Piquerez apologises for Palmeiras' shameful, fearful display | OneFootball

Palmeiras suffered a crushing defeat on Tuesday night. Verdão was beaten by Novorizontino 4-0, away from home, in the fourth round of the Campeonato Paulista. Starter for the full 90 minutes, Piquerez apologized to the fans and described the team’s performance as “shameful.”

“The first thing that comes to mind is to apologize to the fans who came to support us here today. What happened today is a shame. A totally unrecognizable team on the field, everyone played with fear, nobody wanted to take the ball. Unfortunately, this happened. We have to work a lot now. It was a very hard blow, but the next game is a derby, at home, we have to turn the page and swallow this very tough defeat that happened today. Again, I want to apologize. Today, the team was a disgrace,” vented the fullback in an interview with TNT.

Piquerez also made a point of demanding self-criticism from the Verdão squad, which suffered the worst defeat of the Abel Ferreira era against Novorizontino. In the Uruguayan’s view, the entire group is responsible for Tuesday’s “shame.”

“What we talk about in the locker room will stay there. We are a very big team, everyone has responsibility here. The younger players who have just come up, and those of us who have been here longer, we all need to have self-criticism and feel ashamed of what happened today, because it can’t happen. We have to work internally to turn things around,” the player concluded.

Palmeiras will need to pick up the pieces quickly, since a derby is already on the horizon. Verdão hosts São Paulo this Saturday at 6:30 p.m. (Brasília time), at Arena Barueri, for the fifth round of the Paulista.

Standings Situation

With this result, Palmeiras suffered its first defeat in the Campeonato Paulista and missed the chance to take the lead, which could have happened in case of a win and a Red Bull Bragantino stumble. Alviverde dropped to third place, remaining with the same nine points as at the start of the round.

This was also the worst defeat of the Abel Ferreira era. In his five years at the club, the coach had never suffered a loss by a four-goal margin.

Upcoming Palmeiras Matches

This article was translated into English by Artificial Intelligence. You can read the original version in 🇧🇷 here.