Painful defeat: Rafael backs São Paulo to turn it around | OneFootball

In their two best moments in the match this Thursday (18) in Quito, Ecuador, São Paulo conceded two goals to LDU, which ultimately consolidated their advantage at the end of the game to take the lead in the Copa Libertadores quarterfinals.

The feeling was truly one of pain. The tricolor team changed their approach after the break and, with an inspired Ferreirinha, created great scoring opportunities. Goalkeeper Rafael, who also made a great save at the end, lamented the scoreline, praising the team's good performance away from home.

"It's a defeat that really hurts because the result does not reflect the game. I think we played a good game, we managed to control, we had opportunities, but football, sometimes, is like this, they arrived three, four times, were efficient, scored the two goals," said the downcast goalkeeper to the Paramount channel.

"And it's regrettable because I believe it wasn't a game for this result, but also very little to regret because we have the return match next Thursday, we have the support of our fans, we are at home and we have total capacity to reverse this situation," however, the São Paulo goalkeeper considered, believing in the team's reaction in the return at Morumbi.

After being upset by the goal conceded in the first half of the game, São Paulo completely changed their attitude in the 2nd half and went after La U, also with some changes from Hernán Crespo.

"We managed, Crespo guided us on the return, he helped us to show where the spaces were and I think that made our team grow within the match," explained Rafael, who valued the squad.

"The substitutions too, we always stress that we will need everyone and certainly the five who will come off the bench, and we played a game where we were looking for a draw, unfortunately we conceded the second goal," he said.

"But it serves as a learning experience and now it's about seeing what we did well, adjusting the mistakes so that next Thursday we can play a great game at home and seek this qualification which is our goal," Rafael concluded still on the pitch at Casa Blanca stadium.

Now Tricolor is chasing the deficit and will need to win by at least two goals difference in the return match next Thursday (25), at 19h (Brasília time), at Morumbi, to at least take the decision of the semifinal spot to penalties.

Before that, however, the club returns to the field at 20:30 (Brasília time) on Sunday (21) for the classic against Santos, at Vila Belmiro, for the Brazilian Championship.

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