Abel: Paulista red card like Libertadores final, only blame Palmeiras

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·11 janvier 2026

Abel: Paulista red card like Libertadores final, only blame Palmeiras

Palmeiras defeated Portuguesa 1-0 on Saturday night (10th), at Canindé, in their debut in the group stage of the Campeonato Paulista, starting off on the right foot in 2026. However, Abel Ferreira, in a press conference, still hasn’t forgotten the things that happened in 2025.

The coach once again spoke about the refereeing in the final match of the Libertadores, which was won by Flamengo over Palmeiras, and the controversy over the referee not sending off Pulgar in a play similar to the one that saw Portuguesa’s full-back Igor Torres sent off this Saturday. He mentioned that many people only remember the statistic of not having taken a shot on goal – indirectly referencing Leila Pereira’s statement, who admitted ‘Verdão’s incompetence in the final’.

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– We learned last year, and so did VAR. I don’t know if the VAR in the Libertadores was different from this one, but it’s very sad to see a play much worse than what happened today in the Libertadores final with supposedly a top referee. – There’s the proof of how annoying Palmeiras’ coach is, sometimes they just say that Palmeiras didn’t shoot on goal, that Palmeiras played badly, but no one takes away this asterisk.

When asked about the spirit of starting his sixth season in charge of the team, Abel once again recalled situations from 2025 and said he has a ‘wounded pride’.

– (I face it with) challenge, pride, wounded pride, and a bit of anger. In 2025 some things happened, some under my control, others not, and we will challenge ourselves. – Over these six years I’ve always done different things here, but things are harder to understand when we talk tactically. It’s much easier to say the coach complained about the referee, talked about refereeing.

Short Preseason

Abel also highlighted during the press conference at Canindé the shorter preseason, only four days, when explaining why he mixed the team for the Paulistão debut. The squad returned to the Football Academy on Sunday (4th), but only went to the training pitch on Tuesday (6th), after a round of medical exams. However, he liked what he saw on the field.

– Last year we rotated the squad at the start of the year to give everyone time, this year we had a four-day preseason, the players reported on Sunday and started training on the pitch on Tuesday. – We had a lot of meetings this week, Brazilian football is very intense. I really liked what I saw, I’m very happy with the dynamics we saw.

He also spoke about reinforcements and the spending in 2025, as well as lamenting injuries already in the first week of the new season, stressing that the ‘ideal team’ will be ready in up to five weeks.

– For 2026 we basically only have Marlon as a new player. In recent years we sold R$2 billion, bought R$700 million, and so we are R$1.3 billion weaker. – I believe in four or five weeks. In this first week Vitor Roque had a sprain, Jefté got injured on the field today, Paulinho is still out, Flaco Lopez has the flu, and Facundo had a physical problem. I wanted to give answers, but I can’t with only four days of preparation.

What now?

After opening the season with a win, Verdão faces Santos next Wednesday (14th), at 6:30 pm (Brasília time), at Arena Crefisa Barueri. The match is valid for the second round of the first phase of the Campeonato Paulista.

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