Oscar out until 2026, São Paulo consider ending his contract | OneFootball

The internal mood at São Paulo is pessimistic about attacking midfielder Oscar’s contribution to the team in this final stretch of the Brazilian Championship, as the team fights for a spot in the next edition of the Copa Libertadores.

The player is once again ruled out for the club after Monday’s (13th) training session.

As AVANTE MEU TRICOLOR learned from sources within São Paulo’s football hierarchy, the most optimistic prognosis for the No. 8’s return to the pitch (to training, it’s important to stress) is six weeks.

In plain terms, the trend is that Oscar will only be 100% recovered, including physically, when the Brasileirão is over (Tricolor’s last match is on December 7, away to Vitória).

Even before the new injury, there was internal caution at the Morumbi club regarding their player. Oscar hasn’t played for Tricolor since the 2–2 draw with Bragantino, away, on July 16, in the Brazilian Championship. On that occasion, the midfielder suffered a fracture of three lumbar vertebrae and missed 16 matches while recovering.

In the last two matches, the No. 8 was named to the squad by coach Hernán Crespo, but ended up not taking the field, still lacking better physical condition.

It’s another chapter in the attacking midfielder’s string of disappointments since his return to São Paulo after 15 years.

In practical and absolute terms, Oscar suffered his fifth injury since the start of the year. This equals the total number of injuries he had in the 12 years he spent outside Brazil, from 2012 to 2024, with Chelsea in England and Shanghai Port in China.

Adding the four injuries before this one, the No. 8 spent 175 days recovering, available for 30 of the 57 matches the club has played this season. He made 23 appearances, 19 as a starter, and finished the full ninety minutes only nine times. In total, he’s logged 1,591 minutes on the pitch, equivalent to 31% of the team’s total.

The rate is so low that any debate over his exact salary becomes irrelevant: whether it’s closer to one million reais or three million, the cost-benefit is poor in any scenario—unless, perhaps, it were the contract of a newly promoted academy player.

And it has sparked internal debates at Morumbi. As AMT has learned, several people close to president Julio Casares advocate attempting an amicable termination with the player for next year to ease the wage bill. The matter, however, is being avoided for now by the football department.

In a press conference on Tuesday morning (14th), Casares believes that Oscar’s signing, under the agreed terms, was carried out responsibly. São Paulo shares responsibility for paying the player’s wages with Superbet, the club’s main sponsor.

“I believe that Oscar, like other players, was a responsible signing. When Oscar chose São Paulo, he was being pursued by two other big clubs in Brazil. The fact that he got injured fits within a sporting landscape in which other players also have such occurrences. We hope he stays with our squad, recovers, and can bring the joy we aimed for when he was signed,” he said.

“He was signed through a partnership in which a little less than half was covered by the sponsor. All of this gives us certainty that the renewal with Superbet also contributed to Oscar’s arrival. I believe Oscar’s arrival was highly responsible, as have been all our signings. It’s evident that some don’t pan out immediately. The less evident ones materialize over time, like the case of Marcos Antonio. Signings have a subjectivity. Over time, the dynamics answer the questions of hits and misses, which sometimes depend on other factors,” the president continued.

Oscar has become the embodiment of what São Paulo swore to avoid: high investment and low return from names that symbolize the past. The recent track record of players returning from China already indicated the risk: Alexandre Pato, Éder Citadini, Hernanes, and Miranda all had stints that performed well below expectations—and of those, only Pato avoided frequent injuries.

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