Casares guarantees Ceni in 2023 and sees football with different eyes after Covid-19

“Dad is going to intubate, but it’s going to be okay.”

It was just a short message that the president of São Paulo, Julio Casares, had time to send to his children. When Deborah and Julio arrived at the hospital, he was already intubated and would stay that way for 14 days, unconscious, because of Covid-19.

Doctors tried to get him out of intubation three times. The reaction was not good. In the third, as he defines it, it was “in the race”, because he ran the risk of not coming back.

The “terrible feeling” he had in July 2021 — when he received the news of intubation, lost 12 kilos and went through a process of relearning how to do simple things, like chewing — put life in perspective for the 61-year-old lawyer and publicist. .

“Gives a new vision of things. Then the [técnico] Cuca visited me and told me that football is one of the least important details. Even if you fight for what you believe in, sometimes you have to be more contemplative with life,” he says.

The president’s office, in Morumbi, does not convey the image that football is among the least important things. The walls are full of pictures of champion teams from São Paulo, as well as trophies, dolls and anything that reminds the team that this Saturday (1st), at 17:00, decides the title of the Copa Sudamericana against Independiente del Valle (EQU ). The duel, in Córdoba, Argentina, will be shown on Conmebol TV.

Also, Julio, who was leaving the Parada XV de Novembro, between Itaquera and Guaianases, on the east side of the capital, to go to Morumbi on match days, would certainly not agree that football is an insignificant detail.

São Paulo is 90 minutes away from winning its first major international title since the 2012 South American Championship. It would also be the second victory for the Casares administration. The club was São Paulo champion in 2021 by beating Palmeiras in the final.

Defeating Independiente del Valle will mean a guaranteed spot in the 2023 Libertadores, something that seems complicated by the Brazilian Championship. São Paulo is 12th in the Nacional table.

“It could be a game changer. [O título] It’s something that wasn’t on our radar because we’re working on rebuilding São Paulo. We want to have a competitive team, but we didn’t have a champion’s vision. We couldn’t make a super team. The title would be a relief. Because the leader doesn’t celebrate. He is relieved according to the result”, he jokes.

The final and title shot come a week after Casares emerged victorious in the most controversial episode of his administration so far. Assembly of partners approved statutory change that allows reelection. That means he could run for a new term at the end of next year.

For your opponents, it’s a hit. A casuistry, because the leader would have legislated in his own cause.

“It was a request from 98 counselors [que pediram a reeleição]. I didn’t sign. It is an extremely democratic process. How is it a coup if there were votes in several situations?”, he points out, citing approvals in club committees, in the deliberative council and, finally, among the members.

His speech is that the worst is over, which is also used by representatives of other clubs in financial difficulties, such as Santos and Corinthians. He believes 2023 will be less difficult because the debt, which he estimates at R$695 million, is “balanced”. He guarantees that the value has dropped 5% since he took office in 2021.

“The important thing is to balance and, more than that, making a competitive team. Because we are playing for championships and we invest in football while decreasing by 5%. All this signals a better 2023”, he celebrates.

São Paulo reaches the final of the Sudamericana with a late payment of image rights from the cast and “some pending issues”, according to the president. The approximately R$97 million that the club will receive, even if paid in installments over five years, for the rights of the training club in the sale of Antony from Ajax (HOL) to Manchester United (ING) will help to put the house in order.

Casares swears that all this will happen with Rogério Ceni present. The president did not take seriously the coach’s statement that, if there is a defeat in Cordoba, the board will be able to fire him without paying a termination penalty. There’s no chance of that, says the top hat. So much so that he and Ceni got together this week to start planning the next season.

There is a need to anticipate the strategy because football will stop between November and December because of the World Cup.

“He’s a very stubborn guy and he wants to win, like all of us. It’s a personal thing for him. But Rogério will continue. So much so that we renewed his contract”, says the president, citing the new agreement, signed in July, which will until the end of 2023.

Julio Casares has a tired expression. He laughs at the remark, agrees with it, and says he’s been trying to control himself. Used to getting little sleep, he avoids having WhatsApp meetings at 5:30 am, as has already happened.

Dressed in a club shirt and pants during working hours, he notices that white hair has multiplied. He explains that, although he had already considered running for president in the past, it was only in 2021 that there was a consensus of different political forces in the club.

He contests the view that there was never opposition. He prefers to say that he always wanted to help São Paulo, even to presidents with whom he had no affinity, like his predecessor, Leco.

Casares speaks for himself and will have even more to tell if São Paulo is champion this Saturday in Cordoba. It will be another chapter in the trajectory of the one who likes to say that he was also a broadcaster and knows how the press works. He took a voiceover course and in the 1990s he had the program “Emoção Tricolor” on FM Imprensa.

“I hosted, covered training…”

That’s when he met Telê Santana. After a match for São Paulo, and with dozens of journalists waiting for his interview, the legendary coach decided that he would speak with Casares first. He gave her an exclusive 30-minute interview in the locker room.

“After that, he gathered all the press, answered a question and left”, he recalls, with a mixture of amusement and pride.

At that moment, for the current president, football could be anything but an unimportant detail.