A night of silence and indifference summed up Santos’ year – 06/30/2023 – Sport

A few meters from gates 7 and 8 of Vila Belmiro, Zito points towards infinity. The statue of the great captain in history reproduces what he did in the flesh in the golden age of the 1950s and 1960s. Leading, giving orders and offering paths.

That’s everything that Santos doesn’t seem to have anymore. Leadership and direction.

“I’m in front of the statue. Don’t worry. You’ll find me easy. The place that is a reference for friends who want to meet before the matches is empty.

On one of the club’s most melancholy nights in recent decades, with a deserted stadium and under a fine rain as persistent as it is boring, Santos drew 0-0 this Thursday (29) with Blooming-BOL, in their farewell to the Cup South American.

It was the debut of coach Paulo Turra, who replaces Odair Hellmann, hired on the recommendation of Gaucho Luiz Felipe Scolari and under the supervision of football coordinator Paulo Roberto Falcão, from Santa Catarina and the biggest idol of Gaucho Internacional.

“I don’t know what I’m doing here. Honestly, I don’t know,” said Roberto, 37, before leaving, who declined to give his last name or occupation. He stayed two minutes, Sócio Rei card, the Santos supporter program, in his hands, undecided on what to do. Soon after, he entered the stadium calmly and without facing any queue.

The two teams were already eliminated in the continent’s second-tier tournament. The draw this Thursday (29) was the first point conquered by Blooming in the competition.

Santos reached the 11th consecutive match without winning. The last victory was against Vasco, for the Brazilian Championship, on May 14. It cannot be said that the team has since gone into a downward spiral because it was not at its peak before that. But it is a period in which he was eliminated from the Copa do Brasil, the Sudamericana and really entered the fight against relegation at Nacional.

Two points away from Z4, they will face Cuiabá away from home, on Sunday (2), in a confrontation that can be included in the slogan of “six-point game” in the fight to avoid the fall.

Santos has not won an expression title since 2016, when it was champion of São Paulo.

“I’ve seen bad squads in the past, in the 1980s, for example. The defenses were bad, but in the attack there was a Paulinho McLaren… This current team does nothing in front. Look, if it doesn’t fall this year, it never falls again. I’ve never seen Vila as empty as this”, says commercial representative Alexandre Suassuna, 50, who was watching the game alongside his wife Cristina, sitting in the stands behind one of the goals.

“They don’t care about anything. If they win, there’s an animal and they don’t even care about that”, complains Cosme Damião, historic president of the most important group of Santos fans, to two members of Torcida Jovem.

In protest, the organized team remained seated and silent for the entire match. No expressions of encouragement or protest. Those who made noise in the almost empty Vila Belmiro were Blooming fans, gathered in a corner of the stadium that was previously called, because of its less privileged view of the field, “socio-dog”.

Young’s behavior was part of 90 minutes that encapsulate the bizarre world that Santos, eliminated for the third consecutive year in the initial phase of the Campeonato Paulista, lives in 2023.
The curses started at 10 of the first half and the preferred target was attacking midfielder Lucas Barbosa, partly because he was the closest to the starting lineup on the field. Everyone else was on the bench. The Brazilians had more possession of the ball, but the best chances, with the exception of the last shot of the match, belonged to the Bolivians.

For more than a minute, during the second half, Santos had 12 on the pitch because midfielder Camacho did not notice that he had been substituted. Ecuadorian referee Augusto Aragon didn’t see it either.

The only moment the fans had fun was when the stadium’s sound system announced the audience: 11,565 people. The general reaction was one of derision. Shortly after came the correction. There were 2,891 payers.

Santos has been getting used to sensations of debauchery. In a recent meeting of the deliberative council, president Andres Rueda said that the club would not be left out of the 2024 Copa do Brasil (the most lucrative national tournament on the calendar), even without being able to qualify on the field, because there would be an invitation from the CBF.

He had already caused outrage by stating that the current squad owes nothing to anyone else in the country and Lucas Lima would be the midfielder that all teams in the country would like to have. Little used by Fortaleza in 2022, he was inactive in 2023. That was until the proposal from Santos appeared, a team in which he had already worked and which he later started to mock repeatedly while he was at Palmeiras. Upon returning to the village, he apologized.

At the end of the year there will be a presidential election and there is no candidate who has officially launched. Rueda has the right to seek re-election but signals that he will not. One of the possible names of the opposition is Marcelo Teixeira, who was president between 1992-1993 and from 2000 to 2009.

The current administration is proud of being “putting the house in order” and paying debts since the beginning, in 2021. “I don’t hire anyone without being sure that I will pay”, said Rueda to Sheet. In his first week in office, he discovered that the association had been excluded from Profut, the federal government’s tax debt financing program.

Not even the current rare chance to see Santos live has mobilized the crowd. Due to riots provoked after the 2-0 defeat by Corinthians on the 21st, the club was condemned to play 30 days without the presence of its fans, even in away games. Marcelo Mendes, the association’s lawyer at the trial, said he “applauds” the decision of the STJD (Superior Court of Sports Justice) that defined the sentence.

The 11 on the field against Blooming were lucky that the Vila was empty. Almost everyone received their share of boos and curses. Even those who have very little to do with the current technical crisis, like the Bolivian midfielder Miguelito, the target of xenophobic cries.

Only Vladimir was saved from offense. His goalkeeper’s saves prevented Santos from being defeated, a common scenario in the last three years, usually with João Paulo in the starting line-up.

Worried about the tie, Turra started to put players on the field in the second half: Soteldo, Rodrigo Fernández, Mendoza and Lucas Lima.

The latter was the one who had the opportunity to end the streak of victories and give a positive start to the new coach, despite the insignificant game for the table. He kicked the penalty post on the last shot.

“We need to support the girls, not those ones”, he complained to a military policeman, a fan who was beside the iron fence behind one of the goals. The PM did not respond.

The women’s team is in the Brazilian semifinal. He will face Corinthians on August 26, after the punishment imposed by the STJD has ended.

The penalty missed by Lucas Lima was the worst. Silent, as soon as they entered, Torcida Jovem got up and left, without even booing.

Even worse than indignation is indifference.