Realistic, Dorival again criticises side despite São Paulo win and progress | OneFootball

São Paulo won. On Tuesday (26), they ended an eight-match winless streak, beat Boston River 2-0 at Morumbi, and secured first place and direct qualification to the Copa Sudamericana round of 16.

But the end of the drought did not seem to leave coach Dorival Júnior fully satisfied. In a realistic manner, the São Paulo boss was straightforward in coherently pointing out his team’s problems at the press conference. Once again, Tricolor managed to score early goals (this time there were two before the 15-minute mark), but especially in the second half, even against a fragile opponent, they dropped deeper and not only allowed the Uruguayans to threaten their defense more consistently, but also wasted yet another clear chance to win convincingly and, of course, win over the disillusioned fans.

“It’s something that has been bothering us. I hope we can put an end to all of this by finding much better balance and giving the players the confidence not to try to protect the result all the time. Because that creates an unnecessary situation in the match for a team that could control the game a little more,” Dorival admitted.

“What we’ve shown in the three matches has been very similar. We have to repeat that for longer to maintain what the team shows throughout the first half. Until we find that, it will be an even greater challenge. If I knew what was happening, I would try to act on it, but I still haven’t been able to figure it out,” he added.

A serious problem, which cost Dorival his first win in this third spell at the club in his first two matches.

But anyway, the victory came. And now that could mean everything is solved, right? Wrong. The coach himself is quick to dismiss the enthusiasm and admits that the work during the break for the World Cup will be crucial for the team to find ways to solve its problems.

“It’s too early. We can’t say that has already happened. The team has ability, it can improve, it can grow, and we have to speed up the process. We understand that we need to maintain a little more control over our actions on the field,” he said.

“That was evident in the first three halves we played, but negative patterns also repeated themselves in the second halves. That’s the point that differs a little. You’re left thinking, analyzing, trying to understand so that you can make a correction. I hope that with a little more confidence we can perform more consistently,” he said.

São Paulo finished the Sudamericana group stage unbeaten, with 12 points. Their knockout-stage opponent will begin to be determined on Friday (29), with the draw at Conmebol, but the matchup will only be finalized after the playoff between the second-placed teams from the groups and the teams coming from the Libertadores.

Even so, there is still time before the tie. It will only take place on August 12 and 19, after the World Cup.

Tricolor return to action at 8:30 p.m. (Brasília time) on Sunday (31), when they face Remo away from home in the Brazilian Championship. It will be the team’s last match before the nearly two-month break in the calendar for the World Cup in the United States, Mexico, and Canada.

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