Like fine wine? Calleri on best São Paulo start, equals scoring run | OneFootball

At 32 years old and returning from a complicated knee surgery that kept him out for almost the entire last season, the forward Calleri is experiencing a great phase with São Paulo at the start of 2026.

The top scorer has already scored six goals in these first ten games for Tricolor, between the Paulista Championship and the Brazilian Championship. The numbers make this the best start of a season for Calleri with São Paulo, surpassing even his overwhelming debut for the club in 2016.

Never before had the Argentine directly participated in six goals for Tricolor in his first ten matches of the year. He surpassed his initial participations in 2016 (3 goals and 2 assists) and 2022 (5 goals), according to data provided by the page Diário SPFC.

Calleri's efficiency also leaves behind his early year performances in 2023, with 2 goals and 2 assists, 2024, 3 goals and 1 assist, and 2025, when he scored 2 goals and 2 assists in the first ten games. In 2021, the São Paulo idol only arrived in the middle of the season and scored 3 goals in that period.

Another important milestone achieved by the Tricolor's number 9 was the streak of goals scored in consecutive matches. He has already scored in four games in a row. He scored in all the matches in February so far, against Santos, Primavera, Grêmio, and Ponte Preta, with the match against the team from Rio Grande do Sul being the only one in the Brazilian Championship, and the others in the Paulista Championship.

According to the page SPFC Estatísticas, the only other time Calleri scored in four consecutive games was during his brilliant first stint in 2016. He scored against Trujillanos (4 goals), River Plate (2 goals), Audax, and The Strongest.

The difference is that in April 2016, he impressively scored eight goals in just four matches for São Paulo. It was then that he began to win over the Tricolor fans.

Calleri is also one goal or assist away from matching his offensive contribution from the 2025 season. In a complicated last year, the Argentine scored three goals and provided four assists in the only 18 games he managed to play for the team before suffering a severe injury.

Clearly recovered, the striker was essential for São Paulo's qualification for the quarter-finals of the Paulista Championship, where they face Bragantino on Saturday (21), in Bragança Paulista.

In the match that secured the spot, with a 2-1 victory over Ponte Preta, he needed four shots to score, greatly troubled the Campinas defense, and suffered two fouls, in addition to helping defensively with a clearance and a ball recovery.

Having scored the most for Tricolor so far this year, Calleri is the second top scorer of the Paulista Championship, with four goals, and also ranks among the top scorers at the start of the Brazilian Championship, with two goals in three matches played.

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