Diniz hails Corinthians’ grit, talks Memphis and Pedro Raul upturn | OneFootball

Corinthians earned three more points in the 2026 Brazilian Championship on Sunday night (9). Facing Red Bull Bragantino at Estádio Cícero de Souza Marques, in the countryside of São Paulo, Timão won 2-0 in the 22nd round of the competition. The goals for the black-and-white side were scored by Rodrigo Garro and Pedro Raul.

With the result, Corinthians reached 32 points and moved into seventh place in the table. The team’s campaign now stands at eight wins, eight draws, and six losses, along with 24 goals scored and 20 conceded.

Photos: Rodrigo Coca/Agência Corinthians

After the match, head coach Fernando Diniz held a press conference and assessed the team’s performance. The coach mainly highlighted the players’ physical condition and commitment, as they had taken the field three days earlier against Internacional in the Copa do Brasil.

“First of all, good evening. Speaking about the match and the players’ physical condition, it was something impressive, because we played on Thursday. Everyone was concerned about how we might behave physically. And I’m going to repeat a phrase I once said spontaneously. Now it’s no longer spontaneous. A player isn’t just muscular, but he is also muscular. It’s not only about the biological side. Football is a phenomenon that we can’t explain only in biological terms. If you look at Breno Bidon today, he finished the match physically better than he started it. Sometimes we don’t know what happens in a game, when the emotional state changes and the person starts performing better. He was supposed to fade. I even had a plan to make a substitution, right after Raniele, with him. He kept improving, improving, and finished running more than he did in the first half.”

Next, Diniz linked the behavior shown on the field to the squad’s commitment, even amid the club’s existing financial issues. The coach also once again emphasized the growing bond between the players and the fans.

“And, moving on to your second question, I think that shows how committed the players are. The board is working to resolve this situation. There is a plan to make payments. I think something should be paid tomorrow. But I want to emphasize, take the opportunity to emphasize, how committed the players are and how they are building a connection with the fans. The fans were amazing on Thursday, and those who came here were amazing today as well. That connection is very important. Everyone knows Corinthians fans are different, that they push in a different way, and they have made the difference. And I, personally, love being here and being part of this. The players are increasingly driven and committed to building this connection with the supporters. And the way they are behaving, even with all the problems that exist at Corinthians today, and they are not few, shows just how faithful the players are today in wearing the Corinthians shirt.”

Diniz gives injury update ahead of the Libertadores

The coach also commented on the squad situation for the first leg of the Conmebol Libertadores round of 16. Fernando Diniz said André is out, while Yuri Alberto has not been completely ruled out, although he considers the striker’s presence unlikely.

At the same time, the coach also took the opportunity to praise Pedro Raul, who scored for the second straight match.

“Yuri has not been ruled out, but I think his return is unlikely. André is out for the match. But today we showed that we have a team, that we have players. We’re recovering and bringing players back, in Pedro Raul’s case, who ended up scoring two goals in the last two games. And besides scoring those two goals, he had a very important performance. He played well technically today, very well, did well defensively, helped the team a lot. And we hope he continues like that. I have a very positive belief in Pedro Raul. He’s a player who had good moments in Brazilian football. At Goiás, he was spectacular in 2022, and he did well at Ceará last year. And here it seems like a restart, a new beginning for him.”

Asked how to give the fans confidence ahead of the continental clash, especially after the Copa do Brasil elimination, Diniz pointed to the performance against Red Bull Bragantino itself as the answer.

“I think that, more than me talking, the answer to that was what the players did today. It’s very difficult to play here. This team was ten games unbeaten, and Corinthians, in the last five games played here, had lost four. So the answer the fans needed was today’s game. We never know if we’re going to win the next game, lose, or draw. But in terms of response, behavior, and another thing regarding the fans, it was the supporters themselves, the fans who follow us and are in the stands, those who were in the stadium, they already saw something very positive on Thursday, even with the elimination.”

“Under normal circumstances, Corinthians would have gone through in regular time based on what happened in the game. But we don’t control the result of the game. What we can control is our effort, dedication, and the obedience the players showed. So I think that connection with the fans, in relation to your question, as I said in the first question I answered, that connection is being built, and the supporters can see it, and it is being built under not very favorable conditions. The players have been great in terms of what Corinthians fans like most, which is effort, dedication, and fight. We had that today, we had that on Thursday. I think it was a bit lacking in Porto Alegre, and that cannot be missing here. But in most of the games since I’ve been here, the vast majority of the players have given body and soul so that Corinthians fans could smile.”

Allan receives praise from Fernando Diniz

With André out for the next match, Allan appears among the alternatives for midfield. Diniz, who had already worked with the player at Fluminense, praised him and pushed back against some assessments made about the midfielder’s characteristics.

“Memphis is very close to signing and returning to training. It could be tomorrow, it could be Tuesday. I can’t make it official, but the deal is practically completely done. As for Allan, he’s a player I know very well. I helped bring Allan back from Germany. He was still a kid, who had gone to Liverpool, couldn’t fully adapt to Europe and came back, and he was unknown. He had a very good spell with me at Fluminense, and he’s a player with great technical and physical ability, he likes to play, and he also has a style of play that fits very well with what I believe football should be. And as a person, he’s great too, hardworking, extremely dedicated.”

“Football, sometimes, tries to label players and ends up misinforming fans about what a real player is. He had a moment when he couldn’t play at Flamengo, and then social media fans, that whole thing that happens, it spreads, a herd effect, people stop thinking much, and many players end up... that effect ends up destroying a lot of talent. Many players, especially young ones.”

“That’s Allan, not what they said, what they tried to make Corinthians fans believe, that he was a player who only passed sideways, things I heard about, though I don’t follow it. He’s a player who, regardless of whether he plays well or badly on Thursday, if you look at the average of his performances here with me, he’s doing very well. In training, it’s the same thing. So Allan is a player, one of the options. That doesn’t mean he’ll start or not in the next game, but he is one of the options, and I count on him as a starter-level player, like others. Jesse was a starter for much of my time here at Corinthians, and he can play, and Matheus Pereira is also doing very well. Carrillo has always come on, and when he started, he played well too. So we have good options.”

Pedro Raul gains confidence

After scoring against Internacional and Red Bull Bragantino, Pedro Raul was also a topic of the press conference. Fernando Diniz recalled the striker’s performances for other clubs and highlighted the work being done to restore confidence to the No. 9.

“Pedro Raul, as I said a little earlier, had a brilliant moment in Brazilian football, which was in 2022. A team that picked up a lot of points, and he almost became the top scorer of the Brazilian Championship. He only didn’t because Cano was having one of those years when he was on fire, 2022 and 2023 too, but especially 2022. So he came very close. It was right at the end that it was decided Cano would be the league’s top scorer. Then he went to Vasco, and he couldn’t find that again at Vasco or at Corinthians. In Mexican football, I also think he couldn’t really establish himself. But he’s a player who, what he did in 2022, he didn’t forget how to play football.”

“So this rebuilding of self-esteem is something we always hope will happen, and I like contributing to that, I really do. I’m very happy when I can. Obviously we can’t do it with everyone, but this positive sign he’s giving us fills us with a lot of joy here. He’s a player who is liked by the group, a player who works. Since I’ve been here, I haven’t had a single complaint about his behavior on the training ground, he has always been dedicated and needed to recover his self-esteem and confidence so things could start happening again. And I hope this is only the beginning of what he can do for Corinthians.”

Memphis close to renewing

Diniz also provided an update on Memphis Depay’s situation. According to the coach, the forward is close to signing a new contract and returning to work at the club. However, any possible appearance against Rosario Central still depends on bureaucratic matters and an assessment after his return to training.

“There’s no chance... We don’t know if he’ll be able to be registered in the BID, so I don’t know if there will be enough time with the paperwork for him to be able to make his debut on Thursday. But he has kept training, and obviously that makes a difference. He already had a visit to the club, his tests are within the average, he has a low body fat percentage, and his strength test is in line with the group average. So Memphis is fit, in his individual condition, to contribute in that sense.”

“Now, I don’t know once we start training. I don’t want to create expectations about whether he’ll play or not, because I haven’t spoken with him personally yet, with Memphis, to know how he is. But he won’t arrive in poor condition, no. He is in good overall condition to resume training.”

Diniz celebrates moment at Corinthians

Finally, the coach was asked about his performance since taking over the club. Diniz stressed how happy he is working at Corinthians, the relationship built with the squad, and described Sunday’s match as one of the ones he liked most since his arrival.

“I’ll first talk about something personal, about my joy in being here. I’m very happy to be here at Corinthians. I’m truly happy, very happy. And I want that happiness to last as long as possible, because it’s very good to have returned to Corinthians. And here in my area, in the East Zone of São Paulo, I can take my son to school and do the thing I like most, which is coach. The two things I like most: coaching, managing a football team, and being with my family. So I’m extremely happy to be here at Corinthians.”

“And regarding this performance, I attribute a lot of it to the players’ dedication and the way they received me. We had a very strong connection from the beginning, from the Platense match. And obviously it’s not a linear thing, we can’t win every game or play very well in every game. But today’s game specifically was a very important one, and it shows a lot about the work we’ve been doing together.”

“I think no one expected us to run as much as we did today. Honestly, it was one of the matches I liked most, if not the one I liked most since I’ve been here. It wasn’t the most brilliant technically. But in terms of commitment, dedication, overcoming adversity, the difficulty of facing a team that had been resting for ten days, resting in quotation marks, preparing for ten days to face us, full of confidence, on a ten-game unbeaten run, I think it was a very emblematic game, in a positive way, in my assessment.”

“And I hope this moment... that we keep working very hard, with more and more depth, so we can keep rebuilding players and producing more and more as well, and creating, as I said, more and more connection with the fans. Because I think that when Corinthians fans embrace a team strongly and the team responds, the chances of things going in a very beautiful way are great.”

After beating Red Bull Bragantino in the Brazilian Championship, Corinthians now turns its attention to the Conmebol Libertadores. Next Thursday (13), Timão visits Rosario Central of Argentina at the Gigante de Arroyito for the first leg of the continental competition’s round of 16.

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