Credit: Raul Baretta/ Santos FC.
This week, Cruzeiro hopes to define who will be its new coach for the final part of the 2023 season. This Monday (4), marks a week since Pepa was fired from command of the club due to the irregular campaign in the Brasileirão Série A.
Since the coach’s departure, Raposa has been trying to find names that could fit into the wishes that SAF has for the club, but so far none of the negotiations have had any effect on agreeing who will lead the team until the end of 2023. And names have been quite speculated.
The main one was Gabriel Milito. The coach, who recently left Argentinos Juniors, was approached by the Cruzeiro fans, but did not agree to take charge of the Minas Gerais club. The coach’s claim was that he wanted to take a break from his career to take care of his health and that he should wait until he had recovered to be able to talk.
According to GE, Odair Hellmann also received a survey from Cruzeiro. The former Santos commander would, in principle, take over until the end of the Brasileirão so that the SAF could have more time to find a name that would take over Raposa once and for all in 2024. But the conversations did not evolve because Odair wanted work that had objectives of longer deadlines.
Current technical director, Paulo Autuori was considered internally to become ‘interim’ from Cruzeiro for the rest of the year, but he preferred to remain behind the scenes. Refusals to the position have increased the ‘prey’ of the team’s football leadership to find Pepa’s successor.
The intention is for Cruzeiro to have a coach defined this week so that they can take advantage of the FIFA break to start their work calmly and coach the team against Santos, in the team’s next match in the Brasileirão. And avoid wasting time considered ‘precious’ to make the team eliminate the risk of entering the fight against relegation.
