Lucas Veríssimo 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: Gabriel Bontempo. 1‑0 against Bahia, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
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 earned that. I asked them for a reaction and I got one, and now I want the same again on Saturday.” Tiago Teixeira on a 1‑0 afternoon that pleased him more than he was prepared to show.
Nobody at Santos 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.
Successful dribbles: 47. 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.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Santos is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
Squad14 Sep 2026
Words at Santos training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Neymar 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.” Tiago Teixeira after 0‑1, in the tone of a man who knows the next question and does not intend to answer it.
A touch he did not want, a bounce he could not have read, and his name in the wrong column. There is no consoling a man after one of these, and Santos will not try tonight.
The team sheet says it in public every week until it changes. The only version of being dropped a footballer cannot argue with, and the one he takes hardest.
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.
Álvaro Barreal 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.
“I never wanted to be anywhere else. There is unfinished business here.” Pradella commits to Santos for another 4 years.
Squad7 Sep 2026
13 new faces, and Santos 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 one version of being left out a player cannot argue with, and the one he takes worst. Somebody else has been better and the team sheet says so, in public, every week until it changes.
5 without a win now, and the ground has developed the special quiet of a crowd that expects the worst. One scrappy 1-0 would cure most of it; that is the maddening part.
Centre-halves are allowed forward twice a season and are judged on what they do when they get there. Lucas Veríssimo scored, was marked 7.72, and got back before anybody noticed he had gone.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Santos is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
Successful dribbles: 22. 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.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Neymar was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
João Schmidt 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.
He is 21 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.
3 kept out in the shoot-out, and a stadium that will still be describing them in twenty years. A goalkeeper only needs one of these to be remembered forever.
Successful dribbles: 25. 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.
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.
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.
“I know what people will say. I know what I want, and it is here.” Karpaty had the fee agreed and the shirt ready; they did not have the player, and now they will not.
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.
“I never wanted to be anywhere else. There is unfinished business here.” David Nogueira commits to Santos for another 4 years.
Squad17 Aug 2026
Words at Santos training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Neymar 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.
Álvaro Barreal 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 know what people will say. I know what I want, and it is here.” Dorados had the fee agreed and the shirt ready; they did not have the player, and now they will not.
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.
“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.
Footballers are asked about their boyhood club so often that nobody listens to the answer. Tomás Sultani has just signed for Santos, and for once the answer mattered.
Willian Arão 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. Danilo 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 hardest thing about being 19 in a senior side is that nobody makes allowances. Mateus Xavier did not need any: 7.70, and he looked the most comfortable man on the pitch.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Caio Araújo will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Santos the goodbyes have quietly begun.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Santos this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
“I want to be playing for trophies while my legs still let me.” Nothing in that sentence is a transfer request, and nobody at Santos heard it as anything 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.
The phone has started ringing about Gabriel Bontempo again, and this time the name on the line is Dorados. Santos are listening politely and promising nothing.
There is a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 19-year-old it feels ownership of. Mateus Xavier 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.
A 1‑0 win over Vasco da Gama, earned rather than given, and the sort of afternoon that sends everyone home talking about next week instead of this one.