Filipe Luís explains defeat, eyes Flamengo’s key match | OneFootball

The 1-0 defeat to Fortaleza this Saturday was a bucket of cold water on Flamengo’s hopes of taking the lead in the Brasileirão. After the match, coach Filipe Luís sought explanations for his team’s technically poor performance, defended the choices he made in the lineup, and, above all, projected total focus on the big decision of the week.

On Wednesday, the Rubro-Negro will visit Racing for the second leg of the Libertadores semifinal, at the El Cilindro Stadium in Buenos Aires. In the first leg, Flamengo won 1-0 at Maracanã.

With a team full of reserves, the gamble to rest the starters did not pay off. However, the coach made a point of standing by his decisions, stating that the team he put on the field was, in his view, the best for the match.

“The team that took the field today is the team I believed was the best to beat Fortaleza. They were players who were well recovered, fresh, in a good moment to win,” said Filipe Luís, who also justified using Bruno Henrique as center forward in Pedro’s absence: “Today I felt the team needed Bruno Henrique as a number 9 and that’s what we did. Unfortunately, we couldn’t get the win and the blame will always fall on the usual players, those who were out should have played, it’s always like that… I stick to my convictions.”

For the coach, Fortaleza’s merit in making things difficult was a crucial factor in the negative result, and conceding a goal early in the game destabilized the team.

“Every game has its story, the opponent creates difficulties for you (…) Fortaleza was like that, we didn’t expect this performance, this defeat. When we got into the game, it was already 1-0 for Fortaleza, we didn’t quickly understand where they were leaving the spaces,” he analyzed.

Focus on the Libertadores

Despite the setback, Filipe Luís was emphatic in separating Saturday’s match from the most important commitment of the semester. He sees the loss as an isolated episode and has already turned all his attention to the Libertadores semifinal against Racing next Wednesday in Argentina.

“We’ve played 3 games in 6 days, it affects things a bit. On Wednesday we have the most important match so far, I have no doubt that everyone’s ambition is to be in Lima,” said the coach. “Four days of rest give us the chance to get everyone physically recovered.”

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