Ex-club factor in São Paulo v Bahia: Cauly can play, joins 7 who switched | OneFootball

The clash between São Paulo and Bahia in the Brazilian Championship, scheduled for this Sunday (5/3) at 4 p.m. (Brasília time), will feature no fewer than eight names who have switched sides between the two tricolor teams.

One of the most recent to join the list of former players was attacking midfielder Cauly, who arrived at São Paulo on loan from Bahia at the start of this season. The player lost space under Rogério Ceni at his former club and was transferred to the Tricolor.

However, unlike most loan deals in Brazil, Cauly does not have a fee that must be paid for him to play against the team that still owns his rights, in this case Bahia. Therefore, the midfielder will be available to coach Roger Machado for the Tricolor this weekend.

The signing joined São Paulo on a deal valid until the end of the year, with a mandatory purchase clause of 2 million euros (R$11.68 million at the exchange rate of the day) if certain targets are met. Cauly needs to play at least 45 minutes in 25 matches to trigger the clause.

So far, the player has appeared in nine matches with at least 45 minutes on the pitch, meaning he still needs 16 more games to reach the agreed target.

The ex-player rule even applies on the sidelines

Both coaches, Roger Machado and Rogério Ceni, know this Sunday’s opponents well. São Paulo’s current manager coached Bahia between 2019 and 2020, winning the state title twice with the club.

Ceni, meanwhile, needs no introduction. As a coach, he led São Paulo in 2017 and later from 2021 to 2023, taking charge of 142 matches, but winning no titles with the club where he made his name as a player.

The four familiar faces at Bahia

On the field, there are four players who have already been with the São Paulo club. Experienced goalkeeper Léo Vieira, 35, Bahia’s starter, came through at São Paulo and was even a backup to Rogério Ceni. However, he made only two appearances for the Tricolor.

Two midfielders who are now backups at Bahia also left São Paulo recently: Rodrigo Nestor, a Cotia academy product and scorer of the historic winning goal in the 2023 Copa do Brasil, and Uruguayan Michel Araujo, who played for the club for two seasons. Both left the Tricolor for the Northeast in 2025.

The biggest standout and top candidate for the ex-player rule is in attack. Bahia’s top scorer this season with eight goals, Willian José is one of the key figures in Rogério Ceni’s team, and he was Ceni’s teammate at Tricolor between 2011 and 2012.

On São Paulo’s side, besides Cauly, another new name who has already played for the other team is winger Artur, who has been turning in good performances for the Tricolor since arriving at Roger’s request. In 2019, when he won the Bahia state championship with the club, he broke onto the national scene after 55 matches, recording ten goals and 11 assists.

São Paulo hosts Bahia, but at the Cícero de Souza Marques stadium in Bragança Paulista, since Morumbi has been made available for concerts, in a match scheduled for 4 p.m. this Sunday in the 14th round of the Brazilian Championship.

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