Botafogo’s dream of winning an unprecedented world title ended this Wednesday (11). In their debut in the Intercontinental Cup, the lone star’s team ended up being beaten by Pachuca, from Mexico, 3-0, and said goodbye to the competition in the quarter-final stage.
This is the first edition in which the Libertadores champion enters the tournament two phases before the decision. Until 2023, both the winner of the Champions League and the winner of South America’s main club competition entered the semi-finals.
In addition to making the journey for South American teams more difficult, the change promoted by FIFA (International Football Federation) placed the European champion directly in the final.
In the old format, the worst campaign by a South American in the competition was that of Palmeiras, in 2021, the year in which the Alviverde team finished fourth.
The other four South American teams that were also defeated in the World Cup semi-finals —Internacional (2010), Atlético-MG (2013), Atlético Nacional-COL (2016) and River Plate-ARG (2018)— at least returned home with a victory in the bag, in the dispute for third place.
Qualified, the Mexican team will face Al-Ahly, from Egypt, on Saturday (12), at 2pm (Brasília time), in the last play-off before the decision, a phase for which Real Madrid, as the European representative, qualified. if directly.
The lone star team was fighting to end the long drought of the South American teams. Since 2012, when Corinthians won their second world championship by defeating Chelsea in the final, only European teams have won the trophy.
In the last edition, played in 2023, Fluminense ended up being defeated in the decision by Manchester City 4-0, also in Doha, Qatar.
Botafogo also dreamed of crowning its season with a triple crown, repeating the feat of Pelé’s Santos — in 1962 and 1963, the team from the coast of São Paulo placed national, continental and world trophies in its gallery. On that occasion, in addition to the Libertadores, he won the Taça Brasil —equated by the CBF with the Brazilian Championship years later— and the old Intercontinental Cup, against the European champion.
In the current competition formats, no Brazilian team has achieved this feat. Flamengo came closest, but were surpassed by Liverpool in the 2019 Club World Cup final after winning the Libertadores and Nacional.
To increase its chances in the Intercontinental Cup, Botafogo put together a plan to have its main players in full condition in a possible decision. The idea was to minimize the impact of the marathon of games that the team has faced since winning the Copa Libertadores, on November 30th, with one less player against Atlético-MG since the beginning of the confrontation.
With their debut in the Intercontinental Cup just three days after confirming their victory in the Brazilian Championship, Botafogo went to the field with some absences. In addition to Vitinho and Bastos being absent due to injury, coach Artur Jorge opted to rest Alex Telles, Marlon Freitas, Savarino and Almada.
The losses impacted the team’s creative capacity, which did not create any chances in the first half. Pachuca, especially with shots from outside the area, gave goalkeeper John more work, but neither team found the net before the break.
In the final stage, Portuguese Artur Jorge was forced to change the team. That’s because, after just four minutes, Idrissi opened the scoring for Pachuca. Born in the Netherlands, but naturalized Moroccan, the number 11 lined up in the Botafogo defense, left two players down and finished low.
The Brazilian team’s coach continued trying to adjust his team with new changes, but before any changes could take effect, the Mexican team reached the second goal. After a mistake by Almada, the ball fell to Pedraza to serve Deossa, who finished strongly, but had a rare error from John to extend the score.
Faced with the disadvantage, Botafogo had no alternative but to launch an attack, even if that meant leaving more space in the decision. This is how striker Rondón, a starter for the Venezuela national team, closed the score, in a counterattack, in the 33rd minute.
With the score elastic, Artur Jorge avoided blaming the players’ fatigue for their poor performance against the Mexicans.
“I’m not going to try to make any excuses for what we weren’t able to do. Pachuca were better than us, they were more effective, they were more capable in the second half, so there’s nothing to say in relation to everything that is the context”, said the coach.
Still on the pitch, the Portuguese made a point of praising the glorious year the team had. “The result wasn’t what we wanted, but nothing erases the great things we did this year. Today wasn’t a good game on our part,” he commented.
