Abel Ferreira is two record titles away from Palmeiras – 09/04/2023 – Sport

In the opinion of Luiz Felipe Scolari, Abel Ferreira is the greatest coach in the history of Palmeiras. The comparison can be subjective, but it gets closer and closer to becoming reality in numbers.

With the conquest of the Paulista Championship this Sunday (9), over Água Santa, the Palestra Itália club gave the Portuguese his eighth title of expression since he arrived in the country, in 2020. He is already the second most winning coach at alviverde, with eight trophies. He is tied with Vanderlei Luxemburgo.

It’s not impossible to imagine that he could reach the top spot this year.

“He’s a guy who knows football. He makes a beautiful story at Palmeiras and is already one of the greats in the club’s history. He can win more titles. And may he stay for a long time”, praised Dudu, a striker who returned to the club in 2021, after winning the Copa Libertadores the previous year.

Abel is two trophies away from matching Oswaldo Brandão, the biggest winner in Palmeiras history. The coach who is also remembered for having ended the 23-year-old Corinthians line in 1977, won ten titles at Palestra Itália, starting with the Torneio Inicial in 1946 until the Estado de 1974. In between, he won the City of São Paulo Cup (1946), Paulista (1947, 1959 and 1972), Taça Brasil (1960), Taça Governador do Estado de São Paulo (1972) and Brasileiro (1972 and 1973).

Excluding the Torneio Inicial, the City of São Paulo Cup and the lesser São Paulo State Governed Cup from the count, Abel is already ahead.

This year, Palmeiras still disputes the Libertadores, the Copa do Brasil and the Brazilian Championship. If he is champion of the continental competition, he will still have the Club World Cup.

This is an advantage of the Portuguese in relation to Brandão. Nowadays more tournaments are played. At the time of the dead coach in 1989, Paulista was the most important. There was also the Taça Brasil (later called by other names) and sporadic short-lived championships. Like the Beginning Tournament, for example, which was played in just one day, in matches of a few minutes and, in case of a tie, the winner was decided by the number of corners.

But Brandão was at Palmeiras four times to get that mark. Abel Ferreira lives his first passage. And he twice won the most important cup in South America: the Libertadores in 2020 and 2021.

In addition to Paulista 2023, he had already won the championship in 2022. In the current season, he was also the winner of the Brazilian Super Cup. There is still on the list the Copa do Brasil (2020), the Recopa Sul-Americana (2022) and the Brazilian (2022).

There are so many victories that he felt obliged to alert the press, after the hard-fought victory over Ituano, in the semifinal of the State Championship, which Palmeiras is not always obliged to win. But, as the legendary English coach Brian Clough put it, winning is a habit, and when the team is used to it, they find ways to make it happen, even without playing well.

This was Abel Ferreira’s contribution to Palmeiras. It was not uncommon, in complicated situations, for the team to find ways to obtain the result.

This made him equal to Vanderlei Luxemburgo with eight titles in the association. The Brazilian champion of 1993 and 1994 also won a Rio-São Paulo (1993) and five Paulistas (1993, 1994, 1996, 2008 and 2020). He had five spells at Palmeiras.