São Paulo Brazil
Fernando Lázaro had never been a soccer coach.
Not an assistant.
I wasn’t familiar with changing rooms, charging players.
He was a great performance analyst.
And smart tactical spotter.
Only.
But the Corinthians board decided to accept Tite’s suggestion.
Before the start of the Qatar Cup, at the suggestion of the former director of football, Roberto de Andrade, Corinthians offered the position of coach to the commander of the Brazilian national team.
Tite refused. And he suggested Fernando Lázaro, who was going to Qatar to observe the selection’s opponents.
Roberto de Andrade believed it to be a great option. Because it would compromise Tite if the rookie didn’t do well. And so it was. Duilio Monteiro Alves accepted the bet.
The result was suicidal.
Faced with the weak football of Corinthians in Paulista, Roberto de Andrade, pressured by the organizations, had to resign.
Then came the embarrassing elimination against Ituano, in the middle of Itaquera.
After a month of training, without earning anything, the team beat the very weak Liverpool, in Uruguay, for their debut in Libertadores, 3-0.
Afterwards, Corinthians made their debut in the Copa do Brasil and lost historically to Remo, in Belém, getting one step away from elimination.
In the Brazilian, with unstable football, Fernando Lázaro was called a donkey during the break of his debut against Cruzeiro. Victory by 2 to 1, with Corinthians again not playing well, in Itaquera.
And yesterday, another failure for the team, at Neo Química Arena.
In the fundamental game in the Libertadores, they lost to Argentino Juniors, by 1 to 0, a goal by Cabrera, in the 12th minute of the first half, with the team playing very poorly again.
After cursing Fernando Lázaro, and booing a lot, the crowd summed up their revolt in chorus.
“P…, I miss you…
“When Corinthians played with desire…”
The chorus is as unfair as it misses the main point.
There was no lack of will from Corinthians, on the contrary, the players ran a lot.
But wrong.
Because Fernando Lázaro, with only 17 matches under his belt, was unable to find tactical ways for Corinthians to get rid of the 3-5-2 system set up by coach Gabriel Milito.
Without Renato Augusto, recovering from surgery on his right knee, Lázaro bet on the young Matheus Araújo, who had played very well, and scored one of the goals in the victories against Cruzeiro.
With him in the middle, Giuliano, Cantillo and Fausto Vera. In front, Yuri Alberto and Roger Guedes.
The Corinthians tactical design was a spaced 4-4-2. No effectiveness in the middle, no triangulations by the sides of the field. The team lived, in the attack, of crossed balls in the Argentine area.
Open to counterattacks, mainly from the sides of the field. Corinthians took a ball on the crossbar in the sixth minute. And, at 12, Cabrera took advantage of the header, a great move by Montiel on the left, passing by Fagner and Balbuena, before crossing.
Losing by 1-0, Corinthians showed all its lack of resources to overcome the filling of space for the versatile athletes of the Argentine team.
Exchanging passes, controlling the match, Argentinos Juniors took no risk. The Corinthian fans sang, desperate, trying to pass strength, inspiration, to the team that did not surrender.
The defeat left the club in a difficult situation in its group, the E, of the Libertadores. While the rival opened six points in two matches, Corinthians is tied for second, with Independiente del Valle, with three points. With Liverpool at the bottom, with zero.
After the game, Fernando Lázaro was completely on the defensive.
He made it clear that he knew his work was being evaluated.
And it won’t be surprising if Corinthians imitates São Paulo and fires its coach. Or hire a more experienced one and secure him as an assistant.
Asked about his resignation, he evaded the answer.
“We’ve been oscillating, the sequence has been one of alternating results and performance, it’s not a bad sequence. Of course that bothers us. Negative results, like this, are not the objective, we’ve been looking for consistency.
“We got a result away, this result at home would be important for the consolidation and enhancement of the points we won away. We know it’s open, it’s a difficult group. We have a game, the sequence of Del Valle
“What I think…
“Well, I think about working, correcting, improving, we are working in this sense of seeking greater consistency from one game to the next.”
Roger Guedes was direct.
“We played a bad game. (…) We stopped playing, we lost the essence.”
The organized Corinthians are already organizing for a new charge on the direction of Duilio Monteiro Alves.
If last month, they got Roberto de Andrade’s ‘head’, now the target is another.
Fernando Lazaro.
Duílio Monteiro Alves will wait for the team’s reaction until the return match against Remo.
If Corinthians doesn’t react, turn the result against Remo, Fernando Lázaro should be fired.
Your situation is very complicated.
The weight of only 17 matches on the curriculum came.
Gaviões da Fiel, imitating Independente, which was instrumental in the dismissal of Rogério Ceni, came to publicly demand the dismissal of Fernando Lázaro.
The message is direct, clear.
OUT LAZARO |
Hello, Corinthians board!
We cannot be at the mercy of a coach who is using Corinthians as a trainee.
Let’s hope to stay out of how many more championships?
OUT LAZARO!
SALVE O CORINTHIANS!…
