Ceni says that Bahia deserved to beat Palmeiras and claims that the squad lacked malice

Despite Bahia having completed their sixth game without winning in the Brazilian Championship against Palmeiras, coach Rogério Ceni preferred to look at the duel against the São Paulo team from a glass-half-full perspective. After the confrontation at Fonte Nova, which ended in a bitter 2-1 defeat, the coach stated that the Esquadrão was superior to its rival and deserved a better result, but regretted the failures in strategic moments of the match.

“We have to keep playing this way. If we continue to create opportunities, dominating the game like we did today, at some point things will turn around. What we can’t do is fluctuate, play a game like we did today, which we deserved to win, but in football there’s no such thing as fair or unfair. We had the ball, we celebrated the goal that was prevented, Biel coming out in front of goal… and there was a ball that hit the post and went in. You create a lot of chances, you don’t, the opponent comes here and doesn’t create more than the two goals that were scored. We have to focus on these last four rounds and win”, began Ceni.

The coach was asked about Bahia’s objective in the Brazilian Championship. The club never hid its desire to win a place in the next Copa Libertadores, but the bad sequence left the G6 distant. With the opening of a new place for the tournament, the Bahian team is just one point away from the classification zone, but needs to win again to have a chance to compete in the tournament next year.

“It’s not that the team got complacent, there’s nothing like that. Let’s fight for what we say. In the last press conference I said that 6th place was no longer enough, based on the score, but we have to fight for 7th place, and if another vacancy appears… It’s true that the distances have reduced, there’s Corinthians with 44, the Vasco still plays, Cruzeiro with one more point, but we have to continue with our goal, which is pre-Libertadores. And if we play like we did today, we will arrive”, analyzed the coach, before adding:

“What is often missing is malice. The player cannot pull the ball two meters and no one says anything. The barrier cannot move. Their player was malicious, the foul was on the half moon, the guy hit it a meter and a half behind. I’ve done this a lot, you have to have the nerve to pull it off, but in the wall Gabriel Xavier can’t be on the outside, he has to be where the ball passes. These are details that make you win or lose a match. But as a game set, what am I going to tell these guys? The team was much superior to Palmeiras, but they didn’t win because sometimes they lack some malice in key moments of the game.”

Bahia will have three days to pick up the pieces in search of a turnaround in the Brasileirão. This Sunday (24), the tricolor hosts Athletico-PR, at Fonte Nova. Including the duel against Paraná, the team from Bahia will have four more games in the season. The sequence also includes: Cuiabá, Corinthians and Atlético-GO.