Mixed feelings for Cruzeiro’s fans, in 2018. On one hand, Raposa won the Brazilian Cup, which is, these days, perhaps even more appreciated than the league itself, mostly because it offers a significantly bigger prize money for the winners. On the other hand, they had a disappointing career in domestic league, making them finish in a bleak 8th place. The frustration of the fans towards the league campaign is mostly related with the high investment the club made for this season. The squad was perhaps only equaled by Palmeiras in terms of volume of solutions. Much like the recently crowned champions, Cruzeiro had almost two teams to rotate, which obviously help them being kept alive in all competitions for very long.
Not only Cruzeiro lift the Cup trophy, they had also a long career in Libertadores, having been knocked-out only in quarter-finals by the eventual finalists Boca Juniors. However, much inlike Palmeiras, Cruzeiro’s heavy rotation was felt in domestic league, as the second choices were clearly not delivering as expected and during those busier months when Cruzeiro had two almost every three or four days, the performances in league suffered a lot. From round 15 to 29, Cruzeiro held only two victories. The fact that Cruzeiro ended the season with only 11 points more than the top team from relegation group says it all about this highly irregular league performance.
Despite having a rich and extensive squad, Cruzeiro had a couple of players that were absolutely irreplaceable during this season. The centre-half Dedé and the attacking midfielder De Arrascaeta were miles ahead from the rest of their teammates in quality and decisiveness. The club suffered a lot every time they had to play without these two, and unfortunately for Raposa, there were quite a few time where both the Brazilian and the Uruguayan had to miss, either because of injuries or simply because they had been called by respective national teams. Goalkeeper Fábio was reliable as always, Leo was a good partner for Dedé at the back and Thiago Neves was still in good form, even if not as regular as last year. On the other hand, Fred spent most of the year out with a severe injury, while the likes of the full-back Edilson and Egídio, and the holding midfielders duo Henrique and Ariel were very irregular at best. David was the most expensive signing of the club, ever, and certainly failed to correspond on his debut season, even if he got some decent performance in the last weeks of the year.
