Luciano on ‘row’ with Volpi, off-pitch woes, matching Careca | OneFootball

Luciano was the standout performer in São Paulo’s 2-1 win over Bragantino on Saturday night at Morumbi. Wearing the No. 10 shirt, he opened the scoring from the penalty spot despite plenty of gamesmanship from opposing goalkeeper Volpi, an old acquaintance of the forward.

“He kept saying I was going to shoot across goal, I told him no, but in the end I took an excellent penalty. I knew him (Volpi), I already scored a penalty against him when he was at São Paulo and I was with Grêmio, but we worked together too. He’s a great goalkeeper, but thank God today, with the support of our fans, we came away with the win,” Luciano told SporTV as he left the pitch.

Captain of Tricolor in the match, Luciano did not fail to mention the club’s off-field problems, which, according to the player’s emotional comments, do end up hurting the team.

“As I always say, São Paulo is huge and is going through the worst period in its history. A lot of things happen off the pitch; sometimes we try to act like they don’t affect us, but sometimes they do. Sometimes a shot off the post against Chapecoense goes in, sometimes it doesn’t, you know? It’s that kind of thing.”

“What I want to say to the fans is that we’re going to fight for this shirt, so that São Paulo can go back to being the São Paulo every fan who watched in the old days can see shine again in the future, because that’s what São Paulo is, it’s a massive club, and I hope from now on São Paulo shines again and wins great titles again,” the striker added.

Luciano reached 115 goals in a São Paulo shirt, drawing level with a true club legend, Careca, the center-forward who made his mark in the 1980s. After reaching the incredible milestone, he remained humble.

“Today I was able to draw level with a legend (Careca), but like I said, Luciano is still a long way from those São Paulo legends,” the Tricolor player concluded.

Looking to improve things even further, Tricolor will be back in action only next Saturday (9/5) at 6:30 p.m. Brasília time, once again at Morumbi, hoping to firmly seal its rise in the Brasileirão.

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