Tite’s Flamengo has the best squad in South America. It is a team made to impose its law in local competitions and in the Copa Libertadores, because due to sporting potential, bench depth and financial muscle, no one, in theory, can cough up.
However, the ‘Mengao’ has entered, squarely, into quicksand. It is the first major crisis of the season after being unable to win the last three games: on Sunday, in a fight between candidates for the title, it did not go beyond 0-0 on the Palmeiras field in a very insipid duel; On Wednesday, he succumbed at the altitude of La Paz against Bolívar (2-1); and, this Sunday, to top it off, a reborn Botafogo beat them in Maracaná in the classic (0-2) on the fourth day of the Brasileirao.
EIt’s a ‘black week’, which has made his ‘crooked’ fanatic explode, that has not yet digested that in 2023 it will pass blank. And, on social networks, the former Brazilian coach was placed at the center of the conversation. The hashtag #ForaTite entered the trending topic so the meeting ended.
Flamengo swept the Carioca Championship, where they broke two years of Fluminense’s hegemony, but When the big tournaments have started, the team does not measure up and does not respond to the expectations created. It is unrecognizable.
The defeat against ‘Fogao’, which has become the provisional leader, was a surprise. And not because the Lone Star team, under the recent direction of the Portuguese Artur Jorge, has put aside the trauma of having shamefully lost the Brasileirao 2023, but because Flamengo was proving intractable in the Rio classics. He was unbeaten in twelve consecutive derbies.
Until the exbetic arrived Luiz Henrique, who was the best of the match, to score a great goal (min. 53) finishing a corner from outside the area with a subtle touch with his left foot. Flamengo, who were not playing their best game, were a nervous wreck. And ‘Fogao’ finished off the task with a second goal from the Venezuelan Savarinothe other star reinforcement of the season.
There is more negative news. The Chilean midfielder, Erick Pulgar, suffered a sprained left ankle that could make him miss the next games. AND Arrascaetawho is the star of the team, suffered discomfort in the back of his right thigh, there will be a diagnosis this Monday.
Not even Gabigol’s absence is an excuse. The center forward is banned until April 2025 for irregularities in an anti-doping control, but, before the episode, he was already a substitute for Tite. This was a decision that the board of directors supported, which maintains its pluses and minuses with its player, who ends his contract in December and is asking for a token that ‘Mengao’ is not willing to assume.