Jardim admits Flamengo's 'slow pace', questions refs after São Paulo draw | OneFootball

When I got to halftime, I wrote one word on the board we have in our dressing room: aggression. Aggression with the ball. You analyzed that play very well, because it was exactly the example I used to talk about aggression with the ball. We were moving the ball around, but we needed the aggression to drive it forward, create imbalance, and then release the players. For much of the first half, what happened? We moved the ball around, but we were just passing it from one player to another. The ball went to the right, then came back again, and many times we even ended up making São Paulo’s pressure easier. From the moment we started showing that aggression and driving the ball forward, São Paulo, even pressing on one side, could no longer stay balanced on the other. That’s when we started to have more attacking power. More than a tactical issue, we lacked dynamism, speed in circulation, and aggression with the ball in the first half.

Being a Flamengo player, being Flamengo’s coach, if victories don’t come, it’s disappointment. But we have to be honest in our analysis of the game. That is: the players are disappointed with the first half, because it didn’t show what we work on. There wasn’t that energy, there wasn’t that dynamism that I want the players to have. The players can do more and better, and they have done so in many matches. In the second half, within the same strategy, we had much stronger dynamism. Much more aggression with the ball, much stronger. And that certainly immediately changes the way you play and the speed of the game.

We definitely didn’t like it. And the players themselves also surely realized they weren’t good. In football, sometimes this has to be a lesson: that we cannot approach matches this way. We have to start taking the game to our opponents right from the start, with more speed, more dynamism, and more aggression with the ball. That is something I like in my teams. We have to fix it in the future. And the future is in two or three days. We need to play this way for 90 minutes, plus stoppage time, and not just the 45 minutes of the second half. That’s why I hope, and believe, that they are capable of imposing a different dynamic, as they have already done many times throughout the year.

Of course we count on all of those players. I’ve been working with Flamengo for three or four months. I think it became very clear that Evertton stood out a lot. Erick left the team because of suspension and injury. Jorginho also stood out a lot. Now I need to make a decision: should I play the players who have stood out more, or should I give opportunities to others? From there, a certain hierarchy is created. My hierarchy, at this moment, is that one. I know we have two players who, because of some physical problems, haven’t been able to show their best. But right now, it is also a matter of hierarchy and performance, as I said. What I look at is performance. It’s what I was saying about Ortiz. It’s easy to pick the team by names, right? “What’s your résumé? You play. The other one is training and playing well? Doesn’t matter, he’s out. You play.” That doesn’t work that way, because the whole management of the group and the team falls apart. No one starts believing in the work, no one starts believing in performance. The player performs well or badly and, even so, doesn’t get opportunities. That’s why in my team there are always hierarchies. And who builds those hierarchies? It’s not the coach. It’s the players. And how do the players build that hierarchy? Through performance, attitude, behavior, consistency, and all those actions.

Honestly, one thing we don’t think much about is the opponents. We think about our performance. And in this game, since we arrived before the opponent, we could never be thinking about the opponent. We had to think about ourselves. As I already said, I was upset about the first half, because I think we could have done much more. The second half was a half decided by details. As I already said, we could be talking about a 3-1 result if we took away 3 centimeters. And I don’t know whether it was right or not, Wallace’s foot, or whether that little volleyball-style touch should have been called. We could be talking about a 3-1 result and discussing things differently here. But the reality is that the first half was not good, and in the second it came down to details and we couldn’t win.

I went to check the numbers. The opponent had one shot on target, and Rossi maybe had to make half a save. Right? If we look at it, there was only that header. The opponent created very little. There was one play where we lacked pressure on the center back. He delivered a cross from an area still far from goal, and our line didn’t defend it well. I think it was an error shared between two responsibilities. But aside from that, I didn’t see many big moments from the opponent. I think defensively we were competent, except for that play. Our biggest difficulty, I’ll say again, was a very slow, apathetic first half without attacking aggression. That’s what I told the players and also what I showed through the videos, with some clips that we always present at halftime. In the second half, we improved. I think that was the main point.

As for the tactical issue at right back, they are two great players. I’ve said that many times, both Varela and Royal. Royal has improved a lot in performance lately, but Varela is also a player of great quality. Varela spent two months with the national team, and that involves not only the physical aspect, but also match dynamics. I believe you watched Uruguay. It is a different way of playing and, sometimes, you don’t have that sensitivity. A player who spends two months, or a month and a half, training with another coach and with different references needs to readapt. Uruguay marks man-to-man and plays with a completely different strategy from the one used by Flamengo.

I find all these questions about Ortiz quite amusing. He’s a player who had two training sessions, and I think people like you, who understand football, consider it normal for a player to have two training sessions and immediately be an option for a game. I don’t think so. He is an important player, the injury risk is high, and if we took that risk in this situation, we would be incompetent in terms of management. But of course, there are people who think that in football you don’t even need to train. The player comes back from vacation, starts playing, and everything is fine. But according to my guidelines and my way of working, that normally doesn’t happen. We found that even the players who came back from the national team, already with some training, had difficulties. Léo Pereira, in the last game, already had difficulties and had to come off. I think he was already dealing with issues. Alex also had some difficulties. Ortiz had two training sessions with us. He trained only part of one, and in the second he did not take part, which was the game strategy session. Our goal is to bring him back for the game. When a player is involved in a match, he doesn’t train the day before. If he doesn’t play, he then doesn’t do activities for two days. And that is not what Ortiz needs — he needs to work to be available as soon as possible, which is why he was left out of the squad.

Going from one model to another is not like opening and closing a door. You need to recover the mindset and get back to understanding the team’s dynamics. It is a readjustment to Flamengo’s ideas. But in the medium term, we will certainly return to what we did in the first half of the season, with alternation between the two players. That way, we can maintain energy and depth on the flanks, especially down the right side.

Regarding Nico, my Brazilian Portuguese is not very clear, so there was some confusion. Nico came back from the national team and reported in good condition. He did strength work. That created a muscle problem, which kept him out for six or seven days. During those seven days, he trained in a very limited way. Now, we are managing the workload so that in the future he can be with us. Arrascaeta is there, and there are two midfielders who can come into the middle, so I don’t need to overload players in the same role on the bench. He also needs to train in order to return.

He is certainly a player to whom we are giving some opportunities, and those opportunities came about because we have some wingers injured, others went with the national team, as was the case with Carrascal and Plata, and because of Arrascaeta’s injury we had to shift a bit more into the inside areas, which is why there is some shortage in that sector of the field, and we are trying to overcome it by giving games or trying other experiences.

My friends, if we don’t train and there isn’t quick physical improvement, there are no miracles. But of course, you have your opinion. Regarding the second question, we are short in the winger position, right? We have Plata out and Luiz Araújo out. They are two important players for us. To freshen up the team, we had no other winger besides Cebolinha and Lino, who I even had to move back out wide. So I don’t even think it is a matter of choice. It is a matter of what is possible with what we have. Not even in the U-20 squad do we have a winger who can help us. If he were my choice, if I thought he was the best option for the moment, he would have started the game. I would not have started with Lorran, who is our young academy player.

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