Bahia held a safe mid-table position for the second time in a row, after coming back to Brazilian top-flight elite in 2017. But it took a second leadership for Bahia to found their best shape, this season, as the first ten rounds were quite disastrous. Guto Ferreira was sacked after getting only eight points in the first 9 rounds, leaving Bahia on the Z-4. The new coach Enderson Moreira arrived three games later, and had an immediate impact, grabbing a sequence of six matches undefeated. Physical problems and drop of form in a few key players like Edigar Junio, Vinícius, Zé Rafael and Gilberto saw Bahia get back to negative results, and relegation became a threat once again.
By the end of September a decisive detail came up. While the likes of Gregore and Zé Rafael got back to better form, a 18-years old namd Eric, but better known as Ramires (at least for this past season), appeared “from nothing” on Bahia’s starting lineup, and wasn’t drop from there ever since. His impressive performances week in week out brought Bahia into another level. Bahia collected 20 points in those last 14 rounds which had Ramires starting them all.
Bahia had also a very decent participation in domestic cup as well as in Sul-Americana, having reached the quarter-finals of both competitions.
Besides the young phenomenal midfielder Ramires, Bahia counted with the known talents of Junio and Gilberto in the attack, in the first half of the season. Zé Rafael also in attack and Gregore in midfield had solid seasons with very few oscillations. Douglas in goal, Leo as left-back and the centre-half Tiago and Lucas Fonseca were also in a good level. Jackson, Vinícius and Allione had too many physical problems to make any decent impact in Bahia’s campaign.
