Rafael on São Paulo’s defeat to Grêmio: “Regrettable” | OneFootball

One of the standouts for São Paulo in the loss to Grêmio this Thursday, 2–0 in Porto Alegre, in the Brazilian Championship, Rafael left the field looking far from happy. Suffering yet another setback this season, the goalkeeper commented on his team’s performance, which had good moments in the game, especially in the first half, but ended up suffering a sharp drop in level afterward.

“We started the game well; for 30 minutes we had control. We couldn’t finish and score, but we had more control. In the final 15 minutes they had more volume and scored. After that they managed to dominate the game. It’s unfortunate. There’s not much to say—it’s lamentable given the game we played, the opportunity we missed to pick up points,” Rafael told SporTV.

This was São Paulo’s fifth defeat in the last six games. The team is stuck in eighth place in the Brazilian Championship, with 38 points, and is starting to see the top-six group in the competition—which secures a spot in the next edition of the Libertadores—pull away.

“Whenever we wear the São Paulo shirt, we go into games to win. We really wanted the three points away from home; we knew it was a tough match against Grêmio, but we needed to come here and get points. That’s the only way to climb the table,” continued the tricolor goalkeeper.

São Paulo will try to make up for the loss with another very tough challenge ahead: Mirassol, currently fourth in the Brasileirão, away from home next Sunday at 6:30 p.m. (Brasília time).

“We already have a very tough away game against Mirassol. We’ll look at the mistakes we made here today, correct them, and try to pick up points away to Mirassol,” Rafael concluded.

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