The coach claims that Raposa started badly, with defensive hesitations, and brought Lucas Silva on the field to give him more mobility
In the process of rebuilding after returning to the elite of Brazilian football, Cruzeiro returned to the continental final after 15 years. However, the team failed to prevail against Racing in Paraguay and lost 3-1 in the South American final. According to coach Fernando Diniz, the team did not allow itself to be surprised and knew how the opponent would behave.
“The team that started the match was the right one in my opinion. Against Lanús, away from home, in the semi-final, Walace did the match very well. In my opinion he should have started the match. But overall the team did not start the match well match, perhaps he felt the weight of the decision a little and tried to find his position, conceding two goals at the start. With the substitution, inserting Lucas Silva, we would have gained more mobility. The goals were collective errors in the second half. we had a clear improvement, we scored a goal and we could have done it tied the match”, he analysed.
“We made two similar errors in something we had trained. They had little internal construction and a longer ball. It was all very well trained and we were not caught by surprise at all. The game developed like this. The collective errors cost us the title” , he added.
“This question is easy after what happened. Against Lanús it went well, today it went badly. We should have scored better with Walace on the pitch, but it wasn’t his fault, it was the fault of defensive errors. If the match had been went well. We were 0-0, with difficulties in creation and mobility, everything went well, we conceded two goals and this made me change the team, I didn’t want to wait for the break”, underlined the coach.
Awards and sequence of the season
Despite the setback, the Minas Gerais club ended its participation in the South American Championship with a prize pool of approximately R$28.8 million. This amount, in fact, relates to the shares distributed by Conmebol during the phases of the continental tournament.
Now the team will have four matches of the Brazilian championship ahead of them to try for a place in the next edition of the Libertadores. Raposa currently has 47 points, in seventh place, but sees several opponents very close in this fight.
Follow our content on social media: Bluesky, Threads, Twitter, Instagram and Facebook.
Source: Terra
Rose James is a Gossipify movie and series reviewer known for her in-depth analysis and unique perspective on the latest releases. With a background in film studies, she provides engaging and informative reviews, and keeps readers up to date with industry trends and emerging talents.
