Paraguayan technician stays in Coritiba for honor and is close to Serie A

Gustavo Morínigo, 44, was already experiencing the best moment as coach of Coritiba –leading the Series B of the Brazilian Championship– when he surprised businessman Régis Marques Chedid, responsible for taking him to the club in January.

He informed that he would no longer accept or even hear proposals to train other teams until the end of the competition. Not even if they arrived from Europe, the biggest dream of my career.

The decision was motivated by a kind of debt of honor to President Renato Follador, who died on July 3 of this year, aged 67, as a result of complications from Covid-19.

Morínigo took over the team eight rounds from the end of Serie A 2020, in the last place, in January of this year. Relegation was inevitable. He says that Follador bankrolled his permanence even under pressure after the fall and a campaign criticized in the Paraná Championship –elimination still in the first phase– for the certainty of access.

“My family is humble, but they taught me many values. They are values ​​that have accompanied my entire career as a player, as a coach, and that I have never broken. I promised him that I would work hard for access, so I will honor them until the end. representative that I won’t talk to anyone,” he tells the sheet.

“It was like a blow his departure, because he was a person who trusted me a lot. The best I can do for the club and for his family is to keep my word,” he adds.

The former manager saw in the Paraguayan coach more than a bet with a short period of validity in the country. He wanted to give the club, after the departure of five coaches in 2020, a new purpose at the beginning of his term, which began this year.

“The profile we were looking for was a young coach with a mentality, used to technology, who had a proactive game model and, above all, who was a team professional. Our project is long-term,” said Follador at the time .

“Coritiba was different. The club presented me with a well-designed project to be fulfilled in the long term. I don’t like promises that have no foundation, that are not serious”, explains the Paraguayan.

A former midfielder with spells at Nacional, Guaraní, Cerro Porteño, Libertad and the Paraguayan national team, Morínigo was presented almost as an unknown in Brazil. But he already had a respectable resume.

In 2014, he led the modest National of Paraguay on a historic campaign in Libertadores. Finished runner-up, defeated by San Lorenzo in the final.

A year earlier, the second in his career, he had already led the team to the title of the Paraguayan Championship five rounds in advance. He was elected the best coach in the country in 2012, 2013 and 2014.

“National is the north for all my work. I finished my career at the club, and 80% of the players on the team were friends of mine. It was difficult to tell some that would not continue, but always in a very honest and transparent way I managed to create relationships of incredible confidence to the point that, even after I left, they called me to vent, to talk about life,” he says.

The work for the club, between 2012 and 2015, ended when the professional was invited to assume the coordination of the youth categories of the Paraguayan Football Association (APF). He wanted to teach.

He also passed through Cerro Porteño before returning to the Paraguayan base teams. In 2019, he set foot in Brazil to compete in the U-17 World Cup as an unknown person.

Morínigo rarely expresses a more nervous tone and carries the desire to teach and see improvements in football. He writes alone, without the help of any literary professional, a book about his own ideas about work methodologies. There is no date for publication yet.

“I’m very reserved. I have four children and I miss my family enormously, but a conviction that helps me a lot on a daily basis,” he says.

As the director of the base teams in Paraguay, he was responsible for two respected projects in the country. The first of them, the creation of a cup, with molds similar to those of the Copa do Brasil, called Copa Paraguay, played since 2018, only in an eliminatory format.

In addition, it required the adaptation of measures in the size of the field, the number of players and the dimensions of the goalposts to create methods of dispute that were more suitable for children in the process of training in football.

“These suggestions make me proud. My training was made on a daily basis. I felt a need to do this, to give something back to football,” he explains.

Born in Colonel Blas Garay, in the interior, he moved to Asunción as a child. His father was in the military and is pointed out as his main influence on the relationship he has with players today. Tata Martino, with whom he worked at Olimpia, was another important name.

“My father was very demanding, I believe he was the biggest influence on my seriousness. He would get me up at 4 am, early, to do things with my mother. I had to work a lot with the family, I’m the oldest of the brothers” , remember.

“Tata took me through the best moment of my career. I learned a lot from him about how to control a group, but I also say that I learned a lot not to do with those who didn’t work so well,” he adds.

Led by Morínigo, Coritiba is heading towards access to the most popular Serie B in recent years, with Vasco, Botafogo, Cruzeiro, Guarani, also national champions, and other traditional teams.

Under his command, the team has led for 16 rounds, since the 17th. Since then, despite being threatened, it has never been displaced from the first place. It even opened up five points in the 26th round. Today, the difference for Botafogo, the vice-leader, is two points.

“Of course the title is ideal, we all want it, but the main focus is to return to the first division. We will look at this objective and then think about the biggest one”, he promises.

This Wednesday (3), at 6:30 pm, the alviverdes receive the Operário in Curitiba.

Morínigo is another Paraguayan coach writing history in Brazil. Names such as Eduardo Carbô, champion of Paraná with Athletico in 1943, Aurélio Munt, champion of Pernambuco with Náutico in 1945, Fleitas Solich, multi-champion with Flamengo and Bahia in the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s, and Rafael Bría, champion of Pará with Paysandu, won titles. in 1957.

On the pitch, Romerito, with Fluminense, and Gamarra, with spells at Internacional, Corinthians, Flamengo and Palmeiras, also shone. In the first division, there is also the coach Gustavo Florentín, hired in August by Sport.

“I have a personal focus on arriving in Europe one day. I want to be successful and I know that, for that, I need to be very prepared. I like Italian football a lot, I followed a lot as a boy, it’s a personal objective I’ve never lost,” he says. .

Morínigo’s dream can lead Coritiba to the third Series B title in its history and the coach to the shelf of the desired names in the country. More than that, the debt of honor to Follador will be fulfilled.