Ney Franco admits the “terrible” game of Cruzeiro in Mineirão, but guarantees: “Thought is access” | cruise

“Both the oldest and the youngest. Both in the first half and in the second. We played a terrible game in Mineirão” – Ney Franco.

– Apart from the match against Ponte Preta (when the team did well throughout the match), the other matches had glimpses of a well-organized team. (Against Sampaio), I don’t think we even had flashes. We talk to the athletes. There is no way to justify it. You can lose a game at home, but there is no way to explain the way you lost. We had several errors, there was no offensive force, and defensively we were very exposed. We stayed halfway, wanting to attack, but without coordination. At the same time, the opponent again exploited the counterattack, for which we paid with one more loss. We play a lot down.

There are only two victories in the last 11 Serie B games. On the stumbling blocks, several bad performances. The table shows Cruzeiro in the relegation zone for Serie C, with only 11 points and in 18th position. Despite the extremely delicate context, Ney Franco guarantees that the internal conversation about goals in the competition is one: access to Serie A.

– Our thinking is access. We know that sometimes this seems impossible, and of course that reading is there, we cannot neglect mathematics. If there is one detail that guides the work of any coach, especially in the straight points, it is mathematics. We know the degree of difficulty we face in the Brazilian. But we are hopeful that, with work and some adjustments, our team can fit in a sequence of six, seven consecutive victories in the Brazilian, and the ideal is that this happens as soon as possible, so that we can start appearing in another position in the table, approach the teams in the front – he said.

– We are working on that. Our speech is one of access, all the time, and we have already started, in the locker room, a load. When I say charge, it is to charge the athletes, the commission, everyone in the same boat. After that load, the only way is to get back together, close the team and mobilize for the confrontation with the West, away from home, so that we can start to reverse our situation in Serie B do Brasileiro.

Cruzeiro returns to the field on Sunday, at 4:00 p.m. (Brasilia time), against the West, at Arena Barueri. The São Paulo team is the lantern of Serie B, with only 6 points.

Other responses from Ney Franco

Positive reference and negative reference

– We have a quality squad to make a better Serie B. At the end of the game, we have two references: for us to have positive results, we have to play at the level we play against Ponte Preta. There you could see the technical quality of the players, added to the good positioning on the pitch, a very well placed team, knowing, without possession of the ball, the goal zones, at times scoring high, in others scoring low, exploring the counterattack, with well developed balls. This is the positive reference that we must have in the Brazilian. Now, people have a super negative reference (the game against Sampaio).

– If we have one or two more games at this level (against Sampaio), we are destined to fail. But I believe in recovery. My responsibility is as a coach. I have to hit myself in the chest, take charge when the team plays bad and has a negative result. As a coach, I have to have a reading of what happened. It is not only the responsibility of the athletes, it is also the responsibility of the coach. It is up to me and the athletes to go to the field, work, mobilize the team for the game against the West and do everything possible so that this game marks our start, so that we have a high performance, which is what we need in the season. to get that access.

Why the insistence on older players?

– I see how much Fábio is working to get Cruzeiro out of this situation and put Cruzeiro back in Serie A. I see how much Manoel is working and committed. Every day I see the dedication of Henrique, also from Sassá. We are talking about four players who participated in the last season and this season of Cruzeiro. In addition to these four, we have Ramón in defense, who is young, we have Matheus (Pereira), who was playing, who is young. We have, on the right, Daniel (Guedes) and Rafael (Luiz), who have also been playing. Inside we have Machado, in some games we have Jadsom. On the right side we have playing Airton, (Arthur) Caíke, who just arrived.

– The young players we have are being used. In addition to those I mentioned, Maurício is entering the games, Claudinho entered. It made no difference in the second half of the game, with these athletes. We know that at this time these more experienced players have been taking over, and (the fan) has been playing with these players all the responsibility, for having a recent experience with these athletes. We have to remember all the time that we have athlete registration limitations, and we are in the club that we have athletes training, hired, who are not in a position to play. I need to mobilize, and I prefer to mobilize the athletes who are with us than to want to go out, fire, remove an athlete, and in a while we will not have a single player to enter the field.

– Sassá entered playing centralized, in his role, in his positioning. In the second half, there was a moment in the game that was played wide on the left. Sassá did not enter playing open on the left side, he entered playing his role. Then, a detail of adjustment, there was a certain moment that he played open on the left side, and ended the game playing again centered, in his place. Playing open or playing in the center was not decisive to define what Sassá did during the game, as did the whole team. We cannot base our offensive strength on the positioning of Sassá, centralized or open. If you check the game, you will notice that he played wide at the beginning of the second half, but ended up in his position.

More performance analysis against Sampaio

– I’ll use what I told the players at half-time: it is difficult for us to justify and explain the performance of our team in the first half. It has no explanation. A technical team, playing at home, with the job of positioning well done, with the players very well defined on what to do on the field with the ball, without the ball, how to position, and we saw a Sampaio Corrêa (better). We came to the break with a draw, we actually found a dead ball goal, although it is our potential, we reached the break deserving to lose the game.

– You find it hard to find explanations and justify a defeat like this. So, that was my line at halftime. In the second half the team improved a little, but improved a lot in physical strength, with younger players, but still a poorly positioned team in the field, uncoordinated. It was a game in which the coach left with much of the blame for the result. For the next game, I have to adjust this equipment. Beat the chest, adjust, charge us more, from the players, so that we do not repeat a performance as mediocre as the one we had.