Roger sees São Paulo 'dominating' Vitória, defeat down to 'small details' | OneFootball

Coach Roger Machado could not even find plausible justifications for São Paulo’s defeat to Vitória this Saturday (11), away from home, in the Brazilian Championship. It was obvious that the coach would not publicly point to Lucas Ramon’s sending-off as the main factor behind the result. It was even more obvious that he would find ways to shield the player.

“What can you say about a game in which we controlled the opponent, then conceded from a set piece, and later on a counterattack, at a moment when I opened up the team, even with one man less, and we dominated Vitória. We didn’t get that many shots on target because they packed as many as nine players behind the ball, and naturally you end up suffering on the counterattack. In one of those, there was an imbalance that led to the second goal,” he said.

“But again, the defeat was not down to a poor performance; it came down to specific issues, both defensively and our inability to create chances and turn them into goals,” he added.

The coach believes the defeat to Vitória can serve as a lesson so that São Paulo does not slip up in similar situations in the future.

“These are lessons that have to stay with us. Some battles you win or lose, but you have to know why you lost, understand that if you are doing well in the match you have to hurt the opponent, go ahead on the scoreboard, because we knew that, given the atmosphere, that would give us more space and more calm. Now we have to fix what we need to, especially in these two aspects: counterattacks and dealing with aerial balls in the defensive phase for the next match,” he pointed out.

Roger also tried to explain the changes he made in the second half in an attempt to get an equalizer, something that drew criticism on social media.

“The thing is, any and every observation is undermined after going down a player, especially around the 35th minute, when I took off Daniel to put Lucca out wide and bring Artur inside. Naturally, you become more fragile in midfield. It was a gamble because we had relative control, but the opponent was hurting us on the counterattacks, and it was on one of those that the goal happened,” he analyzed.

With the result, São Paulo remains on 20 points and could lose up to two places over the course of the round, which continues until this Sunday (12).

Now, Tricolor will face a tough test as they look to bounce back in the Brasileirão: they will take on Vasco at 6:30 p.m. (Brasília time) on Saturday (18), at São Januário. Before that, they face O’Higgins at 7 p.m. (Brasília time) on Tuesday (14), at Morumbi, in the Copa Sudamericana.

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