Abel concedes the Brasileirão, former Sporting man on verge of title | OneFootball

Abel Ferreira seems to have given up on the Brasileirão title after Palmeiras’ draw with Fluminense (0-0) and Flamengo’s victory over Bragantino, results that left the teams separated by four points with three rounds to go before the end of the Championship. Gonzalo Plata, former Sporting player and now a player for ‘Mengão’, has a clear path to become champion.

“There’s no point in saying anything, it wasn’t good to have seven or eight players out, just look at how they came back. Many didn’t even train well, I know how the national teams work. I think we should channel our energy now towards the Libertadores final. We have a game midweek, we’ll prepare for it in the way we think is best, but I think the championship is decided and, at the right time, we’ll talk about what this Brazilian championship was. It’s not possible to play two, three games in a row and then play a Libertadores final,” said Abel.

The Portuguese coach mentioned that recent fatigue and the absence of several players during FIFA dates were fatal: “There’s no time to breathe, nor to rest. You talked about energy and I think that’s quite evident. It’s not that they’re not trying. You mentioned inspiration, right? That’s what you notice. You can clearly see that we’re trying, but without being creative. I think it’s unfair to talk about just one player,” he said.

The coach has little hope of winning the title he last claimed in 2023: “You go one by one and start to see that the FIFA break wasn’t good, the games we had away weren’t good, playing without seven or eight players wasn’t good, having key players suspended in the midfield engine room – because we lost Lucas Evangelista, we lost Andreas in these games when we lost players to the national teams. We know the importance of having a creative and powerful engine... This was a very hard-fought and uninspired game,” he concluded.

As for Gonzalo Plata – valued at 8 million euros – he represented Sporting from 2018/19 to 2020/21. In the main squad of the Lions, the Ecuadorian played 38 matches where he scored and assisted on four occasions, but he never won over Ruben Amorim, largely due to off-field attitudes and issues that did not please the green and white coach.

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