Dorival blames squad's attitude for São Paulo's late draw | OneFootball

Coach Dorival Júnior did not try to dress up what looked bad in his press conference after the painful late equalizer conceded against Botafogo at Morumbi this Saturday (23), in the Brazilian Championship.

Asked about the reasons why the same scenario from the match against Millionarios in the Copa Sudamericana earlier this year happened again, the coach once more pointed to the squad’s lack of confidence as the cause. And especially to the team’s approach, which chose to protect the 1-0 lead instead of trying to extend the advantage.

“We had a first half with almost 70% possession, creating chances. We scored the first goal, just like in the previous game, but we couldn’t increase the lead. I believe Botafogo didn’t have a single shot on our goal in the first half. In the second half, it was a different situation, a different story. Maybe the moment makes the team want to protect itself and play it safe in every possible way. That’s the impression it gives us. Because the game didn’t change, the characteristics were the same,” he said.

“Maybe that natural instinct to protect ourselves took away, once again, the opportunity to achieve a great result, one that would have put us in a better position in the standings,” he added.

According to Dorival, this trait is not solely the responsibility of the former coaches. After all, according to him, the same problem happened under his predecessors, in matches such as the draw with Bahia, under Roger Machado.

“Everything we saw in the first half has a lot of Roger’s work in it. It has his influence, and Crespo’s too. I’m trying to keep it going, correcting one thing or another that I notice, or when I feel there is still a little more confidence missing. We need to believe more that we can build and hold onto a result, not just get it initially,” he said.

“That happened in both matches. Maybe it was the same behavior from one game to the other. We had great attacking volume, scored the goal, and created other chances. We dropped back unnecessarily,” Dorival assessed.

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