Sport Does the Expected, Sidny Does, Too

Sport defeated Petrolina 3-1 (the "1" in that scoreline is embarrassing) this afternoon, and Sidny was easily the worst player in the stadium. Weldon entered at halftime, taking Guto's place, and scored twice. Durval scored a third time before uncharacteristically lackadaisical defending allowed Petrolina to score a consolation goal (and I hope it keeps them warm tonight).

The first half was somewhat interesting, with Petrolina defending and Sport passing the ball well but without much effect. Sidny completed, at most, 10% of his passes, defended poorly, and saw the referee receive applause when he received a yellow card. Once again, Nelsinho took him out at halftime. Igor moved over to right back and the team switched from a 3-5-2 to a 4-4-2 as Fumagalli entered. Igor was, again, vastly superior to Sidny. When César got hurt, Jonas came on and underscored Igor's quality, as Igor moved back to central defense and played as well as ever.

Sport put a lot more pressure on Petrolina in the second half, Fumagalli and Paulo Baier played well together in midfield, and Weldon showed that he really wants a big money move. The result was never in question, so the scoreless first half wasn't frustrating and the goals in the second half weren't cause for elation. Sport did put some nice moves together in the second half, but they didn't result in any goals. It is possible to see Paulo Baier fitting in with his teammates, and if the team had a professional football player to play right full-back then Sport would really be something. Right now, thanks to Sidny and Jonas, Sport isn't quite something (which doesn't mean Sport is nothing, which goes to show the limitations of these binary terms). Even without being something, Sport has all but won the first stage of the state championship, and any result but a Santa Cruz victory in tomorrow's Lovers' Classic will clear the path for Sport. So sleep easy tonight, Sport fans, the Constitutionalist Revolution of 1817 Trophy will almost surely remain in Sport's hands.

Sport Will Defeat Petrolina Today

This afternoon Sport will host Petrolina (three points from six games), currently locked in a heated battle for last place with Vitória (two points from six games). The outcome of the game is not in doubt, only the final score could surprise. Petrolina is not the sort of team that you can write much about.

Weldon will be on the bench, where he belongs, for this game. Sport's lineup will be the same as it has been for the last two games, which unfortunately means that Sidny will get to run around wearing the same clothing as the professional football players. Most likely the crowd will spend the first half shouting abuse at him, at halftime he will be replaced by Jonas, and the crowd will spend the second half saying things like "he's bad, but at least he isn't Sidny."

Tomorrow Santa Cruz plays Náutico in the Stadium of the Afflicted (not a translation error), because afflicted is what you are when Náutico is your team. Santa Cruz is still three points behind Sport, Náutico six. Should that game end in anything but a Santa Cruz victory, Sport will have one hand on the Constitutionalist Revolution of 1817 Trophy (also not a translation error).

Sport Signed a Fullback

Yay!

He plays on the left, where he will be Dutra's backup. What?!

Bruno Teles has left Grêmio for a year-long loan with Sport. This is important, as Sport had nobody at all (not even a promising youngster, apparently) to play if Dutra (who is almost as old as the Campeonato Brasileiro) were to get hurt. So this is good news.

The problem with this good news is that it still doesn't solve the huge problem known as Sidny.

Mustache-less Ypiranga Is No Match For The Mighty Sport

Ypiranga misses Ademir Müller's mustache, and whatever it was that Jorge Guerra (a marginally talented left-fullback who spent time on loan with Sport and Santa Cruz, and at Sport gained a bizarre cult hero status) gave them. Their goalie is named Jedai (if the Portuguese phonetic spelling throws you off, think about Ioda) and that is pretty funny, but funny doesn't win ballgames.

Ciro scored two, and so did Guto, Assis scored for Ypiranga, and I didn't see any of the goals because only Santa Cruz-Cabense was televised.

Santa Cruz and Cabense are two good bad teams (if that makes any sense) and they played a spirited game. Santa Cruz may yet play well this year, but they aren't playing well right now. The players don't seem to know where their teammates are, and they are made up of Sport castoffs (Gustavo, Sandro, and Bilica). Cabense looked like a team of bad players drilled to perfection. They couldn't finish their moves, but they passed the ball around well and the players made good runs to open spaces for the attack. According to wikipedia (which is never wrong) Cabense's manager is one Rogério Zimmerman. Whatever his name is, he did a good job tonight. One further note -- Cabense used to be known as Distilaria Esporte Clube (translate that one on your own), a name infinitely superior to Associação Desportiva Cabense.

Santa Cruz didn't have a sponsor on the front of their jerseys, except for goalie André Zuba, which made me wonder if he had given up on his team and negotiated his own sponsorship deal in which all of the money (other than his manager's 10%, of course) went to him. It was only during the post-match interviews that I noticed (How much attention do you expect me to pay to a game between teams like Santa and Cabense?) that Santa's field players did in fact have "Grupo Saúde" on the backs of their shirts, spread unobtrusively across their shoulders. When I was little my parents had separate health insurance policies, and I was covered by both, so sometimes I went to one doctor and sometimes I went to another. One of the insurance companies was "Group Health" (at least that's what my parents called it), "Grupo Sáude" in Portuguese, but I was a little kid and I called it "Grue Pelth" and was embarrassingly old before I realized what the company's real name was. But that is neither here nor there.

Náutico gave up a late goal to the one and only Nêgo Pai to tie Sete de Setembro 1-1 in Garanhuns and fall six points behind Sport. Náutico is putting together a decent team this year, but the pieces are falling into place too late to challenge for the first stage of the Campeonato Pernambucano.

Someone scored against Sport for the first time this year, but that's okay. It was going to happen eventually, and it's better that it wasn't Náutico or Santa that did it, because their supporters would have been insufferable going on an on about it. It would have been funny, though, if the first goal scored against Sport had come during, say, a 3-1 victory over Náutico. Náutico fans would have talked about it for a week as if their team had won.

Sunday Sport plays at home against Petrolina (currently battling Vitória for last place), so I'll be able to see the game and write a more credible match report.

Sport Takes on Ypiranga

I wish I could write a smart, funny preview of this game, but I can't. Sport will field the same team as Sunday. Sport will probably achieve the same result. Sidny will still suck. That's about all there is to say.

Ypiranga looked like a team with potential a year or two ago. The team from Santa Cruz do Capibaribe gave the big teams a lot of trouble, but couldn't turn that into any measure of success in the Série C. Last year Ypiranga didn't even qualify for the Série C. They had a manager with a nice mustache, Ademir Müller, but he's gone.

The game won't be on TV, and that's probably for the best.

Sport Defeats Pernambuco's Other Canada

Various supporters’ groups took busses, a rumored twelve busses in all, to Caruaru today. I was invited to eat lunch at a once-elite club with one of the club’s directores, so I went to rub shoulders with the semi-important (which makes me almost special) rather than take the bus to the game. It’s just as well that I didn’t go, because I might have ended up too drunk to see straight, and that would have affected my ability to describe the game and I would have ended up writing something like Nelson Rodrigues. Who is a great writer, so maybe I should have gone and done just that. Well, I won’t have a hangover tomorrow but neither will this win any awards, so I guess we can call it not particularly even.

The director of the club had to leave to attend some sort of emergency, but there I was, so I ate lunch at the club. It was expensive, slow to arrive, and not very good. The filet mignon flambéed in cognac was unpleasantly bitter and the less said about the chicken the better. Dinner’s pork chops simmered in a mango-rum sauce were a vast improvement.

After that horrible lunch I had hoped that Sport would save my afternoon, and Guto’s goal three minutes into the match seemed to confirm my optimism. Unfortunately, the game calmed down to a boring equilibrium in which Sport may have created a few more chances but neither team excited the imagination. Had I been so drunk I was seeing double I would probably be writing something more interesting, but unfortunately I saw the whole game.

Paulo Baier is very good. So are Ciro, Sandro Goiano, and Sport’s central defenders Durval, Igor, and César. Hamilton still has a lot of trouble passing the ball to his teammates, but he does very well when he doesn’t have the ball. Dutra is good. Sidny started because Nelsinho didn’t like the way Jonas played. I wouldn’t be surprised if Jonas plays again on Wednesday, because Sidny was terrible. This continues to be the team’s biggest problem. Guto scored a nice goal after a spectacular pass from Sandro Goiano, but was otherwise anonymous.


Porto was alright, but none of their players stood out This was a game that Sport should have won far more easily. Sport spent the entire game in a 3-5-2, which annoyed the supporters but got the job done. It may be that Nelsinho thinks that without any help at all from the right fullback and without a proper partner for Ciro it is better to bet on the defense. His record since arriving in Recife speaks for itself, so I’ll enjoy the three point lead over Porto, and hope that a decent right fullback arrives soon.

Sport-Porto Today

Porto is the other team from Caruaru, the first team being Central. Porto is a relatively new club, founded in 1983, and has risen to become a middling power at the state level. Porto was runner-up in the state championship in 1997 and 1998, a feat that no team from the interior of the state had ever achieved. No team from the interior would match that feat until 2007, when Central equaled its kid brother’s best. Porto has had more success developing players who go on to star with other teams (Araújo, Josué, Diogo, and Nildo chief among them, although I know people who refuse to say Josué’s name, and as we speak Diogo is squandering a not inconsiderable talent) than it has had in official competitions. In this sense Porto is a little like Canada (Bruce Grobbelaar and Owen Hargreaves), which surely makes Pernambuco the only state with two Canadas in the first division. Take that, Bahia!

Porto’s latest promise is Guega, a 22-year old midfielder who is currently the Campeonato Pernambucano’s leading scorer with five goals. If he can keep it up, he will be the third player from a small team to lead the goal scorers, after Porto’s Lêniton in 1998 and Itacuruba’s Kelson in 2004.

The game has been moved from Porto’s Estádio Antônio Inácio da Silva, which has a maximum capacity of 4,000 to 6,000, depending on the source, (and if 6,000 ever fit into that stadium it will be with 3,000 sitting on the shoulders of the people unlucky enough to arrive first), to Central’s Lacerdão. The Lacerdão is a cool stadium, occupying an entire block in the very center of Caruaru, which can hold 20,000 fans. Sport promises to take twelve busses of fans to the game, and many more will make the ninety minute trip in their cars.

Nelsinho has said that Sport will return to the 3-5-2 formation that the team used to being the championship, and Sport will dress only two forwards, Ciro and Guto. Luciano Henrique is more than capable of playing as a forward, so Sport will probably start with Ciro and Luciano Henrique as the forwards, with Guto on the bench, Paulo Baier, Hamilton, and Sandro Goiano in the midfield along with Dutra, and someone else on the right side. Sidny has not shown that he is capable or willing to be Sport’s right fullback, and Jonas just isn’t very good. At some point, if Sport doesn’t sign a new player, Moacir will probably make a start at that position. Today may not be the day, but Nelsinho is quickly losing confidence in his obvious options.

The two teams are tied for first place, but Porto has the edge on goal difference. Sport’s support will be much larger and more vocal than Porto’s, and Porto is playing in the same city but not in the normal stadium, so the home-field advantage may be negligible. That said, Porto is a fast team and could certainly cause problems for Sport. Porto’s manager, Adelmo Soares, surely knows about Sport’s problems on the right side and will take advantage of them. Santa Cruz is three points behind the leaders and Náutico is four points back, so a win today will put Sport in a commanding position halfway through the first round of the championship.

Insanely Long Lines For Insanely Expensive Tickets

As noted below, Friday morning and afternoon I guaranteed my presence at Sport's three home games in the first round of the Libertadores. Sport announced Thursday afternoon that vouchers for tickets would be available the next morning at 9am, and announced limited quantities. So, like a somewhat dedicated supporter, I arrived at 9:30 or so to find a line of at least three hundred people in front of me, some of whom had arrived at 7.

There were three lines, one for members (who pay half-price), one for students (who pay half-price), and one for non-members (it is safe to presume that non of the non-members in this line were students). As I made my way to the end of the members line I saw a friend in the students line who told me that my line was moving and his was not. He left with his tickets a little more than two hours before I got mine.

The non-members line went down a staircase and out of sight, and they weren't visible from where I spent most of the morning waiting. When I finally got to where I could see the staircase, after two hours or so of waiting, they were all gone, enjoying their voucher booklets and sitting down somewhere laughing at the suckers who were still on their feet.

The students line was originally going lead up a walkway, but at the last minute (and after several hundred students were already in line facing the walkway) the authorities decided that the students would buy their tickets at some other location so the students had to walk around and through a gate and that was the last we saw of them for a while. And then those bastards started walking back in small groups, smiling and brandishing their voucher booklets, while the members stood in line grumbling.

Mind you, Recife is in the tropics, and while there were some mango trees providing shade those same mango trees were also dropping the occasional mango to thud on the pavement. As far as I know, nobody suffered the indignity of a mango to the skull, but then again, if someone did would he want people to know about it? I didn't see any direct hits, but I did see some juicy-looking mangoes fall very close to some not-s0-juicy-looking heads. Sport has several bars and restaurants within the stadium complex, and the club enforces its monopoly by refusing to let independent vendors through the gates to sell food and drinks. The bars and restaurants were nowhere near the long, long lines of hot, thirsty members, so we suffered in the heat without beer or water to relieve us.

When I finally, after over four hours in line, made my way into the room where the vouchers themselves were being sold, I saw all the cashiers but one get up and leave. It turns out they had run out of vouchers and were looking for more in some other part of the club headquarters. Many of the members in line were behind on their dues, and so one of the four cashiers was only accepting dues payments, and after members were up to date on their payments they could continue to one of the other three cashiers (or one cashier, or two cashiers, depending on factors that were not always obvious to those of us waiting) to buy their tickets.

Old people do not wait in line in Brazil, which doesn't inspire the ageism that it really ought to. I didn't notice any old people at all until I got to within a meter or so of the cashiers, and then they came marching in one after another. And those of us who had been in line for nearly five hours had to wait for them to buy their tickets, slowly, and leave before we could get back to the business of waiting for younger people to get out of our way.

And then finally, bleeding from the feet and exhausted at the soul, I got to the front of the line and bought my tickets. It only took me thirty seconds or so, as usual. Why did I have to wait so long? Why does something that takes me thirty seconds take everyone else so long? It makes no sense.

If you are wondering what the point of this post is, or if you thought it was boring and wish you hadn't read it, good. Now you know what the period of my life between 9:30 yesterday morning and 2:30 yesterday afternoon were like.

**** Me, It's Weldon Again

Weldon, the player who arrives planning his departure, has signed a one-year contract with Sport. The deal would have been done a few days ago, but Weldon wanted a smaller buy-out clause so that it would be easier for him to move on to the new challenges of Korean or Qatari football. He formed a daunting partnership with Adriano Chuva in 2003, when Sport was in the Série B, and he did little apart from score a nice goal against Corinthians when he played for Sport in 2007.

Weldon announced that he has a "special affection" for Sport's fans, which he will need, because Sport's fans have no special affection for Weldon. His "honeymoon" will last all of 20 minutes or so into his first game, and if he doesn't suit up almost immediately after the CBF clears his contract then it might not even last that long. Last time he played for Sport a reporter asked him if he intended to be the team's leading scorer and he responded, "No, I just want to score a few little goals and then leave for a bigger team."

Was that a sarcastic answer to a stupid question? Possibly. That's the explanation that seemed most plausible to me at the time, and it satisfies Occam's Razor better than presuming the extreme stupidity necessary for that kind of naked honesty. But no matter what Weldon meant by that answer, the fans interpreted it to mean that he wanted to leave, and leave he did just a few months later.

He's an average forward, tall and capable in the area, skillful enough to be useful outside of the area, too. But however well rounded his game is, he is distinctly average, and Sport's fans had hoped for more. Not just hoped, but believed that better was coming.

This morning I stood in line for five hours to guarantee my tickets for the first three matches of the Copa Libertadores. Five hours, because Sport's administration is less competent than it could be. During those five demoralizing hours, Weldon's signing was announced, and we felt all the more demoralized. Ciro is showing himself to be a great player, but the rest of Sport's forwards are below the necessary standard. Sport needed a forward, and still does, because if Weldon is the answer then the question should never have been asked.

Sport Defeats Sete de Setembro

Sete de Setembro reminds me of the 1994 Canadian team that almost (depending on your definition of “almost”) qualified for the World Cup finals. That team had Craig Forrest, the greatest goalkeeper to ever put on gloves, and a dwarf named Alex Bunbury (seriously, he was like 4’6” and lightning fast by Honduran standards). There was also a defender named Frank Yallop and some guy named Catliff, but neither of them matter, and the other guys who wore the Canadian uniform didn’t matter, either. Craig Forrest routinely faced 35 shots per game, stopping 32 with ease. His goal kicks frequently came to rest in the opposing goalkeeper’s arms after one bounce. Every so often he would miskick a goal kick and the ball wouldn’t go quite so far, and Alex Bunbury would run under it have a chance. And every so often he would convert one of those chances. And so sometimes Canada would beat Honduras 2-1, and lose 3-1 to Mexico, and Canada came three points and 12 goals away from qualifying for the 1994 World Cup finals.

Sete de Setembro is like that. Raul Mondragon is quite a goalie, apparently. He can only beat himself when he plays against Sport. Last year he played like a man possessed and Sport could only tie 1-1 in Garanhuns. Sport won 2-0 in Recife, but only Mondragon kept Sport from scoring five. He had no defense in front of him, and his Alex Bunbury was a midfielder named Juninho, who is 22, skinny, and balding, and now plays for Sport. Juninho was good, and Sete de Setembro finished the state championship with both nostrils wet, but above the water. This year’s Alex Bunbury is Nêgo Pai and that is Sete de Setembro’s problem.

20,011 people showed up to watch Paulo Baier make his first appearance for Sport. Maybe that number should be an even 20,000 – there were a few people in the Sete de Setembro section, and they were probably more interested in seeing Nêgo Pai. Sport played 45 minutes of listless, inspiration-free soccer. Mondragon made a few impressive stops, because that’s what he does, and Jonas did his best Sidny impression and now we all know why Internacional had to force Sport to take him. The right fullback position is a gaping hole in Sport’s team right now, and Sport must take action to fill it. Neither Sidny (who spent the game on the bench, considering whether he really wants to continue stealing money from soccer teams) nor Jonas is capable of playing fullback for a team in the Série A. At halftime Nelsinho removed Jonas, moved Igor to right fullback, and put César in Igor’s spot. Igor proved himself a far more capable fullback than either Sidny or Jonas, which was a relief, but he is too slow to play the position except in emergency situations. Unfortunately, it looks like Sport has an emergency situation on its hands.

Paulo Baier showed why his signing was greeted with such celebration, showing a vision and touch that Sport hasn’t had in recent years. As he becomes accustomed to playing with his new teammates his influence on the field will grow, and Sport will be a formidable team. And when Daniel Paulista is freed to play (there are bureaucratic delays in Romania, apparently) and takes Hamilton’s spot, Sport’s midfield will be a thing of beauty. Sandro Goiano was angrier today than he has usually been since leaving Grêmio for Sport, and that can only be a good thing. An angry Sandro Goiano is a frightening thing (and a friendly, polite Sandro Goiano would probably still frighten my mother, just to give you an idea of how frightening the man is) and when he looks like he’s about to lose control, tear off someone’s arm and eat the raw meat right off the bone, well, his team tends to play a little harder. Everyone wants Sandro Goiano on their team, if only so that they don’t have to play against him.

Ciro had a reasonable game, but didn’t make a difference. He scored one goal that was annulled (he did look like he was offside) and took two or three good shots that went over the crossbar. Wilson isn’t up to the task of being Ciro’s partner, so he left at halftime and Luciano Henrique moved up from midfield, and Fumagalli entered in Luciano Henrique’s place. Fumagalli had a good game, his best of the four games Sport has played this year. Luciano Henrique scored the game’s only goal, but it might as well have been credited to Mondragon, who appeared to have stopped the shot, only for the ball to dribble out between his hands and in to the goal. To remove all doubt, and because a goal isn’t really a goal unless the net bulges, Ciro thumped the ball into the corner of the net and ran off celebrating wildly.

Sport lacked the precision that the supporters have come to expect. Dutra’s touch abandoned him toward the end of the game, Durval made several uncharacteristic mistakes (including volleying in the direction of the moon when he received a corner in front of an open goal), and while Hamilton played well on defense he seemed more interested in giving the ball back to Sete de Setembro than he did in giving it to his teammates.

Nothing to be worried about – the team has played one bad game so far (I think, since I didn’t actually see the game against Salgueiro. Apart from a few brilliant passes from Paulo Baier, a few flashes from Ciro (that all ended up with the ball in the stands), and César’s bicycle kick – miraculously saved by Mondragon – the game was a boring affair. The crowd was quiet, and no one responded when someone behind me tried to start the crowd chanting (after the game, which may have accounted for the lack of enthusiasm). That incident showed how listless and jaded the supporters have been since the Copa do Brasil last year. The games in the Série B in 2006 were raucous affairs, everyone singing and shouting all game long, but since Sport’s return to the Série A things have been subdued. For now I think we should blame it all on Nêgo Pai’s macumba and stay optimistic for Sunday’s game against Porto.

The Campeonato Pernambucano Begins

If your team is any good, you only have one month off in Brazil. Sport had one month between games, and it seemed like forever. I got through the time alright, it wasn’t fun but it wasn’t the prison sentence it always seems like when the Brasileirão ends, but when I went back to the stadium to watch the first game this year it seemed like I hadn’t been there in ages. I spent the first fifteen minutes of the game getting used to the feeling and trying to follow the game. I don’t think I even watched a game on tv in that month, so it wasn’t like the perspective from the stands wasn’t the normal one, but somehow it was strange and I needed fifteen minutes to get back into the groove and understand what I was doing there.

13,000 people, which seemed like an empty stadium, braved the sun to watch Sport beat Vitória 4-0 on January 10. The team was almost unchanged from that which ended the Brasileirão a month earlier. Sidny, in particular, played exactly as he had played in December. Vitória didn’t provide any resistance, and Sport didn’t play particularly well, but got the job done. Ciro won a penalty and then scored two, and every time he takes the field he looks better than he did last time.

The absence of beer has become a sad normality in Brazilian stadia, and the poor organization of Sport’s event staff has long been the norm. Last year, before the ban on alcohol sales in stadia, it was normal for the beer to run out before the game ended, and sometimes in the first half. What was not normal was for water and soda to sell out before the game ended, or in the case of this game, before halftime. This represents an inexcusable lack of planning by, and loss of income for, the club, but it also represents a legal hazard. In the tropical summer, under the afternoon sun, water is a necessity. One angry parent, whose child got sick in the sun could sue the team and cause all manner of problems. Sure, there are ambulances and doctors to provide first aid, but offering that as a solution to problems caused by the heat and sun is like W claiming that all Americans have access to health care because they can go to the emergency room.

The following Wednesday night Sport beat Salgueiro, Pernambuco’s sole representative in this year’s Sèrie C, 2-0 in Salgueiro. The game wasn’t televised, but reports say that Guto, on loan from Internacional, changed the game when he entered in the second half. Ciro scored Sport’s first goal.

On January 18 Sport played Serrano in Recife. An improved, but still anemic, 17,000 people attended the game. Sport played better, although Sidny still did his part to hurt the cause, and won 3-0. Luciano Henrique scored the first, minutes after entering the game, Ciro scored the second, and Sando Goiano dribbled past the goalie to score the third. Sidny was substituted at halftime, and Jonas made his first appearance in Sidny’s place. Jonas wasn’t as bad as Sidny, but he didn’t look close to the quality that Sport needs. Guto also entered in the second half and looked tired. Lúcio Surubim, a former Náutico player turned analyst for Globo Nordeste, said after the game that Sidny needs to decide whether or not he wants to continue to be a professional soccer player. Sidny really has been just that bad lately.

Daniel Paulista signed a three-year contract last year, once again guaranteeing that Sport (playing two of Daniel Paulista, Hamilton, and Sandro Goiano) will again have one of the two or three best volante pairs in Brazil. Paulo Baier will make his first appearance tonight against Sete de Setembro.

Campeonato Pernambucano Begins Today Vs. Vitória

Sport begins its defense of the Pernambuco championship this afternoon against Acadêmica Vitória in the Ilha do Retiro. Vitória was in the Série A2 last year, after a one-year stint in the top division in 2006. Sport will field a team of players from last year's Brasileirão -- none of the new signings will play, and unlike in Europe, they won't be paraded in front of the fans. In fact, there is a good chance that Paulo Baier won't even be in the stadium, but that's no matter. Ciro, Kássio, Moacir, and the rest of the young players will be more than enough to see off Vitória, and Durval, Dutra, and a few other experienced players will be on the field with them.

However bad Vitória most likely will be, this won't be an easy game. Vitória has had a long time to train with the same players, and they will play a very defensive style. If the last few years are a guide, Sport will dominate possession and struggle to create chances, and win 1-0 or 2-0 by scoring ugly goals.

Paulo Baier

Paulo Baier, a midfielder of advanced age, has signed for Sport. He is old, but he plays well. He started his career as a right fullback, but for years now he has been a midfielder. When he plays well he can dominate the game, but he is getting on in years. He will be thirty-five this October, but Sport can take heart knowing that he hasn't shown any signs of decline yet.

Sport also signed a Paraguayan forward, Roberto Ovelar, who is 22 and has played for Cerro Porteño (Paraguay) and Universidad San Martín (Peru).

Two Players Arrive From Internacional

Forward Guto and right-back Jonas have arrived on year-long loans from Internacional. Guto is supposed to be a promising player, and accepting Jonas was a condition Internacional demanded as a part of the Guto deal. Sport already has Ciro, Wilson, Joélson, and Everton Felipe (recently promoted from the juniors), and intends to bring two more forwards into the squad, so it remains to be seen how large a role Guto will play. Jonas isn't expected to contribute much at all to Sport's efforts this year.

Hamilton Returns to Sport

Sport has signed Hamilton, who played an integral part of Sport's 2006 promotion campaign, for next year. Hamilton, a revelation in 2006, is an excellent defensive midfielder who relies more on his speed than on his positioning who is the very model of consistency on the field. Unfortunately, off the field he is also the very model of consistency -- he is always looking to make an extra real. There is still no news on the length of his contract, but it is almost impossible to believe that he would sign a contract longer than one year. At the end of 2006 he displayed bad faith in his negotiations with Sport (he was still under contract, but Sport agreed -- twice -- to his requests for raises) and was sold to a Turkish team. At the end of his contract in Turkey he returned to Brazil, rejecting a two-year contract with Sport to sign a short contract with Náutico where he played the last few months of the past Série A season. He will surely be a factor in whatever success Sport achieves in the next six months, and he will just as surely leave as soon as someone offers him more money. If bookies were taking bets on it, I would bet all I have that he will leave Brazil in July.