‘New Ceni’ rejects renewal, eyes Portugal, set to leave São Paulo 🚤 | OneFootball

The São Paulo departure boat has just gained a new member. Goalkeeper Leandro Mathias will not have his contract renewed, which ends at the end of the year, and is free to sign with any club he wishes.

This marks the end of the 21-year-old player's journey at Morumbi. He had been training with the professional squad since last year but never had a real chance to make his debut wearing the tricolor shirt. In total, he was named in the squad for 17 matches, but in all of them, he remained an option on the bench.

Leandro gained some notoriety during his three years with São Paulo's under-20 squad and even scored a few goals from free kicks, which quickly earned him the nickname ‘new Rogério Ceni’—a reference to the club's eternal idol and one of his many qualities.

Since mid-year, it was known that the goalkeeper was no longer in the club's plans. Any chance of reversing the situation was sabotaged by a stint in Reffis in October, when he missed six matches due to treatment for pain in his left knee, losing ground even for being called up for goalkeeper warm-ups and team trips.

Recovered before the club’s final match of the season, against Vitória on Sunday (7th), he ended up being left out. He has already said his goodbyes to staff at the Barra Funda training center and fellow teammates.

Leandro’s likely destination is Portuguese football. Clubs from the European country had already approached São Paulo in June, but negotiations involved a loan deal with the Tricolor paying part of his wages. For this to happen, his contract would have needed to be renewed, which was not of interest.

AVANTE MEU TRICOLOR found that São Paulo even proposed an early and free release to two Portuguese clubs, but neither accepted the offer to take the goalkeeper with the Brazilians retaining part of his rights as ‘payment’.

At the start of the year, São Paulo and Leandro had reached a verbal agreement to renew his contract. However, the internal assessment was that the youngster did not develop as expected in the professional squad. The priority then shifted to other homegrown talents for the position, such as Young, Felipe Preis, and João Paulo.

In addition to Leandro, another name is officially out of São Paulo: forward Dinenno, whose contract also ran only until the end of the year. The Argentine has already signed a contract with Deportivo Cali, from Colombia, and posted a farewell message to fans on social media (see below).

The Tricolor has three other players with contracts expiring at the end of this season: forward Rigoni, midfielder Luiz Gustavo, and left-back Enzo Díaz. The latter is on loan from River Plate and is expected to be the only one the club will make an effort to keep for 2026.

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