It was always going to be tough for newly-promoted side Santa Cruz to avoid an immediate relegation back to the Serie B in their first top flight season in a decade and so it proved, with the team finishing second from bottom in the 2016 Serie A. By picking up eight points from their first four matches, Santa Cruz propelled themselves straight to the top of the table and it looked like 2016 was going to be a very enjoyable season for fans at the Estadio Jose do Rego Maciel. However, they inevitably dropped back down the table and when they entered the relegation zone after the 17th week of league action, they never resurfaced. Milton Mendes was the man who had been brought in to lead Santa Cruz on their exciting Serie A adventure and he was the one who got them off to their bright start, but with 11 defeats coming in the 15 matches that followed their promising opening, he was soon packing his bags and being replaced by Doriva. Yet Doriva had been left an unenviable task. The side was already in 19th spot when he took over and he was unable to move them any higher in the final few months of the season, with Adriano Teixeira eventually coming in once their fate was inevitable. The only time Santa Cruz moved from 19th position was when they sunk to the very bottom of the table with just a month to go. Yet two wins and a draw from their final five matches allowed the team to leapfrog America Mineiro back into the second bottom spot and avoid the embarrassment of finishing very last.
Given how difficult this season was expected to be for cash-strapped Santa Cruz and given the lack of stars in their squad, a 19th-placed finish was about as good as they could realistically have expected. What will be disappointing, though, is that they didn’t make the most of this opportunity to bring through young talent. Instead, Santa Cruz assembled the third oldest squad in the division, so the experience their players will have picked up during 2016 might not benefit the club for much longer as a lot of those players were journeymen types, who aren’t going to be the future of the club. Some of them did, admittedly, play well at times, with Grafite even managing to finish the season with 13 goals, just one fewer than top scorers, while Vitor played well in defence. Yet Grafite is 37 years old and Vitor is 34 years old and neither is likely to be there next season.
What is even more problematic for Santa Cruz is that they were already in serious financial bother, even before this relegation. Throughout the season players complained about not getting paid on time and the club has already announced that it will half its budget for their 2017 season. As such, a bounce-back promotion is very unlikely, especially considering they don’t have a coach yet in place, having refused to extend interim coach Adriano Teixeira’s contract.
