Emily Lima hails rout, says renewal is close, on Corinthians youth | OneFootball

Corinthians closed out the first phase of the Paulista Women’s Championship with an important win before turning their attention back to the Brasileirão knockout stage. On Wednesday night (26), the Brabas beat Taubaté 6-2 at Fazendinha in the seventh round of the state competition. After the match, head coach Emily Lima assessed the team’s current moment and addressed a variety of topics in a press conference.

Ariel Godoi was the standout performer in the black-and-white side’s victory, scoring three times. Jaqueline, Jhonson, and Tamires completed the scoring for Corinthians. For Emily Lima, beyond the result on the field, the rout comes at an important time to restore calm and confidence within the squad ahead of the Brazilian Championship quarterfinals.

Photo: Rodrigo Gazzanel Ag. Corinthians

The coach also commented on the recent developments involving the club off the field and said she tries to keep the group balanced regardless of results.

“I believe this win comes at a time that people have already mentioned here, with a lot of talking, right? Sometimes talk from people who don’t even know what’s going on, sometimes things get put out there to shift the focus. This win comes to make our day off tomorrow more peaceful, to ease the girls’ minds, and to bring back confidence for such an important match that we have on Monday. Feet on the ground always, regardless of any result. I’m someone who tries to maintain that balance within every team I’ve worked with, and here it’s no different.

So, it’s about keeping our feet on the ground, but also enjoying the big win—the goals came. As much as we’re talking about Taubaté, anyone who has followed Taubaté for a long time can see that they’ve been improving their work despite all the difficulties. It’s a team we respect a lot within the women’s football scene, but the goals came. We have to make the most of that to start the week on Friday, or continue the week on Friday, so that we can arrive even stronger for the first leg of the quarterfinals.”

Emily Lima confirms Gisela Robledo’s renewal is on track

Another topic addressed during the interview was Gisela Robledo’s contract situation. The Colombian forward’s current deal with Corinthians expires on August 31, but Emily Lima revealed that the player’s stay is on track.

According to the coach, only the president’s signature is still needed for the renewal to be finalized. Emily also praised the forward’s work and expressed confidence in the player’s continued stay at Parque São Jorge.

“Everything is under control, we’re doing our work on this side. The people upstairs are working too, everything is already settled. We just need the president’s signature, everything is on track, everything is in order. Robledo will renew with Corinthians, and I hope she can make the fans even happier with goals. And maybe that can happen on Monday already, to kick off this renewal. She’s a girl who deserves it a lot, hardworking like all the others. But everything is under control regarding Robledo’s renewal.”

Paola Garcia gets a chance in the starting lineup

Emily Lima also evaluated the performance of Paola Garcia, who was chosen to start against Taubaté. The coach linked the player’s inconsistency to her lack of continuity and revealed that the Colombian covered approximately ten kilometers during the match.

Although she said she has seen better performances from the player, Emily emphasized that Paola remains in the coaching staff’s plans for the rest of the season.

“Paola is a girl who works very hard, like everyone else. We always say that we have a very strong squad, a very competitive squad. Because Paola has had few minutes, she ends up not having as much match rhythm, and that leads to mistakes, like anyone else. And it really has a lot to do with match rhythm, with minutes played. She was the player who ran the most on the field in terms of distance. I still haven’t properly analyzed whether that running was at high, medium, or low intensity, the sprint numbers, how many sprints she made. I haven’t evaluated that yet. But the information I have is that Paola ran 10 km. Now I need to understand how she ran those 10 km.

But Paola keeps working. Today she had a performance… I’ve seen Paola play better, especially against Kansas. She played an excellent match. And then, against América, she also played well and scored. A great goal, actually. So I’ve seen Paola play better. But I really believe that comes from the lack of minutes and match rhythm. She’s a girl we count on. She’s a girl who is in the squad so that we can put together a list for Monday. And she’s aware of that too, like all the others.”

Integration of the youth teams with the senior squad

With the start of the FIFA U-20 Women’s World Cup approaching, Emily was asked about Ana Morganti and Dulce, the Corinthians representatives called up to defend Brazil in the tournament, which will be played in Poland.

Speaking mainly about Dulce, the coach explained that the staff monitors not only the midfielder, but also other players from the U-17 and U-20 levels. Emily called for caution in the transition to the senior squad and stressed that rushing the process can harm the young players’ development.

“Not just her, right? We watch the U-17 and U-20 matches. We have a very good relationship with the Corinthians youth staff. We’ve been doing joint work, creating a training curriculum project. So, we have a really nice link, very professional, very healthy. And yes, there are girls on our radar. But we are very careful about putting these girls into the environment of professional Corinthians and ending up crossing certain limits that many people don’t understand.”

Emily cited previous experiences to explain the coaching staff’s concern with the development process and highlighted the importance of giving the players a longer path.

“So, I’ve already seen situations where young girls played U-17, U-20, and senior football and, within four years, ended up with their careers over. So we’re very careful about that. We’re not in a rush with a player’s development. We understand that it’s a very good experience for her, a World Cup. She’ll see a reality that we still don’t have in our country. So we need to evaluate all of that. It’s not just calling her up, bringing her in, and saying, ‘let’s play.’ We had the case of Rafa, we had the case of Manu (Olivan). Are they good players? They are good players. But they still need minutes, they still need time. You can’t expose players that way. That’s how we work. It may be right, it may be wrong. Anyway, you can evaluate it however you want. But we care a lot about the human being.”

The coach also projected the use of the youth levels as a way to develop future generations of Corinthians players and, in the long term, reduce the need to go into the market for signings.

“We can end a player’s career because of all the pressure that exists within the club. And that’s not what we want for her. We want them to have a long life in football. Today, women’s football gives you the conditions to change your family’s life, depending on the level you reach. So we need to think about the bigger picture. Not just, ‘let’s bring her in, she got called up to the national team.’ We’ve been evaluating her. And not just them, okay? There are girls in the U-17s that we really like.”

“And then we, from the senior squad, think: how can we help this girl develop, perform well at U-20 level, and arrive well in the senior team? We need to think about our academy and about working with our players, having our players, taking care of our players for ourselves. So that two, three, four, five years from now, Corinthians won’t need to go out and sign players, but will already have homegrown girls, which is what São Paulo does. Today São Paulo’s senior team has five or six players playing who came from the academy.”

Finally, Emily stressed the need to strengthen the structure offered to the youth levels and increase integration among the different coaching staffs in Corinthians women’s football.

“So, we need to take care of our academy. By ‘we,’ I mean Corinthians needs to take care of our academy. And we need to give more support to the coaching staffs down there, who are dealing with certain difficulties in terms of the work itself, like all teams. And then it’s up to us, from the senior side, to come here and provide that support, provide that help, so that we can do this work together in the best possible way. Because one feeds the other, one feeds the other, and that’s how we build a strong team.”

Corinthians’ situation in the Paulistão

Even with the rout, Corinthians were unable to advance directly to the semifinals of the Paulista Championship. Emily admitted that, given the size of the club, the goal was to secure one of the direct spots, but she recalled that the season planning required squad rotation in some matches.

The coach specifically cited the defeat to São Paulo at Fazendinha, when she used an alternative lineup, as one of the results that weighed on the standings.

“No. Actually, when you talk about Corinthians, you have to qualify directly. But because of the number of matches we’ve had, we ended up stumbling in some Paulista matches when we put out a slightly more alternative team, which was the case against São Paulo here. I think that match was crucial in why we are not through directly today. That was part of the planning, everyone agreed with that rotation. We have very good communication with the physiology department. In fact, it’s a staff where we’re able to exchange a lot.”

Even so, Emily said the derby defeat had not been part of the plan and assessed that the two additional state matches could help the team correct certain aspects.

“And it was within our plans. What wasn’t in our plans was losing at home, because we have the quality, even with an alternative lineup, to play São Paulo here and come away with the win. But it happened, and now we have to play those two matches. Sometimes we need to play those two matches to improve certain things that only actual matches allow us to adjust. So I always look at the positive side. I take these two matches from the positive side so that we can go into the final stage even stronger.”

Before turning their thoughts back to the Paulista Championship, however, the Brabas are focusing on the Brasileirão Feminino. Corinthians visit Cruzeiro next Monday (31) at 7:15 p.m. (Brasília time) at Independência Stadium in Belo Horizonte for the first leg of the national competition’s quarterfinals.

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