Lacklustre São Paulo still reeling after Libertadores exit | OneFootball

Marcelo Baseggio

São Paulo suffered another disappointment on Monday when it was defeated 1-0 by Ceará, at Morumbis, for the 25th round of the Brazilian Championship. Needing to respond to the fans, the team led by coach Hernán Crespo showed throughout the 90 minutes that they felt the blow after the harsh elimination in the quarterfinals of the Copa Libertadores, failing to achieve a positive result.

In front of just over 12,000 fans, São Paulo even had some chances to score, but was far from a broad domination over the opponent, who kept a low block to not give space to the home team and managed to be efficient in the rare opportunities they had during the match.

The Tricolor continues to struggle to create worked plays. The lack of creativity is due to not having many athletes available who can add depth to the team. Thus, São Paulo ends up exchanging passes between the intermediates, but without evolving more sharply to the final third of the field.

The team also lost a lot of presence in the area with all their center forwards injured, except Juan Dinenno, who came on in the second half, but did little. Luciano as a "number 9" has had difficulty scoring goals and often ends up leaving the area to seek the game, causing the team to lose reference in the attack.

Recovered from a virus, Cédric Soares also lacked the necessary depth on the right side of the field. The player participated in some associations with Bobadilla and Rodriguinho, but almost never made overlaps to cross into the area or be more acute playing in the sector.

Of course, the psychological blow from the elimination in the Libertadores influences the result against Ceará, as does the long list of absentees, but São Paulo needs to show more repertoire in this final stretch of the season if they want to qualify for the next edition of the continental tournament. Crespo will have a lot of work ahead. Players and staff should take advantage of the fact that they are not targets, at least for now, of fan protests to start a comeback.

The next opportunity for the Tricolor to try to redeem itself with the fans happens next Thursday, when they visit Fortaleza, at 7:30 pm (Brasília time), at Arena Castelão, for the 26th round of the Brazilian Championship.

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