São Paulo fight back to beat Primavera, enter Paulistão G-8 for first time | OneFootball

It was more a night of relief than anything else. With a persistent rain falling over Morumbi throughout the match, São Paulo needed two VAR interventions to avoid what would have been an immense humiliation and secure a comeback victory over Primavera by 2-1 on Saturday night (7), in the Paulista Championship.

The result puts Tricolor for the first time, in the penultimate round, in the qualifying zone for the knockout stage of the State Championship. Currently, they are in eighth place, with ten points. For the pessimists and jinxers, some good news: the club is no longer at risk of relegation.

Now, São Paulo, if the rest of the round helps, will depend only on themselves to advance to the quarter-finals. They will face Ponte Preta, already mathematically relegated, away from home in the last round next Saturday (14), at 8:30 PM (Brasília time).

The first-ever match between São Paulo and Primavera started as expected: absolute dominance by the home team, with Lucas regaining good form and performing well, setting the pace.

It seemed to be a matter of time until things were decided, but the scenario changed due to what is Tricolor's biggest problem this season: offensive inefficiency. Crespo's team articulates, maintains ball possession, but cannot finish effectively.

The panorama changed after an incident when the match was interrupted at 31 minutes for the ambulance to assist defender Afonso, who fell unconscious after a head collision with Tapia during a ball dispute.

Combined with the technical stop, the interruption ended up cooling down the São Paulo team, which could no longer perform with the same intensity and finished the first half booed by more than 35,000 fans who braved the rain at Morumbi.

At the start of the second half, Crespo even tried to boost the offense by bringing Luciano onto the field, but it backfired. At 8 minutes, in a counterattack, Gabriel Poveda controlled the ball in the midfield after passing exchanges and took a shot. The ball deflected off Feraresi and caught Rafael off guard.

The ghost, the nickname of the interior team, seemed to be hovering over the São Paulo house again, a repeat of disappointments that fans have already seen happen this year.

Crespo, somewhat out of desperation, started piling on attackers. And it actually worked. At 25 minutes, Calleri was launched on the left, passed the marking, and crossed with force. Lucas Ramon, making his debut that night, made an effort, saved the ball with a slide, and found Lucas, who pushed it into the net to equalize. The goal, however, was only validated after VAR analysis, as the play was initially annulled for offside.

Then it was Primavera's turn to feel the pressure. At 34 minutes, their defender decided to give Tricolor a little help. Renato ended up elbowing Luciano inside the area. Once again, VAR intervened, and the penalty was awarded and converted by Calleri, sealing the comeback.

Encouraged by the unbeaten streak now totaling four matches, São Paulo tries to maintain the good phase now in the Brasileirão, when they will face Grêmio on Wednesday (11), at 9:30 PM (Brasília time), again at Morumbi.

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