The images of Cuca showing Argentine midfielder Matías Zaracho, in Mineirão, the broken finger of his right hand, scale the most authentic face of the Atlético-MG coach.
The fracture was the result of an excited celebration of the goal scored by Chilean striker Eduardo Vargas, on November 3, in a 2-1 victory over Grêmio, in a late game for the 19th round of the Campeonato Brasileiro.
In the match, yet another eccentric record of the coach went viral. At the height of his 58 years, he left the lawn running and jumping towards the changing rooms.
Before winning the Brazilian title this Thursday (2), breaking a 50-year hiatus that elevates him, for many, to the condition of greatest coach in the club’s history, Cuca had to overcome a personal script in the first months of this year with dramatic tones.
Less than a month after leading an unlikely Santos to a Libertadores final, in January, the coach was tipped to take over the Minas Gerais club, with which he won the South American tournament, in 2013, but most of the mentions to his name on social networks were rejection.
He would be the replacement for Jorge Sampaoli, who went to Olympique (FRA).
Headed by a mobilization of Atlético-MG fans, the hashtag “Cucanão” became a viral term at the time.
The continental title of 2013, the biggest in the history of the Minas Gerais club, was not enough to guarantee a comeback.
A 1987 police case, while Grêmio player, on a tour of the Gaucho club in Bern, Switzerland, when he and three teammates –Eduardo Hamester, Fernando Castoldi and Henrique Etges– were arrested and convicted of sexual violence against a minor 13 years old, reverberated with force, mainly in feminist collectives of the Athletic fans.
Cuca had to go public to swear his innocence alongside his family. The Minas Gerais club, in turn, treated the matter as “overcome”, saying they believed in the coach’s word.
The last act in the previous passage was still unpalatable for part of the athletes, when he accepted the proposal of Shandong Luneng, from China, on the eve of the Club World Cup. The surprising defeat for the Moroccan Raja Casablanca, already without his coach, was his own.
“Outside, Cuca” graffiti, just seven games after the debut, appeared on the construction fences of the club’s new stadium. All this combined with the delicate health situation with her mother, Nilde, who was hospitalized for complications from Covid-19.
“I have my problems. I concentrated with my granddaughter in the hospital, here in Belo Horizonte, feeling sick, with all the signs of this damn disease. A 4-year-old child, we were running here and there,” he reported. “I still had the problem with my mother,” he added.
Cuca and Atlético-MG share the breaking of the improbable. If in 2013, rocked by the chorus of “I believe”, the club won the unprecedented Libertadores title with unexpected reactions, this time the experience was personal for the coach.
“He’s the greatest locker room manager I’ve ever seen. He’s a strategist and a guy with a lot of faith, but a lot. He was able to use everything he lived and heard to turn the situation in his favor”, he explains to sheet former goalkeeper Victor, currently the club’s football manager.
“There are many similarities with 2013, of an environment with great internal competition, but respectful. For many it would become a management of uncontrollable egos and vanities, but he managed to do so”, he adds.
The coach turned Atlético of millionaire signings into a reference for results. “Let’s talk numbers? I love talking numbers because I just keep them in my head,” Cuca said on November 4th.
With him, the club achieved 15 straight wins as home team, a historic record in the competition. He also made the best first round – he still has the best performance at home and the best away.
“He seems to be inspired by the club, things wouldn’t have happened in 2013 without him and I see the same thing now. Cuca used to say that his team was the organized disorganized”, says Evaldo Prudêncio, responsible for logistics at the time.
Until Cuca won the Libertadores, Atlético lived in the current century the most difficult years of its history. From 2001 to 2013 it won only three state titles –2007, 2010 and in 2013– and still carried marks of a painful relegation to Serie B, in 2005, while its rival piled up relevant achievements.
“When I arrived, in 2000, the club was training at a social headquarters full of fans. Guys who were even good at training. When I return, I see a completely structured and different club, but one that needed a winner behind it. Cuca had a lot of fun. ability to make a champion team”, reports Gilberto Silva, present in the 2013 campaign.
Cuca packaged a new version capable of leaving behind criticisms of “Cucabol” – an ironic and critical term about the style of play adopted by him – and consolidating himself as a great coach.
The “eu believe” club became, with him, “the Galo won”, a new chorus sung by the fans in the matches, created in 2015 by supporter Marci and popularized during this year’s campaign by journalist Fael Lima, from Alterosa Esporte.
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