Opinion – Tostão: Ceni and São Paulo need to find a way

When Rogério Ceni announced the end of his athletic career and said he would become a coach, I wrote that, unlike other players who start in this new activity, he, due to his technical and professional behavior, on and off the field, and his obsession with perfection, it would take very little time to become exceptional.

He is on the way, but the difficulties are much greater than expected. Paraphrasing the greatest poet Carlos Drummond de Andrade, in the middle of the way, among so many problems, there is an exaggerated self-sufficiency, very close to an arrogance, which he already demonstrated when he was an athlete.

After the loss of the Copa Sudamericana title, Rogério did not go to receive the vice medal and justified that it had not been a conquest, a mixture of practicality with arrogance. I imagine that, if São Paulo had been champion, he would not value the trophy, as he thought the title would be too small for his greatness and that of São Paulo.

The team has shown individual and collective deficiencies. The squad is very expensive for the performance and quality of the players. The athletes are good, but there is not a single special, like the ones that exist in the main Brazilian teams. The intensity of the game and the aggressiveness, characteristic of São Paulo, have only worked well at home, thanks to the pressure of the crowd.

There are two well separated blocks between defense and offense. In midfield, Nestor attacks, and Pablo Maia defends. There is little play building, passing exchange and ball control. The team runs a lot, hurriedly, and abuses the crosses to the area, hoping that Calleri will score a goal.

The modest Independiente del Valle, champion of the Copa Sudamericana, on the contrary, looks like Fluminense in the best moments, for the approach, the triangulations and the exchanges of passes from the defense to the goal. At a much lower technical level, it’s Manchester City’s style.

It was also Santos de Pelé’s, in the 1960s. The team paced the game, kept the ball and, suddenly, exchanged passes and scored. This was once the Brazilian school, which does not mean that we should go back to the past. But it is necessary to know and learn from the good things of the past to enrich the scientific evolution of the present and to dream about the future.

Players need to find the best spot on the field. Young Nestor, a promise, doesn’t know where he plays, in midfield or in attack. He runs a lot and gets lost, like the entire São Paulo team.

At Corinthians, Róger Guedes seems to have found the place, which is where he played in other teams, as a player on the side that enters diagonally to be the second striker. He is not an open winger, who defends and attacks, nor a striker, as coach Vítor Pereira wanted him to play. Manchester City adapted to Haaland’s way of playing, and the exceptional striker adapted to the characteristics of the team.

Rogério Ceni, in interviews, has shown that the São Paulo squad is weak for his great ambitions as a coach. He and the club need to find a way.

Party at Mineirão

Today is the day for a big party at Mineirão and for Cruzeiro to celebrate the Serie B title. The great work needs to continue, so that the team not only returns to the first division but also returns to being one of the main ones in Brazil.