From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Player ratings31 Aug 2026
Successful dribbles: 42. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Transfer targets31 Aug 2026
Estrela da Amadora and New York City have settled on $9.7M. 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.
Market31 Aug 2026
Fee agreed, wages agreed, and Nacional waiting with a shirt. Nobody at Estrela da Amadora is pretending otherwise, and the supporters have stopped asking whether and started asking when.
Player ratings31 Aug 2026
René Mitongo, 18, steals the show — 7.81
Marked 7.81 at 18, in a side that makes no allowances for age. He did not need any, and he looked the least nervous man on the pitch.
Market31 Aug 2026
Diogo Pinto hands in a written request
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Estrela da Amadora can pretend not to have heard.
Transfer targets31 Aug 2026
The approach was made and the answer came back in a sentence. There is no number on the table because there was no number that would have been enough.
Squad31 Aug 2026
Renan Ribeiro 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.
Squad31 Aug 2026
Luan Patrick 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.
The terraces31 Aug 2026
At 18 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.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Match22 Aug 2026
1‑4 to Porto, 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.
Transfer targets24 Aug 2026
Estrela da Amadora have gone to New York City 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.
Transfer targets24 Aug 2026
The approach was made and the answer came back in a sentence. There is no number on the table because there was no number that would have been enough.
Player ratings24 Aug 2026
Marked 8.06 at 21, in a side that makes no allowances for age. He did not need any, and he looked the least nervous man on the pitch.
Squad24 Aug 2026
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.
Market24 Aug 2026
“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 Estrela da Amadora, and it is not being withdrawn.
Squad24 Aug 2026
Léo Linck 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.
Transfer targets24 Aug 2026
Estrela da Amadora offered $150.0K; Chaves 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.
Squad24 Aug 2026
Words at Estrela da Amadora training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Renan Ribeiro 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.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Transfer targets17 Aug 2026
Estrela da Amadora asked and Famalicao said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
Transfer targets17 Aug 2026
The clubs had agreed and the player had not. A snub, and a public one: Olimpia keep him, and the supporters here are left wondering what he had heard about the place.
Squad17 Aug 2026
Renan Ribeiro and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Transfer targets17 Aug 2026
Estrela da Amadora offered $200.0K; Porto 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.
Player ratings17 Aug 2026
Successful dribbles: 21. There was always a defender in front of him and there was never a defender in front of him for long.
Match15 Aug 2026
Gil Vicente left with the points after a 1‑2 defeat that will take some explaining on the terraces.
Squad17 Aug 2026
100 games in this shirt, through managers and relegations and everything else. Service like it is disappearing from the game and the crowd knows what it is watching.
The dugout17 Aug 2026
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Kevin Höög Jansson, and the manager let it.
The dugout17 Aug 2026
“I could talk about decisions and I could talk about luck. I will not. We lost.” The manager, 1‑2, and a press conference that lasted four minutes.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Transfer targets10 Aug 2026
The offer went to KV Oostende 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.
Transfer targets10 Aug 2026
The approach was made and the answer came back in a sentence. There is no number on the table because there was no number that would have been enough.
Transfer targets10 Aug 2026
Everything agreed with Olimpia, everything agreed with the player; a doctor is the only person left to persuade. The photograph is a day or two away.
Transfer targets10 Aug 2026
The clubs had agreed and the player had not. A snub, and a public one: Bologna keep him, and the supporters here are left wondering what he had heard about the place.
Squad10 Aug 2026
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Abraham Marcus and Estrela da Amadora agree another 4 years.
Squad10 Aug 2026
Renan Ribeiro 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.
Squad10 Aug 2026
Words at Estrela da Amadora training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Luan Patrick 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.
Market10 Aug 2026
There is no fee, no unveiling and no agent on the steps. Luis Fonseca 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.
Market10 Aug 2026
There is no fee, no unveiling and no agent on the steps. Lucas Fonseca 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.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Market3 Aug 2026
It is not a grievance and it is not a demand: he wants to play continental football, and he has stopped hiding it. Whether Estrela da Amadora can give him that is a question about the club, not about him.
Squad3 Aug 2026
“The easiest signature of my career.” Renan Ribeiro and Estrela da Amadora agree another 2 years, and the manager can plan around him rather than about him.
Squad3 Aug 2026
Léo Linck in a row with a teammate
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Estrela da Amadora this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad3 Aug 2026
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Renan Ribeiro was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Market3 Aug 2026
“We keep meeting, and we keep leaving the room with the same numbers we walked in with.” Another round of talks at Estrela da Amadora, another week without a signature from Renan Ribeiro.
Market3 Aug 2026
24 months to run and not a word offered. A club that lets the calendar negotiate for it usually ends up losing to the calendar.
Squad3 Aug 2026
14 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.
Transfer targets3 Aug 2026
A loan move for Imanol Enríquez is in the works
Estrela da Amadora have made the call to Olimpia. No fee, a share of the wages, and a spare shirt in the position where the squad has been thinnest all season.
Transfer targets3 Aug 2026
Bologna have been asked whether they would lend him. Loans are agreed quickly or not at all, and this one will be one or the other by the weekend.