Vasco admits difficulties in adapting Orellano, the second most expensive signing in the club’s history

Lucca Orellano faces difficulties to adapt to Vasco. The issue is acknowledged by the coach himself, Maurício Barbieri. Hired under huge expectations – he is the second most expensive signing in the history of the cross-Maltese, behind only Edmundo, in the passage that began in 1999 -, he found a scenario not as easy as he could imagine. And now Vasco strives to prevent the mismatch between what is expected and reality from not being a problem that lasts a long time.

Competition and physical problems weigh

The first difficulty he encountered was of a technical nature. It was very difficult to imagine that the most expensive signing for the season, around BRL 20 million, would suffer from competition from a remnant of the group that played in Série B last year. Because Gabriel Pec had a performance jump compared to 2022, which made his departure from the team impossible, for now. The two occupy the same lane of the field.

Barbieri has already signaled that he can move Pec to make room for the Argentine, but in practice this has happened very little. With the passing of the rounds and the consolidation of a team and a starting scheme, it becomes more difficult for experiences to occur, especially when Vasco has a sequence of decisive matches – both for the Copa do Brasil and for Carioca.

To top it off, physical problems have been recurrent, which undermine his opportunities to enter during matches and show service to Barbieri and the fans. The player has been complaining of muscle pain and has received special attention from the medical and physical preparation department.

Vasco was caught by surprise with the Argentine’s difficulty in gaining game condition. The fact that he was a healthy player at Vélez Sarsfield weighed in positively when choosing to hire Orellano. Last season, he was on the pitch in 50 of a possible 56 matches. As of 2021, he was the fourth player on the roster with the most appearances.

The combination of competition from Gabriel Pec and physical problems makes the striker the reinforcement with fewer minutes on the field for Vasco in the season (Manuel Capasso, who has not yet been announced, does not enter the account). There were only 47, against 450 minutes played by defender Léo, who played the most among the new faces in the squad.

Bad experience with Palacios

After the match against Botafogo, coach Maurício Barbieri stated that the player has had difficulties adapting to the new club and the new country.

– It’s another adaptation process that we are facing with him. He is a very introverted boy. He was feeling uncomfortable and didn’t want to talk. Afterwards, he spoke and we tried to adjust the work dosage with him. After the match against Fluminense, he reported pain again. We decided to evaluate further. We will work with an eye on the rest of the season. We will understand him better and he will understand us too, the club’s way of working, mine. It is an individual process, we have had this initial difficulty and we will overcome it.

Barbieri’s description recalls the barriers faced by Palacios while he was in São Januário. The Chilean was Vasco’s first signing with financial and human resources from 777 Partners, even before the sale of SAF was completed.

Around R$ 8 million were invested in the acquisition of the player’s rights, with Internacional. But his adaptation to Rio was bad. He has expressed a desire to return to Chile a few times. This year, he was loaned to Colo-Colo.

At Vasco, there are other players who have Spanish as their main language, who can help Orellano in adapting to Brazil, cases of Paraguayan Galarza, Uruguayan Pumita and fellow countryman Capasso, who has not yet been announced.

The club have plans to hire a psychology professional to join the coaching staff – consultations could be useful to help Orellano deal with the adaptation phase. The vacancy at Vasco has existed since the resignation of Maíra Ruas, at the end of last year.