Ramón Díaz, 65, is not unanimous among Corinthians fans. Their methods, their tactical decisions, and especially their lineups are always questioned by most fans. But from now on, there is something unquestionable that makes you marked forever in the team’s history. With the conquest of the Paulista 2025 Championship, he is the first foreign coach champion for the club in almost 90 years.
The achievement had an even greater weight because it was reached against Palmeiras, the biggest rival of the alvinegra team, and before the Corinthian fans, who filled the Arena Neo Chemistry on Thursday (27).
The last to achieve the feat was the Portuguese Antonio Pereira, one of the founding workers of the association, state champion in 1937.
Founded in 1910, the São Jorge Parque team had still 19 foreign technicians, seven of them in the Amateur era, when there was no formally the coach. The function was usually from the team’s captains. This lasted until the beginning of the 1930s.
Pereira was the only champion after this phase. Before, in the amateur era, the Spanish Casemiro González and the Italians Guido Giacominelli, Ângelo Rocco and Virgílio Montarini were also champions for the club.
Ramón, who notably divides his merits with his son and assistant Emiliano, is therefore the first South American to join the winners gallery.
In 2024, when he was hired, he became the 19th foreigner to command Corinthians. The list has names from six different countries: Argentina, Spain, Italy, Paraguay, Portugal and Uruguay.
Prior to the Díaz family’s coaching staff, the last Argentine to lead the team was Daniel Passarela in 2005. Hired at the time to replace Tite, he had a meteoric passage of just two months, with 15 games (7 wins, 4 draws and 4 losses).
The failure began an era when Corinthian leaders began to repel the idea of a coach from outside the country to run the alvinegro team. This only changed recently in 2022, when the Portuguese Vítor Pereira landed in São Jorge Park.
With 64 games and 51.6% of success, he almost anticipated the feat now reached by Ramón, but only got a runner-up, when Corinthians was defeated by Flamengo in the 2022 Cup final. The following year, he moved precisely to the Rio team.
Ramón Díaz’s future in Corinthians is uncertain. After helping the team escape relegation in the 2024 Brazilian Championship, with a historic torn, the team made under the command of the best campaign of the first phase of Paulista, but was eliminated in the preliminary phase of Libertadores.
If he had lost the state title to Palmeiras, his situation would certainly be unsustainable. With the trophy in hand, it gained more tranquility to follow in charge and start the 2025 Brazilian ahead of the alvinegro cast.
Anyway, its time in Parque São Jorge is already marked by the historic achievement of this Thursday, in front of Corinthians’ greatest rival.
