Palmeiras’ march to the Brazilian Serie A title was rarely in doubt, with the team having led the league from mid-season right to the final day. They were even able to wrap their triumph up with a week to spare and ultimately won the league by a nine-point margin over Santos and Flamengo, racking up 80 points, the second highest total since the current format was adopted. Part of the reason why they won the league so comfortably was that there were few other serious challengers, with Santos, Flamengo and Atletico Mineiro all flirting with a serious push for the title at various points, without ever keeping up the kind of consistent form that Palmeiras were capable of. The man behind their success was Cuca, the coach who arrived at the beginning of the season to take over the reins from Marcelo Oliveira, who had been one of three coaches to spend time in the Palmeiras dugout during their 9th-placed 2015 league campaign. He consistently opted for a 4-3-3 formation, one which trusted the individual quality of the Palmeiras attacking players and which permitted them the necessary freedom to strut their stuff in the final third. They scored a league-leading 62 goals, but their success was not solely based on the attacking talents of Gabriel Jesus, Dudu, Erik, Roger Guedes and Cleiton Xavier. They also conceded the joint-fewest goal in the Serie A, with just 32 slipping past their well-drilled back line. That was especially impressive given that their starting goalkeeper Fernando Prass suffered an injury in the 15th week of the season, one which ruled him out for the rest of the campaign, besides a cameo/tribute last minute substitute appearance on the day they secured the title. Vagner and Jailson filled in well beneath the posts, while the centre-back pairing of Victor Hugo and Thiago Martins also did well, as did young Colombian centre-back Yerry Mina, who had an excellent second half of the season and who has been attracting interest from Europe.
The star of the champions’ campaign, however, was Gabriel Jesus. The 19-year-old was Palmeiras’ top scorer with 12 strikes to his name and was voted the league’s player of the season. His talents persuaded Manchester City to buy him during the summer transfer window, but the English club allowed him to stay at Palmeiras for the second half of the campaign on a loan deal, with the player set to move to the Premier League now that his loan spell is over. Besides the young forward, the key components of this team were Victor Hugo and Tche Tche, who provided a solid spine down the middle of the park from defence forward. They were the only two players to play over 3,000 minutes and both can be pleased with their respective campaigns.
Looking ahead to 2017, Palmeiras will aim to defend their title, but they will have to do so with a new coach. Cuca is leaving and is set to be replaced by Eduardo Baptista, who has a fairly short CV, albeit a successful one. He first coached Sport Recife in 2014, but his most recent role was that of coach of Ponte Preta, who he led to an 8th-placed finish last season, three spots better than they had done without him the previous year. He will be working with Keno, Raphael Veiga and Hyoran, three excellent players Palmeiras have been brought in to replace the outgoing Gabriel Jesus and to cover any more potential departures. It’ll be a tough ask to retain their title without Gabriel Jesus, but they certainly have a chance of doing so.
