weekends of consistency, judged against everybody in the division doing his job. Rodrigo Rodrigues has come out of that comparison in the side, and Cuiabá have had the benefit of every one of those afternoons.
In brief
Player ratingsÉmerson Ramon beats them one at a time
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the team. 6 saves, several of them the sort nobody expects to see stopped, and a scoreline that flatters everybody in front of him.
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Émerson Ramon. 3‑1 against Coritiba, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
Nothing happens for months and then he simply arrives, at no cost, having signed a pre-contract while still turning out for somebody else. It is the least dramatic way to sign a footballer and frequently the shrewdest.
It is the most legitimate ambition in the sport and the hardest for most clubs to satisfy. Yamil Asad wants continental football; whether Cuiabá can provide it is a question about the next two seasons, not about him.
Squad28 Sep 2026
Words at Cuiabá training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Gabriel Knesowitsch 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.
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Rodrigo Rodrigues provided it, and the 8.39 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Cuiabá this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 18 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.
6 goals. Both benches spent the second half looking at each other rather than at the pitch. Purists will complain about Cuiabá and Athletico Paranaense 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.
“We were not good enough today and I am not going to dress it up.” Willian Figueiredo after 2‑4, in the tone of a man who knows the next question and does not intend to answer it.
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.
Footballers are asked about their boyhood club so often that nobody listens to the answer. Marlone has just signed for Cuiabá, and for once the answer mattered.
Fernando Sobral 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.
Some transfers need a press campaign. This one needed a shirt with the old number on it. Gabriel Silva is a Cuiabá player again, and the town has its story of the summer.
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 are things I liked and things we will be doing on Tuesday until they are right.” 0‑0, and a manager who had already decided what Tuesday looked like.
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Gabriel Knesowitsch and Cuiabá agree another 4 years.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Cuiabá this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad7 Sep 2026
Words at Cuiabá training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Gabriel Knesowitsch 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.
A month is long enough that nobody gets in by accident. Yamil Asad is in the division's best eleven for it, which is a quieter compliment than an award and a more reliable one.
Nobody at Cuiabá 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.
He used to wear the other shirt. On Saturday he plays against Vila Nova in this one, and whatever he says this week about it being just another game will be untrue.
4 months left, and both sides know what that means: every week without a signature, the fee Cuiabá could ask drops and the wages Émerson Ramon can ask rise.
Another week, another link, another denial nobody quite believes. Cuiabá know the market decides these things, not the back pages — but the back pages are louder.
Figueirense go through and Cuiabá go home, 0‑1 the scoreline that did it. The dressing room will call the league the priority now, because that is what dressing rooms say.
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Rodrigo Rodrigues provided it, and the 8.16 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
Émerson Ramon 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 23 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.
Botafogo-SP made Cuiabá work for it, but the scoreboard read 2‑0 at the end and the table does not ask how.
Player ratings31 Aug 2026
Alan Empereur was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.07. 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.
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 7.85 for the rest of 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 Cuiabá this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
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.
There is a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 14-year-old it feels ownership of. Alex Machado 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.
Minute 92, against Atlético Goianiense, 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.
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. Widney provided it, and the 10.00 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Rodrigo Rodrigues provided it, and the 8.10 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
1 for Pepê, marked 7.94, and a centre-half's name in the part of the report he normally only reaches by mistake. He will not be allowed to forget it in the dressing room for a month.
12 goals in one match, Yamil Asad on the scoresheet, and a scoreline that will look like a misprint. Neutrals could not have asked more of Cuiabá and Jequié.
Athletic Club will want this one forgotten quickly: 3‑0, every duel lost, and a long ride home. Cuiabá were ruthless in the way good sides are ruthless.
7.88, 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.
There is no fee, no unveiling and no agent on the steps. Márcio Neves has been at this club since he was a boy and is now, formally, one of the first-team squad — which for a local readership beats any signing of any size.
The academy exists for exactly this morning. Bebeto 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. Tiago Nogueira 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 offer from Flora for Gabriel Knesowitsch 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.
“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 Cuiabá, and it is not being withdrawn.
Fernando Sobral 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.
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Jadson. 1‑0 against Goiás, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Alan Empereur was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
It is not a grievance and it is not a demand: he wants to play continental football, and he has stopped hiding it. Whether Cuiabá can give him that is a question about the club, not about him.
Some games turn on a moment; this one turned on a man. 7.65 on the card, and the Cuiabá support went home talking about one name.
Squad3 Aug 2026
5 new faces, and Cuiabá 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.