Opinion: ‘At school, most of Palmeiras would be on report, Abel too’ | OneFootball

For a long time, I’ve heard a phrase that always made me reflect and that can be applied to Palmeiras right now: “If the whole class, or almost all of it, does poorly on a test, the blame usually lies with the teacher, who is struggling to teach the material.”

I decided to bring that into the football world and into Verdão’s last few days, months, or even years. The team coached by Abel Ferreira, over roughly 18 months, had only 60 days of football that truly got the fans excited.

After being eliminated by their biggest rival, at home, the Portuguese coach found a solution with the Flaco-Roque duo. It was temporary and had a very short shelf life. Even before the season ended, the team was no longer working.

For some time now, Palmeiras have been living off individual flashes and very little collective inspiration. It’s common to hear that player A, B, C... and Z are out of form, deserve to be benched, or are technically poor.

I understand that some players are, in fact, not in the best form they’ve shown at the club, and there does need to be accountability. But it would be too much of a coincidence for almost the entire squad not to be performing at the same time and for them to be the only ones to blame

Let me go back a few years. October 2020. The main organized supporters’ group criticized the performances of Vanderlei Luxemburgo’s team and had a “release list” of players who were underperforming at the time.

Names like Gustavo Scarpa, Felipe Melo, Marcos Rocha, Rony, Luan, Raphael Veiga, Mayke, Jailson, and Zé Rafael were chanted, and the desire for them to leave was almost unanimous.

Remember the school comparison? When everyone, or the vast majority, does badly? Well then, the coach was changed, Abel Ferreira arrived, and many of those players became key figures in the club’s successful era.

Back to 2026.

If this were a school, almost the entire Palmeiras class would be in remedial work, and teacher Abel would need to explain himself.

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