Opinion – Sandro Macedo: Vítor Pereira and the miracle of his mother-in-law

Among many films that always seemed to rerun in the Afternoon Session when this scribe had no classes, an audience champion was “O Milagre de Fátima”, about the three Portuguese children who witnessed the apparition of Our Lady of Fátima back in the early 20th century. The story was so powerful that it even captured Hollywood, which produced this film in 1952, a longtime classic of religious holidays.

Another miracle seems to be underway, also of Portuguese origin, perhaps close to Fátima —nothing in Portugal is very far away. Vítor Pereira’s mother-in-law is recovering.

To be clear, no one wants the teacher’s mother-in-law to be hurt. May she recover soon and jump the seven waves in the New Year (perhaps in Copacabana). But using it as a shield/excuse for not renewing with Corinthians and weeks later closing with Flamengo was bad.

On November 14, in an interview with ESPN, VP said he felt “very sad, I wanted to continue this project but there’s no chance. I’m not going to any club, I’m not going anywhere, I’m going home, I have to help stabilize my mother-in-law’s disease process a little.”

The next day, he ended a farewell note with “Once Corinthians, forever Corinthians”.

It seems that the “forever” of the mister “always ends” faster than a Mbappé sprint — we are contaminated by the Cup.

And, mind you, Flamengo did nothing wrong in looking for Vítor Pereira. At most, he made a mistake with Dorival Júnior. Vítor said goodbye to Corinthians, he was on vacation (not in some hospital taking care of his wife’s mother), he was approached and accepted. Legend has it that the financial agreement is similar to that of Jorge Jesus.

The point is that VP apparently did not enter the top 10 honesty when explaining why he did not want to continue at Corinthians – which practically offered a “lifetime health benefit” for the man’s mother-in-law.

It would also look bad if the mister went public and said, “I want young players, and you only bring me rogues. I don’t want Paulinho, Gil, Fábio Santos and company”.

Or, worse, if he said that São Paulo did not please him, even with Abel Ferreira winning the title of São Paulo citizen there on the side. Perhaps for VP the city was too gray, with too many distances to cover, a bit chaotic, with too many inequalities. On one occasion, VP even said, referring to the capital of São Paulo: “You go to a fancy restaurant and, 100 meters in front of you, you see people on the streets. I had never experienced this in the other cities where I worked” —we don’t know where magical neighborhood of Rio the teacher will live.

But it has the worst. São Paulo is far from the beach. Victor is a wave. He was born in Espinho, a coastal town that is home to Espinho Surf Destination. While he was at Corinthians, the professor even took the car and drove to Santos, just to have contact with the sea.

With Flamengo, his seaside problems are, in fact, over. Just as he will have a good offer of players in the transfer window, anything more expensive than Rodinei and a little cheaper than Cristiano Ronaldo should be on the red-negro’s radar.

It only remains to quote some non-biblical proverb to the Corinthian president: “Brothers are not chosen, but if you can choose, do it right, my son”.

And there is now a great curiosity for Vítor’s first press conference at Flamengo, when someone will probably ask, “Mister, is the mother-in-law?” —although there is a risk that only FlaTV, FlaDelícia, FlaMejante, FlaJesus, inFlaNação and others will participate in the interview.