Sampaoli blames exit on poor finishing: “No clarity in final third”

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·12 septembre 2025

Sampaoli blames exit on poor finishing: “No clarity in final third”

In his debut as Atlético's coach this season, Jorge Sampaoli could not prevent the team's elimination from the Copa do Brasil. Galo was defeated 2-0 by Cruzeiro on Thursday at Mineirão and was knocked out in the quarterfinals of the tournament. After the match, the Argentine coach held a press conference and critically analyzed his team's performance, highlighting offensive problems and defensive flaws that need to be corrected.

At the beginning of the press conference, Sampaoli explained the choices he made for his first lineup and the strategy adopted, emphasizing that the decisions were based on his observations of the squad during training sessions.

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“The idea was to play with many players inside, to free up the sides. We played with Igor and Scarpa at the highest point and Hulk. We had the option to spread out with Arana and Cuello. The absence of Alan Franco was also not an option because he arrived just before the match. We had to decide on a partner for Alexsander. What happened in the game is that we entered into a hysteria that did not allow us to play. There was little play, a lot of fighting, and in that, the opponent is better.”

The coach acknowledged that despite having superior ball possession – Galo ended with 73% possession in the classic – his team could not turn control into real goal opportunities and ended up being controlled by Cruzeiro after conceding an early goal.

“The first goal complicated us a lot. From there, the team had high possession, but it did not create goal situations. And the opponent played with the result.”

When questioned, Sampaoli also commented on the team's problems with set pieces, a factor that was again decisive in the defeat and, according to him, needs to be urgently addressed in training.

“We thought about the problem, worked on it, made a mixed defense to have this capability. But the opponent found the goal, then not much happened. It's a topic we must work on a lot.”

When talking about how he intends to resolve the team's defensive flaws, the Argentine highlighted that attention and concentration will be key points in the team's evolution process.

“We are starting, we are trying to stimulate concentration, attention; these are set pieces and second balls that we need to pay more attention to. We had many sessions in a short time, and we have to keep working.”

Finally, Sampaoli pointed out the need for technical growth of the players, especially in the offensive sector, and stated that Atlético needs to recover the individual performance of key players to become competitive and efficient in attack again.

“The team will have to improve a lot individually and collectively to achieve any kind of triumph. We can try to organize a structure, but we need to recover the individual performance of some players who make a difference in the final third, where clarity is lacking. It's a job we need to recover in players who have the capability.”

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