If Sao Paulo fans were left disappointed by last season’s 4th-placed finish then they were even more frustrated by the 10th-placed finish of 2016. It was certainly disappointing for the Tricolor when they lost playmaker Ganso to Sevilla in the summer, but they seemed to have reinvested that money wisely by bringing in Maicon, Christian Cueva and Julio Buffarini, while they had secured Chile international Eugenio Mena. With such strong defensive reinforcements they were expected to plug some of the gaps in a defence that had leaked 47 goals the previous campaign and they did manage to do so, letting just 36 slip past them this term, which was the 5th-best defensive record in the division. The problem was that their improvement at the back came at the expense of their goalscoring, with just 44 scored compared to 2015’s 53 – and with five of 2016’s goals coming on the final day against already-relegated Santa Cruz’s reserve team. Throughout the campaign they played a fairly rigid 4-2-3-1 formation, but the stability of their back four was often offset by the turbulence up front, with Cueva the only attacking player to feature for over 2,000 minutes. It hadn’t been a great start to the season, with just six league victories in the first 17 matches under Edgardo Bauza, but it got even worse when Bauza left to take over the Argentine national team job. The club hired Ricardo Gomes from Botafogo, but he came up with just five wins in 16 matches at the same time as Botafogo curiously improved in Gomes’ absence.
As mentioned, Cueva was one of the few positives in Sao Paulo’s 2016 attack, with the Peruvian No.10 orchestrating the team as they went forward, assisting four times and scoring seven goals himself. The Argentinian Andres Chavez was the best centre-forward of the season with his nine goals, but it should be noted that four of those goals came in the final four matches when there was already little to play for. He also had a run in mid-season when he scored three in four games, so his form was very hot and cold and he offered his coaches little reliability. As such, young strikers started to get some playing time, such as 20-year-olds Pedro Bortoluzo and Luiz Araujo and 19-year-old David Neres. They showed some promising signs and inspire hope for next season.
2016 was also the first year without legendary goalkeeper Rogerio Ceni, who had hung up his boots and gloves the previous off-season after a 23-year career. He won’t have been away for long, though, as he returns in 2017 as the new coach. Gomes was dismissed with two games of the season remaining as the club’s board had already decided that he wouldn’t be staying on and Ceni is to be afforded his first coaching gig. Even though Pintado took caretaker charge of the final two matches of the season – two wins – Ceni already started to have an outside influence, for example asking for Buffarini to be trialled as left-back as he seeks a solution to the huge gap that the departing Eugenio Mena will leave on that side of defence. He has expressed his desire to play a more attacking football than what was on offer in 2016, with his goalkeeper playing more of a sweeper-keeper role. Key to that plan will be holding on to star centre-back Rodrigo Caio, but that is easier said than done.
