Palmeiras and Flamengo, Copa Libertadores finalists who went from crisis to rejoicing

They had bad drinks before getting back to the top. But the wait was worth it for Palm Trees and Flamengo, which in the final of the Copa Libertadores 2021 crown a five-year period of celebrations inside and outside Brazil.

Like so many Brazilian teams, for years the debts suffocated them and took their prominence inherent in their shields. In the case of Verdao, bad times dragged them into the hell of the B in 2012 for the second time in its award-winning history.

But in the last five years, Palm Trees and Flamengo, that on Saturday will fight in Montevideo for the trophy of the main club tournament in AmericaThey have reaped the honeys of a change of course that began in the meeting rooms.

“Both went through reconstruction processes that began in 2013″ Explains to the AFP André Galvao, sports journalist for the Brazilian network SBT.

The turns paid off. Between these two teams, exponents of São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro football, they have won ten of the 27 main competitions (37%) of clubs played in the last half decade in Brazil and South America, including four of the five Brazilian players.

The Sudamericana was the only one to escape them: Fla was runner-up in 2017, while Verdao has not played it since 2012.

Emerald resurface

When going down to second divisionPalmeiras, Brazil’s most champion team, with ten stars, had not won the league for 18 years and had not played a continental final for 12 years.

But the Paulistas resurfaced under the presidency of Paulo Nobre (2013-2016), a millionaire lawyer who lent money to settle debts, attracted sponsorships and inaugurated the Allianz Parque stadium with a mixed model that increased box office revenues.

Once he tidied up the house and returned to contest the A in 2013, began to invest and the glory returned.

Since 2016, raised the brasileiraos of that year and 2018 and the Libertadores and the Brazil Cup 2020.

With the healthy financesThe emeralds signed international figures such as the Paraguayans Gustavo Gómez and Lucas Barrios, the Colombians Miguel Borja and Yerry Mina, the Chilean Jorge Valdivia and the Venezuelan Alejandro Guerra.

To outsiders hierarchy brazilians joined such as Zé Roberto, Weverton and Felipe Melo, in addition to the emergence of talented homegrown players such as Gabriel Jesus, sold to Manchester City in 2016.

“I have never trained a team with such quality,” Portuguese coach Abel Ferreira said last December, a month after landing in Sao Paulo.

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Under the leadership of the Portuguese, the Verdao has qualified for six local tournament finals, state and international.

In Montevideo he can achieve the first two-time Libertadores championship in two decades, after that obtained by Boca Juniors (ARG) in 2000 and 2001.

Red-black shake

While Palmeiras resurfaced with the backing of a millionaire, Flamengo signed his rebirth from a strategy in which his fans -of 40 million people, the largest in the world within a country, according to FIFA- had a starring role.

In December 2012, the administrator Eduardo Bandeira de Mello (2013-18) won the club’s elections, he began to execute an austerity plan to alleviate a debt that was around USD 380 million of the time and launched an initiative, “Nación Rojinegra”, to increase the collection of money with the partners.

“They made a serious program to reduce debts, which were priceless, like those of almost all Brazilian teams. They bought modest, cheap players, and then they invested in more expensive footballers ”, points out Galvao.

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Since 2016, with a better balance in the account, Mengao began to form the base of the team that shone under the command of Portuguese Jorge Jesus with the signings of Uruguayan Giorgian de Arrascaeta and Brazilians Diego Alves, Filipe Luís, Everton Ribeiro and Gabriel Barbosa ‘ Gabigol ‘.

It helped them in the sports and financial consolidation millionaire sales of the homegrown players Vinicius Jr and Reinier to Real Madrid and Lucas Paquetá to Milan.

Before the reorganization of 2013, so far this century, Fla, the third Brazilian team with the most leagues raised, barely won one Brasileirao (2009) and one Brazilian Cup (2006).

After rebuilding, won the Brazil Cup-2013, the two most recent editions of the Brasileirao (2019, 2020), the Liberators-2019, the South American Recopa-2020 and two Brazilian Super Cups (2020, 2021).

The Super Cup-2021 was snatched from Palmeiras in April, in the second final they have played after the Mercosur Cup-1999, also won by the rojinegros.

In Montevideo, the emeralds will be able to retaliate. (D)