Diniz on Corinthians turmoil, fan talks and 'less animated' touchline | OneFootball

On the afternoon of last Sunday (20), Corinthians hosted Fluminense at Neo Química Arena in a match valid for the 28th round of the 2026 Brazilian Championship and ended up losing 3-1. Corinthians’ only goal was scored by center-back Gustavo Henrique in the 10th minute of the second half. With the result, Timão suffered its sixth straight defeat in the tournament, remaining in 14th place in the Brazilian Championship with 32 points, from eight wins, eight draws, and 12 losses — 29 goals scored and 32 conceded — while seeing its gap to the relegation zone shrink from four to three points.

A few minutes after the final whistle, Corinthians head coach Fernando Diniz spoke to the press in a post-match press conference and commented on why the fans should believe Timão will return from the FIFA break with better performances. He was also asked about his supposedly “less energetic” behavior on the touchline, analyzed the club’s negative institutional moment, and spoke about the meeting with the club’s main organized supporter groups last Friday (18). Finally, he also mentioned the team’s emotional state in recent matches.

Photo: Rodrigo Coca/Agência Corinthians

Check out below the other part of the coach’s answers in the press conference:

Corinthians’ emotional state against Fluminense

“I don’t think that happened emotionally today, but the team responded very well emotionally given the period it is going through. We had a good first half, we went behind, we equalized, and we could have turned it around. So, when the second goal came, it wasn’t that the team was doing badly; the team has been responding well emotionally. We played with one player less against Rosario, scored, went behind in Argentina, and drew against Estudiantes. So that is not exactly something worrying, the fact that today we conceded the second goal and, at that moment, it felt like a cold shower for the team. In my opinion, the team has not been responding badly emotionally from one game to another.”

Poor institutional moment + “less energetic” behavior on the touchline compared to other jobs at different clubs?

“It is a difficult environment institutionally, for years now, and at this moment the president has a clear idea of helping the club, paying off debts, and not increasing the club’s debt. So, we have a transfer ban, delayed wages, and pitch-related problems. That’s what the players discussed with them. Nobody is failing to work or run, and there is no trace of any of this in the work environment in terms of negative things; the players are getting stronger and stronger. And the conversation was an extremely legitimate one, everyone understood it, and now the team has to do everything possible to start winning again as soon as possible. That’s what we need to do.”

“There’s no way I can come here and make the internal environment even worse. I am sad… sad is too little for what I feel here. Everyone knows how much I wanted to work here and how much I want this to work out. I feel very deep sadness and a great deal of anger along with it. Without understanding why, literally, all the nuances of us having seven consecutive defeats. For me, that weighs heavily. So I feel sadness, but I cannot come here and worsen the environment so that we can get out of this situation. I am frustrated, angry, and sad. All of these things very intensely, perhaps much more than you can imagine, really very intensely. It’s not discomfort, it’s sadness and anger and an inability to fully understand what is happening. But working very hard so that things improve.”

Corinthians’ creativity in matches

“Regarding creativity, I think the second half had all the characteristics of my best work. In the sense of creating something new and being a team that can attack in every way. We attacked down the left, down the right, with shots from outside the box, corners, combinations through the middle. So I think today was an example of that. At the beginning, when I arrived here, we got many results in a certain way, respecting a lot what the players were doing, in a conservative way, and we kept going like that. I wasn’t going to keep changing that; I’m not going to make the team change overnight just because I have to. It was something that was working, so I respected it and changed things little by little. But we played good matches in that period, even before the Cup, like I mention Peñarol, the last match against Grêmio, which had elements you can identify in the work I’ve done throughout my career.”

“After the World Cup break, there are other kinds of problems that interfere. The tactical issue is not the main thing in football. There are things much more important than tactics: the emotional side, behavior, the environment — all these things are a much stronger foundation for what will happen in the game than the tactical issue.”

Reasons why Corinthians fans can believe the team will get out of this situation this season

“Because I believe in the work. I think that in these matches we had, there were clearly games we were not supposed to lose, but that is not the main point. Asking people to believe is difficult given the moment we are living through. We want the fans to believe as we believe. Internally, we have a very strong conviction that this will work out, and from that conviction we have to convince the fans. There’s no point asking them to believe right now, when the fans have seen seven consecutive defeats at home, which has always been a strong place for us to earn the points Corinthians have always earned.”

Did it take too long to make substitutions in the second half?

“I make changes when I think the team will improve. I’m not going to make changes just because it’s early or because it’s late. The team was playing well, it was very close to scoring, there was no need to make changes. I could see that Memphis was getting tired and Bidon as well. But even with them tired, we still had attacking volume and I thought it was better not to make changes at that moment. After we conceded the goal, Fluminense was going to sit back even more and look for transitions, so I decided to make changes, but I was already close to doing so then. Memphis was already close to coming off, I had already informed the bench. And we have to make changes when you think things will improve. I don’t change the team just because there are five substitutions; I’m not obliged to make changes. If Memphis hadn’t been tired, he wouldn’t have come off, I wouldn’t have changed him. If Bidon had also kept producing what he was producing, he wouldn’t have come off either. In the end, there would probably have been only one substitution.”

Poor run this season and the recent sharp drop in numbers under Fernando Diniz

The club from Parque São Jorge has not won in the Brazilian Championship since August 9, when it beat Red Bull Bragantino 2-0 at Estádio Cícero de Souza Marques in the 22nd round of the competition, with goals from midfielder Rodrigo Garro and striker Pedro Raul. Since then, there have been six straight defeats — Cruzeiro (H – 1-2), Coritiba (A – 2-1), Santos (H – 0-1), Chapecoense (H – 1-2), Flamengo (A – 2-1), and Fluminense (H – 1-3).

Since his arrival at Corinthians at the beginning of April, Corinthians has recorded 13 wins, 10 draws, and 11 losses — 36 goals scored and 31 conceded, which represents a 48% success rate. In his first seven matches in charge, Diniz had five wins and two draws, without conceding a single goal. Before the World Cup break, Alvinegro had a 64.5% success rate under the coach — nine wins, four draws, and three losses.

The scenario, however, changed. After the return, there have been four wins, eight draws, and eight losses — a 33.3% success rate. In this stretch came elimination in the Copa do Brasil round of 16 and in the Libertadores quarterfinals, against Internacional and Estudiantes-ARG, respectively.

Next match

Corinthians has now been given four days off due to the FIFA international break, which will take place between the end of September and the beginning of October, and will resume training at CT Dr. Joaquim Grava next Friday, the 25th. Alvinegro will only play again on Wednesday, October 7, at 7:30 p.m. (Brasília time), in the 29th round of the Brazilian Championship, when it faces Internacional at Beira-Rio Stadium. The match is considered a six-pointer, since the team from Rio Grande do Sul is third from bottom with 28 points, while Timão is a little above with 32 points.

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