Santos meet Cuca's targets, secure packed second-half schedule | OneFootball

Santos heads into the season break for the 2026 World Cup with a sense of mission accomplished.

Under coach Cuca, the Vila Belmiro side managed to achieve, at least partially in some cases, the four main objectives set for this first half of the year, according to ge.

🎯 The 4 missions accomplished by Cuca

Progress in the Copa do Brasil: The team secured qualification for the round of 16, where it will face Remo.

Staying alive in the Copa Sudamericana: Cuca had hoped to advance directly in first place, but the team finished behind Recoleta (PAR). Even so, Santos is still alive in the competition and will play the playoffs against Universidad Central (VEN).

The "Neymar Project": One of the internal goals was to get the No. 10 back into the Brazil national team for the World Cup, and that became reality with the call-up made by Carlo Ancelotti. However, the situation requires attention, as the CBF diagnosed the attacking midfielder with a grade 2 injury to his right calf.

Breathing room in the Brasileirão: The goal of not spending the 60-day break inside the relegation zone was achieved. As the coach himself pointed out, spending this long midseason period in the bottom four has a very negative psychological impact, and the team "worked very hard" to stay out of it.

🗓️ End of the second-half "curse"

By staying alive in the cup competitions, Santos is looking ahead to a busy second half of the season, something that had not happened since the 2021 season (note: the original headline cites 2001, but this is a typo from the source, since the text itself confirms the five-year gap).

In recent years, the club has piled up early exits in the Copa Sudamericana and the Copa do Brasil, reaching the final stretch of the year competing only in the Brazilian Championship (or Série B, as happened in 2024). To keep all three fronts alive in August, Peixe will need to eliminate Universidad Central in the last two weeks of July.

✈️ Next steps

Return to training: The Santos squad has been given a few days off and will only return to training on June 22.

Midseason training camp in Europe: Between July 7 and 17, Santos will go on a tour in Portugal through the "Joga Brasil" project. The club will play three friendlies, including one already confirmed against Vitória de Guimarães on July 12 at the D. Afonso Henriques Stadium.

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

📸 JUAN MABROMATA - AFP or licensors