The bags were ready. The crowd, idem. The shirt, stretched in the chair. The microphones, positioned for the collective. Memes were already running loose. Even the training was scheduled. Only the signing of the paper was missing – it was verbally, it was already signed – and kick off. Tite locked: hit the post.
On the eve of the announcement, at the interval between a dream night and the dawn of reality, the scheme has changed. The teacher retreated. He suffered an anxiety crisis, which led him to ask for time and decide to take a career break. He preferred to retreat to the defender, chose to defend himself. He decided to protect himself and protect his biggest team: the family.
The instability in the mental health of the coach prevented the return to the gang of Loucos. Another alvinegro paradox.
Who was not prepared for this plot twist were the Corinthian souls, always so restless and avid. Fair now? Just in our turn? The feeling was the same as losing turning in the last minute of the extension. There is heart.
My son, a purple Corinthian, was red – I don’t know if with anger or ashamed to have made his friends Palmeirenses the day before. The only thing I was able to say to him was, “Accept it hurts you less, respect that it hurts less for Tite.” Tite’s son also suffered, had to recalculate the route.
The comments, of course, rained in the minute after the announcement: “Not even Tite endured Corinthians”; “Did the trauma of 2022 return?”; “Fled the relegation”; “Tite unveiled! You must have seen the cast.” The truth is that the coach did what few have the courage to do: he prioritized himself. In the country of “Go up, teacher”, he went inside. Inside, where he came across a 63 -year -old man, tired, vulnerable but also brave. It was a beautiful, worthy retreat, a right tactic: Tite saved Corinthians. If a team’s coach is unable to be the emotional support of the players, there is no tactic that wins.
Tite is not alone. Sport, with all its beauty and passion, can be a cruel environment, full of pressures and charges. Requires more than the body. It requires the mind, the soul. It requires records, overcoming, requires the impossible – which sometimes even happens. But it rarely offers a safe space for athletes and technicians to realize and have the freedom to say, “I’m not fine.”
Gabriel Medina decided to get away from some stages of the world surfing circuit, seeking balance amid the whirlwind of emotions lived at the time. He had the wisdom to get out of the wave before she dropped him. Our Rebeca Andrade, owner of six Olympic medals, underwent an anxiety crisis and almost threw the towel when he had to deal with three knee injuries. Richarlison stopped to think – and to cry – when he reported that he would seek psychological help after facing personal problems that affected his performance at the time.
Giant Simone Biles chose mental health instead of medals, and aroused the world to the necessary discussion about mental health and sport. None of them were less professional for that. They were more: more lucid, more mature, more aware of their limits. Knowing how to stop before getting sick, knowing how to pause before destroying what you love or a relationship with those who love yourself – this is wisdom.
We have coach. The white smoke appeared. We have Dorival Junior. Left for him. The place was predestined to be his, an experienced, balanced and competent man. Faithful, now it’s ball ahead.
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