Brazil defeated Switzerland 1-0 on Monday in World Cup Group G action, qualifying for the Round of 16.
As Gabriel Barbosa trudged past the glinting Copa Libertadores trophy on a sunny Saturday afternoon in Guayaquil, for once he decided against smudging it with his fingerprints.
The Flamengo striker has broken convention in past appearances in South America’s showpiece final. Superstition doesn’t seem to bother him. Before playing River Plate at the Estadio Monumental in Lima in 2019, the 26-year-old prematurely touched the cup as if he were claiming it for Flamengo before a ball had even been kicked.
Bad luck descended on the team and they trailed River going into the final minute. But Gabigol then dramatically scored twice, transfiguring into Teddy Sheringham and Ole Gunnar Solskjaer with a Brazilian passport, as Flamengo got their hands on the Libertadores for the first time since 1981.
Last year at the Estadio Centenario in Montevideo, the former next big thing out of Brazil felt emboldened enough to give the trophy another tentative tap before taking on Palmeiras in another final. Flamengo fell behind again but Barbosa got them back into it before the game went to extra time. Another late winner wasn’t in his destiny. It figured in Deyverson’s instead as the Palmeiras striker pounced on a mistake from Andreas Pereira, the loanee from Manchester United, and the Libertadores found itself on a plane back to Sao Paulo rather than Rio de Janeiro.
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“We’ll be back next year,” Gabigol vowed. Such is Brazil’s dominance in the competition these days, the promise did not ring hollow and Barbosa kept it. Saturday’s final was the third all-Brazilian affair in three seasons. But Flamengo’s place in it shouldn’t be taken for granted regardless of their relative wealth and status as one of the continent’s super clubs.
Read more: Brazil World Cup 2022 squad guide: More than enough quality to deliver the ‘Hex’
Last Christmas, they appointed Paulo Sousa in the hope he could deliver the same success experienced under Jorge Jesus at the beginning of a cycle rivalled only by Zico’s time at the club four decades ago. The hire continued the trend of Brazil’s elite looking to Portuguese coaches. But Sousa was no match for Abel Ferreira, whose Palmeiras side currently sit 10 points clear at the top of the Brasileirao.
After getting rid of Sousa in June, Flamengo, then 14th in the league, decided to turn to an old flame. Dorival Junior is no stranger to Gavea. This is the 60-year-old’s third spell in charge of the club. It has been brief and intense, as vindicating as it has been fulfilling. Hard done by in 2018, Dorival lost his job despite Flamengo finishing runners-up to Palmeiras.
Flamengo’s new president Rodolfo Landim wished to bring in his own man. Landim’s choice, Abel Braga, flopped and was out on his arse soon enough but he then got it spectacularly right with Jorge Jesus, who won the league for the first time in a decade, the Libertadores for the first time in 38 years, and the Recopa, South America’s equivalent of the European Super Cup. Dorival admitted to finding it tough watching a team he’d overseen kick on under someone else. He wondered if the chance to coach a side like that would ever come again.
Four months ago, it did.
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Since then, Flamengo have lifted the Copa do Brasil and a second Libertadores in four years. The turnaround has been rapid and it started in the bowels of the Minerao. Flamengo had just lost the first leg of their round-of-16 tie with Atletico Mineiro. Hulk was among the scorers and the pressure on Flamengo was mounting.
“They will know what hell is at the Maracana,” Gabigol declared. It became a rallying cry and Barbosa someone to rally around. In the shootout that decided the final against Vitor Pereira’s Corinthians this month, Gabigol put his penalty away and then gestured for the fans not to worry. It was all going to be OK. “We got this.” And guess what? Flamengo did. The self-assurance he projected was remarkable.
It was therefore surprising Barbosa didn’t touch the Libertadores as he walked past it on Saturday. Bad memories of Montevideo perhaps? Maybe he was superstitious after all.
This year’s final against Athletico Paranaense was definitely a sentimental one. Gabigol’s team-mate David Luiz could become the 12th player to win the Champions League and the Copa Libertadores. For Dorival, it was the shot at greatness he felt he’d earned during his last spell at Flamengo. Unfinished business. He had overcome prostate cancer in the meantime, a personal as well as professional comeback.
The embrace Dorival shared with his opponent, Luiz Felipe Scolari, before kick-off was poignant. Dorival played under Big Phil and this was his now moustache-less old mentor’s last game in management. “Felipao” wanted to go out in triumph as the only manager to win the Libertadores with three different clubs. “The power that Flamengo (and) Palmeiras have is much bigger than ours,” he told the AP. “Our payroll is smaller than about 12 clubs in Brazilian soccer.”
It didn’t stop the Furacao from winning the Copa Sudamericana last year, when they beat the energy-drink boys from Bragantino. Nor did it stop them from eliminating Palmeiras in the semi-final of this year’s Libertadores, captained by Fernandinho, who was in the last Athletico team to come this far. Winning it would have been a fairytale end to the former Manchester City midfielder’s career. A losing finalist to the Sao Paulo of Rogerio Ceni, Diego Lugano and Marcio Amoroso in 2005, unfortunately he lost again. But it needn’t have been that way. Vitinho almost capitalised on an early mistake by David Luiz, then Vitor Roque went close seconds later, only for Athletico’s prospects to be compromised by Pedro Henrique’s sending off before half-time, exacerbating the imbalance.
Disappointingly for the neutral, the game practically ended there and then. While an incredulous Henrique reluctantly took his marching orders from the referee, the final briefly threatened to go full Libertadores as a scuffle with the potential to escalate into a brawl disappointingly de-escalated into a begrudging handshake between Joao Gomez and Vitor Bueno. The last coming-together before the interval involved winger Everton Ribeiro crossing for Gabigol to score the only goal of the game. It cemented his place in local legend. By scoring four times in three finals, he surpassed Pele and matched Zico and is now the most prolific Brazilian in Copa Libertadores history, along with the former Sao Paulo and Vasco da Gama striker Luizao, on 29 goals.
🔥⚽🇧🇷 @gabigol struck first for @Flamengo_en in the CONMEBOL #Libertadores Final, the only goal of the match! pic.twitter.com/HjJEvL6Q19
— CONMEBOL Libertadores (@TheLibertadores) October 29, 2022
Saturday’s final provides Tite with more food for thought. Gabigol wasn’t in Brazil’s squad for the friendlies against Ghana and Tunisia in September. He hasn’t played for his country since the turn of the year — a World Cup qualifier in, as coincidence would have it, Ecuador, the place where he just won the Libertadores. But Tite knows him well.
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Gabigol was a member of Brazil’s Copa America squad in 2021 and was alternated with Richarlison in the No 9 position. Richarlison has since made that role his own and accommodating Brazil’s other strikers out wide, even Gabriel Jesus, has become problematic with the emergence of Raphinha, Vinicius Junior and Antony, and the list goes on. Gabigol’s Flamengo team-mate Pedro, the Copa Libertadores top scorer with 12 goals in 12 games, got a look-in against Tunisia and promptly took his chance. Dorival has shown they can play together but whether that influences Tite’s thinking remains to be seen.
Brazil’s coach was in England rather than Ecuador over the weekend. He went for lunch with Newcastle’s Bruno Guimaraes, a big Athletico Paranaense fan whose heart must have been broken by Gabigol on Saturday.
Que Deus te abençoe @AthleticoPR!! Vou estar na torcida por você como sempre meu furacão! Sempre no meu coração ❤️🌪️ pic.twitter.com/SWlvNcr1Od
— Bruno Guimarães (@brunoog97) October 29, 2022
The way the Premier League fixture list is structured this gameweek and the sheer number of Brazilians playing in England made a visit a priority for Tite as he finalises his squad for the Selecao’s pre-World Cup training camp in Turin. Gabigol hopes to be in it. After flopping at Inter, where owners Suning made him their first marquee signing, then Benfica, he has written his name into Flamengo history. The calls for him to go to Qatar are only going to up in volume now that the Carioca press are debating which era at the club was better: Zico’s or Gabigol’s?
“It’d be a dream to go to the World Cup,” Gabigol said. “I try to work as hard as I can. I believe actions are louder than words. I reinvented myself and I’m enjoying it. I think that in the future, when I stop playing ball, I want to look at myself and say: ‘Gee, I’m fulfilled’. Of course, I still need to improve in the air and my right foot. But nobody is perfect. But I believe I’m on the way to reinventing myself.”
Already looking ahead to the Club World Cup in January, there’s another World Cup that Gabigol would like to be at in the meantime. Is he now assured of making the cut?
(Top photo: Hector Vivas/Getty Images)
