Corinthians assistant on Yuri Alberto’s possible Santos derby return | OneFootball

On the night of last Wednesday (11), Corinthians faced Coritiba at Neo Química Arena, in a match valid for the fifth round of the 2026 Brazilian Championship, and was defeated 2-0. The loss left the Corinthians team in eighth place with seven points – two wins, one draw, and two losses – five goals scored and five conceded.

In a press conference after the match, Corinthians’ assistant coach, Lucas Silvestre, was asked about a possible return of striker Yuri Alberto for next Sunday’s (15) match against Santos, at Vila Belmiro, for the sixth round of the Brasileirão. The number 9 has been training normally with the squad for a few days after suffering a muscle injury. He hasn’t played since February 16, when he was substituted in the 1-0 win over São Bernardo, at Primeiro de Maio, in the first phase of the Paulistão, due to discomfort in his thigh. In 2026, he is the team’s top scorer with three goals in nine games.

Photo: Rodrigo Coca/Agência Corinthians

“Regarding Yuri, tomorrow the medical department should give us an update. There will be a meeting with the player, and we are waiting for the doctor to speak so we can understand whether he will be fit to play on Sunday or not,” he began.

He then emphasized the need for the team and coaching staff to observe and learn from the mistakes made in the match against the Paraná team for the upcoming games. He also stated that he had already anticipated Coritiba’s strategy for the match, but even so, they were unable to impose themselves over the 90 minutes: “The important thing now is to look at ourselves, understand everything that happened, and analyze the match. Based on how the game unfolded, we need to see what we can improve and evolve. It really was a week that gave us the impression it would be a totally different game than what happened today. These are matches we need to approach differently, especially playing at home, against an opponent whose qualities we already knew. We knew they would close up well, rely on transitions as their main weapon, and also on set pieces. This was worked on during the week, but we couldn’t neutralize their best plays.”, he continued.

Later, the assistant coach lamented the unusually high number of technical errors by Corinthians in the match. On the other hand, he praised the strong presence of the Corinthians fans and responded to the fact that the club from Parque São Jorge hasn’t come from behind to win a match in Itaquera since April of last year, when the Alvinegro beat Sport 2-1 after trailing in the first half, in the fifth round of the Brasileirão.

“Regarding the second half, you come back in a different way. We talked, corrected some things, and spoke to them at halftime, but we ended up conceding a goal the way we did, from a throw-in. The way that goal happened weighs on you, and right after that, things just don’t flow. We had many technical errors, we couldn’t speed up, we couldn’t give the game any pace. The opponent also made things very difficult for us, and because of that, you end up finding yourself without many alternatives during the match.”

“I also need to thank our fans, who supported us until the last minute. Even understanding that we weren’t having a good day, there were no boos or any kind of protest at any moment. So, my thanks go to the fans who, until the end of the game, kept supporting the team. We need to create situations in training so that we can, above all, face teams that come in more closed and end up making things a bit more difficult. When you can’t create imbalances at home, you need to speed up ball circulation and have more movement, which is exactly what I mentioned earlier and what was missing today,” he continued.

He added: “So, the idea is for us to keep working and offering more alternatives so that the players can solve these problems on the field. Obviously, we also need to create this imbalance at many moments, so that in situations where we create superiority or one-on-one situations, we can win those individual duels. Today was a game in which we practically lost all the duels, both defensive and offensive. So, it’s very difficult to win a match when you lose battles in both phases of the game.”

Right after, he justified not making changes at halftime. In his answer, he said he believed in a change of attitude from the team: “I didn’t make changes at halftime because, first, I believed in a change of attitude from the team and that they would put into practice what we worked on during the week. That was the idea. I called their attention at halftime, warned them, and tried to show the way, to indicate where the spaces were.”

“I also said we would have ten minutes to change our attitude on the field. From the moment that didn’t happen, I would make the substitutions and try something different. And that’s what happened. Seven or eight minutes into the second half, we ended up conceding the goal. So I made the changes I had already told them I would make if there wasn’t a change in attitude,” he concluded.

Corinthians now prepares for their next commitment of the season. Next Sunday (15), at 4pm (Brasília time), the Alvinegro visits Santos FC at Vila Belmiro, for the sixth round of the 2026 Brazilian Championship.

Check out other answers from Lucas Silvestre in the press conference below:

Using Breno Bidon in a deeper role and the fact that both are not performing as expected together in the 4-4-2 formation

“The changes have been happening every match. Sometimes Breno plays with Garro, sometimes Breno plays without Garro, or Garro plays without Breno. We’ve been changing the team a lot from one game to another, precisely so that the players are in good physical condition and at a high level of competitiveness, since we’ve been playing a sequence of matches on Wednesdays and Sundays. So we’ve played in various ways.”

“Today the idea was to have Alan a bit deeper to try to speed up ball circulation, and Breno even played a different role than he had been doing with us: he played as a more advanced midfielder, playing behind the two forwards, so that when the ball came in from the sides, it could get back to Breno and he could distribute the play for the team. Actually, the height of the opponent’s line and their compactness made it difficult for us to use those players inside, both Garro and Breno and André. We had a lot of difficulty and ended up missing the final movement of penetration to create space between the lines, which, because of that, didn’t happen.”

“But I believe Breno and Garro can play together. When you have quality players, you can make them play together. The important thing is to understand how to make Breno perform even better playing alongside them, or for Garro to perform better being close. Because they are two very talented players, and when they get close, they can create interesting things for us.”

Few shots in recent games and alternatives to improve efficiency

“I see that, especially at the start of the game, in the first 15 or 20 minutes, that’s when we had that superiority and managed to work the ball in front of the opponent. What was missing was finishing the plays. Many times we had the chance to try a shot from outside the box. The ball would come in from the sides and there was the possibility of crossing in front of the defenders to create more pressure on the opponent.”

“But we ended up complicating things too much in the plays. We tried too many penetrations, trying to walk the ball into the goal, and many times that’s not the way. Sometimes it’s a shot from outside the box, a cross, a ball played across, so you can create pressure and make the opponent retreat more and more, opening up spaces in front of the area.”

“But for that, we need to finish the plays, something we didn’t do today and that hasn’t been happening in some games. I believe we need to intensify this process with the players, so they understand that a shot from outside the box or a good cross also helps generate that pressure, which is fundamental to hurt the opponent. By pressing and bothering the opponent in this way, you also increase your chances of scoring.”

Matheus Bidu’s exit and Fabrizio Angileri’s entrance at the end of the match and Zakaria Labyad’s debut

“Actually, today was a day when I could have made ten changes, because nobody was doing well. It was a match where the group as a whole didn’t perform. At that moment, we felt that Fabrício could provide more attacking presence down the side. I wasn’t satisfied with what I was seeing on the field. Obviously, since we had a sixth substitution option, which initially wouldn’t have been Bidu, the fact that Coritiba made a concussion substitution ended up giving us one more change. We imagined some possibilities, but there weren’t many offensive options left besides Zakaria, who was already pretty much set to come in for Memphis.”

“So we made the sixth change to try something different at that moment, since Bidu wasn’t having much success, just as the other players weren’t performing either. It was an attempt to generate something different at that point in the game.”

High number of crosses by the team in the match

“When the opponent closes up in a low block, you don’t have many options, because they were practically inside the penalty area, with about ten players there. So you really run out of alternatives. And when you also don’t have the penetrating movements I mentioned earlier in the final third, the plays end up being reduced to crosses as the only option.”

“Obviously, that’s not what we worked on for the game. The plan was different, it was what we saw in the first 15 or 20 minutes, when we managed to have control, but then we lost our way. With the opponent’s goal, the situation became even more favorable for them, as they started putting almost the entire team behind. Besides that, they have a lot of speed up front, and in transitions they ended up creating situations that hurt us throughout the match.”

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