At 35 he is supposed to be managing his minutes. Instead he was marked 8.16 and looked, for ninety minutes, exactly like the player everybody remembers.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Oliveirense this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
There is a version of every career where the player ends up somewhere he chose rather than somewhere that chose him. Rodrigo Mordomo is living that version at Oliveirense, and it tends to show in the first month.
Feirense left with the points after a 1‑3 defeat that will take some explaining on the terraces.
Squad16 Nov 2026
Words at Oliveirense training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Lucão 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.
“We were not good enough today and I am not going to dress it up.” Simao Machado after 1‑3, in the tone of a man who knows the next question and does not intend to answer it.
André Dias 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 academy exists for exactly this morning. Joao Pacheco 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.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Menezes was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Something was said to Simão Martins and then it happened. In this industry that passes for remarkable, and the dressing room noticed faster than any supporter could.
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.
“There is a gap, and pretending there is not helps nobody.” Neither side has moved, and the calendar is working for exactly one of them.
The dugout9 Nov 2026
The view from the dugout
“We did not lose. Some weeks that is all you get, and I would rather have the point than not.” Simao Machado chose the glass-half-full version of 0‑0; the supporters left with the other one.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Oliveirense have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Kazuya Onohara 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 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.
Successful dribbles: 19. 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.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the whole of the defence. 6 saves, several of them the kind nobody expects to see made, and ten outfield players who owe him a drink.
4 matches, no goals, and a training ground that has tried everything. It will end — droughts always do — but nobody at Oliveirense can tell you which week it ends in.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the whole of the defence. 8 saves, several of them the kind nobody expects to see made, and ten outfield players who owe him a drink.
At 21 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.
3 matches, no goals, and a training ground that has tried everything. It will end — droughts always do — but nobody at Oliveirense can tell you which week it ends in.
André Dias and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Squad19 Oct 2026
Words at Oliveirense training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Menezes 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.
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 23 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.
Kazuya Onohara 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 no fee, no unveiling and no agent on the steps. Eduardo Sousa 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.
Clubs spend fortunes looking for players and occasionally find one down the corridor. Hugo Costa is that, and the reception he gets on his first appearance will be different in kind from the one any signing receives.
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.
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Bruno Pinto, and the manager let it.
The dugout12 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 Simao Machado left the room before anybody could ask which.
Kazuya Onohara 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.
“I respect the manager and I am not going to sit here and pretend I am happy.” It is the most common sentence in football and it has never once been the end of a story.
Nobody at Oliveirense 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 is not being dropped. There is simply nowhere in the formation Oliveirense are playing to put a man who does what he does, which is a harder thing to be told than any team sheet.
Oliveirense will explain it as a decision about the team, and it may well be one. A dressing room has never once read it that way.
The dugout5 Oct 2026
The view from the dugout
“We did not lose. Some weeks that is all you get, and I would rather have the point than not.” Simao Machado chose the glass-half-full version of 0‑0; the supporters left with the other one.
“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 dugout28 Sep 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 1‑2 Simao Machado left the room before anybody could ask which.
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.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Diogo Fernandes trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
Somebody else has been better, the manager has said so with a team sheet, and there is no argument to be had. He will get the shirt back the only way it can be got back.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the whole of the defence. 12 saves, several of them the kind nobody expects to see made, and ten outfield players who owe him a drink.
The board had gone up, the arguing had started, and then the ball was in the net in the 93th minute. Pacos de Ferreira will replay every second of the added time for a week.
Player ratings21 Sep 2026
A brace, and Rafael Nel takes the afternoon — 8.72
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Rafael Nel provided it, and the 8.72 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
There is an age at which every good afternoon gets described as a throwback, which is unfair and also accurate. 7.90 at 35, and nobody on the pitch was better.
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Diogo Fernandes is 21, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
A 2‑1 win over Pacos de Ferreira, earned rather than given, and the sort of afternoon that sends everyone home talking about next week instead of this one.
Kazuya Onohara 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 no fee, no unveiling and no agent on the steps. Bernardo Araujo 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.
Clubs spend fortunes looking for players and occasionally find one down the corridor. Fabio Simoes is that, and the reception he gets on his first appearance will be different in kind from the one any signing receives.
“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.
Squad14 Sep 2026
25 new faces, and Oliveirense 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 dugout14 Sep 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 Simao Machado left the room before anybody could ask which.
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.
There is no crueller way to lose a football match. Oliveirense scored in the 90th minute, the restart barely happened, and the away end was still standing when the whistle went.
Boardroom7 Sep 2026
Deadline passes with 36 signed and 13 gone
That is the business done at Oliveirense until the window opens again. Whether it was enough will be answered on Saturdays rather than in a column, and the first Saturday is close.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Vitória have kept their man, and Oliveirense go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
André Dias 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 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.
A medical, a signature, a shirt held up in front of a sponsor’s board. Oliveirense have done the hard part with Sporting CP, and the part that remains is the part supporters actually see.
The chances are being made and something is happening between the making and the finishing. 3 matches now, and the anxiety in the ground arrives a little earlier every week.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Braga have kept their man, and Oliveirense go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to André Dias, and the manager let it.
The dugout31 Aug 2026
The view from the dugout
“We will look at it, we will learn from it, and we go again.” The three sentences every manager keeps for a 0‑2 defeat, delivered by Simao Machado to a room that had heard them before.
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 Oliveirense 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 Menezes was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Successful dribbles: 16. There was always a defender in front of him and there was never a defender in front of him for long.
The dugout24 Aug 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 Simao Machado left the room before anybody could ask which.
Every shape has positions in it and this one does not have his. Oliveirense will either change the shape, change his job, or change his club, and he is waiting to hear which.
Everything agreed with Torreense, everything agreed with the player; a doctor is the only person left to persuade. The photograph is a day or two away.
Portimonense pay $820.0K, and the deal is done. The number reads well on a balance sheet; whether it reads well on the pitch is next season's question.
Kazuya Onohara 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.
He is not being dropped. There is simply nowhere in the formation Oliveirense are playing to put a man who does what he does, which is a harder thing to be told than any team sheet.
Boardroom17 Aug 2026
Nobody left the Oliveirense 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.
Squad17 Aug 2026
16 new faces, and Oliveirense 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.
Every footballer has an answer to the question about his boyhood club, and most of them never get to act on it. Simãozinho has, at Oliveirense, and the first month will show what that does to a man.
Oliveirense asked and Benfica said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
The academy exists for exactly this morning. Bruno Pacheco 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. Joao Tavares 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. Ricardo Castro is that, and the reception he gets on his first appearance will be different in kind from the one any signing receives.
Clubs spend fortunes looking for players and occasionally find one down the corridor. Fernando Pereira is that, and the reception he gets on his first appearance will be different in kind from the one any signing receives.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Simãozinho was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Wages have outrun income and the accountants have started attending meetings they used to send apologies to. Ambition comes second in a season like this.
Oliveirense asked and Nottingham Forest said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
Kazuya Onohara 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.
Oliveirense have made the call to Moreirense. No fee, a share of the wages, and a spare shirt in the position where the squad has been thinnest all season.
Every shape has positions in it and this one does not have his. Oliveirense will either change the shape, change his job, or change his club, and he is waiting to hear which.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and João Sérgio was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.