Coincidence? Wilton Pereira Sampaio has refereed most of Palmeiras' defeats | OneFootball

Palmeiras 4 to 0 against América-MG on November 29, 2023. Remember this date well because it will be important throughout this text. On this day, the victory paved the way for Palmeiras' twelfth Brazilian title at the Allianz Parque.

The referee for the match, which was part of the penultimate round of the Brazilian Championship, was Wilton Pereira Sampaio. Since then, Abel Ferreira's team has played 132 times and lost only 22 of them, which is just 16.6%.

Curiously, six losses during this period had Wilton as the referee, which represents 27.7%. In almost two years, a little more than one in four of Palmeiras' losses, in any competition, was under the command of the referee from Goiás. He also officiated in two other draws since the victory over the Minas Gerais club at the Allianz.

The other 16 Palmeiras defeats in the same period are divided among 13 different referees, including two international ones: Esteban Ostojich (URU) and Alireza Faghani (AUS), for the Libertadores and Club World Cup, respectively.

After Wilton, Anderson Daronco has worked the most in Palmeiras' defeats since November 29, 2023. There were three, but in ten matches. Bráulio da Silva Machado and Ramon Abatti Abel follow with two each.

By ignoring the penalty on Jorginho by Gustavo Gómez just two minutes into the first half at Maracanã, the camera captured Abel Ferreira's reaction, uttering the following words: “It's always the same referee, it's always the same referee!”

The numbers show that in the last two years, it is possible to say that it is “almost always the same referee” and his name is Wilton Pereira Sampaio.

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