‘You have to evolve in precision’

On a night to celebrate, Flamengo ran over Vasco 4-1 at Maracanã and gave more peace of mind to Jorge Sampaoli’s work. The Clássico dos Milhões ended with the Rubro-Negro being praised by the coach, who described himself as ‘happy’ for the strength, but preached the need for greater precision from the team.

– It makes me very happy because in a derby, forcefulness is important. The team has to improve a lot on the distance in the game. He pressed very well, but we found a lot between the lines, this generated a lot of attack on the five line. In the second half, the team lowered the little. In the end, he did the same as the first half, but I think the team has to evolve in the number of passes and accuracy-he said.

Still regarding Flamengo’s performance, Jorge Sampaoli highlighted the evolution of the group which, according to him, is now more competitive. The coach also warned of the need to improve concepts in relation to the positional game. ‘The team got out of that fragility and is more competitive, aggressive and vertical. He still hasn’t mastered the positional game and sometimes he runs much more than he plays. Our challenge now is to make the team have control of the ball in games.

See other answers by Jorge Sampaoli:

Bruno Henrique:

He is coming back from injury and his preparation process is still far away. Hopefully, in time, we can count on him.

Ayrton Lucas:

He is one of the best on the team today. He is young and has a great future ahead of him. Not only in Flamengo, but also in the national team. I hope it continues to grow and help us.

Pulgar:

I’ve known him since Chile, he’s evolving very well. He has a lot of condition to play as a defensive midfielder or defender. He has a good pass and exit and today he had a lot of confidence, so it helps a lot. The game plan was to place Pulgar among the defenders, as Vasco is the team that crosses the most in the Brasileirão, so the idea was to protect. Pulgar controlled this zone well. He changed his image with the fans and the club

Scallion

For a player, confidence is very important. Flamengo asks for a yield all the time. There are players who have the capacity, but the head generates pressure on popular pressure. Cebolinha has a lot of quality and it’s my responsibility to do that.

Peter and Gabi:

Two different strikers. I think that Pedro is more in the area, he has a lot of ability to face the goal, but he has to understand the circuit of the game, of this new idea. Gabi, historically, is a winger who has become a 9 and goes out to play. Comparing is difficult. Time will tell if they can play together or which ones might be better for the team.

Confrontation with Racing:

A very difficult game for us, but we want to qualify for the Liberators. So, we recovered in the Brasileirão and qualified for the Copa do Brasil and now we’re going to try to qualify for the Libertadores. But as I always say, there is a lot to do and take advantage of the stop to do a lot of training to bring the team to a consolidated idea. So winning always helps with that.