A catastrophic second half of season almost brought Fogão down to Série B after a very decent first half during which the team flirted with the G-6 zone.
Coach Barroca seemed determined to keep an attractive style no matter what. And, for a while, it worked well for Botafogo. The squad was admittedly short in options, and the fans weren’t expecting titles. So Barroca felt he had room to have the occasional defeat if balanced with some good results, always playing an enjoyable style.
However, with time, and particularly after the start of second half of the season, both results and quality of football on the pitch started to decline abruptly. From round 20 to 31, 10 defeats and only 2 wins (at home, against two newly promoted).
Barroca didn’t resist, of course, but his replacement Alberto Valentim took a while to get the team out of the losing trend. In fact, with Valentim in dugout, Botafogo had only 4 wins in 13 rounds. Fortunately, it was enough to get out of trouble zone and keep the big team in top flight level.
Diego Souza was hailed as the team’s big star for the season, but, after a decent few initial rounds, the experienced striker faded away completely and even lost his place during the final rounds. On the other hand, Gabriel did a surprisingly great job in making the fans forget all about Igor Rabello at the back. Gatito as usual was a safe rock in goal.
With a huge debt on their back, Botafogo will clearly not be able to build a better team than the one playing in 2019, so the fans should expect more trouble next season.
