Guga celebrates assists and opens up: “We never stopped fighting” | OneFootball

One of the standout names in Tricolor’s comeback win over Santos this Sunday at Vila Belmiro, Guga celebrated the team’s overall performance and spoke openly about the pressure he and the other squad members had been facing after a string of recent setbacks.

The right-back started among the first eleven and contributed decisive passes for the last two goals of the match, with pinpoint deliveries that left Castillo and John Kennedy in position to find the net.

“We work a lot on that return ball, with back-post service, underlapping runs inside the full-back. It was discussed thoroughly before the match. Thank God I was rewarded with two assists, but I want to highlight the group, which never gave up at any moment and earned this more-than-deserved victory,” the player said.

The full-back had been one of the main targets of the fans’ dissatisfaction because of the team’s poor recent results in the Brasileirão and the Libertadores, especially after the defeat to Argentina’s Independiente Rivadavia in the previous round.

After that match, a statement the player made in an interview was poorly received by part of the Fluminense fanbase, leading to protests by an organized supporters’ group directly at the club’s training center. On that occasion, Guga had acknowledged the criticism and admitted the team’s mistakes, but the line that did not go over well was: “we know we’re doing good work, but it’s natural, it’s part of football—if we won all the time, football would be boring.”

This Sunday, the full-back took advantage of the positive moment to clarify the episode and reaffirm the group’s commitment to the Tricolor shirt.

“I was misunderstood. Sometimes people take small clips and interpret them however they want. We are never going to go out there not to win. We go out there to give our best. Winning or losing is part of football. Things weren’t going our way, but we never stopped fighting, we never lacked commitment. Fluminense goes into every game like that, to win the title. This year I think the team is ready to achieve great things,” Guga said.

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