Copa Libertadores 2020 - Final Live on IPlayer at 8pm Saturday

Domenec Torrent and his assistants have been sacked by Flamengo. They were defeated 4-0 yesterday.

To put this in perspective, though, Flamengo are third, one point behind leaders Internacional. They also won their Libertadores group.

Looks more like a sacking based on the brilliance of last season rather than any failure, so far.

Coudet and Ceni being mentioned as potential replacements.

Can’t believe the season Inter are having
 
Can’t believe the season Inter are having

Don't really follow Brazilian football so had a look at the table. Pretty close between 1st and 8th - ironically Internacional and Gremio. Looks like it should be an exciting season.

 
Don't really follow Brazilian football so had a look at the table. Pretty close between 1st and 8th - ironically Internacional and Gremio. Looks like it should be an exciting season.

Only a few points between 1st and 8th, it’s what I like about that league the top place can change from week to week.
Inter were relegated two seasons ago from Serie A so doing well, unfortunately
 
Only a few points between 1st and 8th, it’s what I like about that league the top place can change from week to week.
Inter were relegated two seasons ago from Serie A so doing well, unfortunately

Didn't realise that. Some record for Thiago this season 15 in 17 for an attacking mid.

That's the thing about South American leagues. Since money is an issue, if a club does well then it tends to lose a lot of players for the following season - Flamengo are a slight anomally. Should be an exciting second half to the season.
 
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Are River favourites in the bookies now given Flamengo's form? You were getting decent money on both of them during the groups but think that was at some time after they both got horsed 4 or 5 nil or something.

I don't know about with Bookies as I don't gamble, but I would say Flamengo are still favourites due to the squad they have.

(Kiss of Death) Internacional have looked really good recently. They play Boca so not an easy route into the next round.
 
Watching the highlights they missed sitters but goalie was also excellent and saved AP
I didn’t see it but just speaking to my brother who did and he felt the keeper was excellent.

Keeper had a blinder but this has been a pattern for a couple of years.

Borré is the main striker and he is a bit like Kenny Miller - his movement and work-rate are excellent but he doesn't score the amount of goals he should.
 
Article from Jack Lang of the Athletic re Ramirez, the IDV coach.

Sometimes, when someone has a crystal-clear vision of how football should be played, and is willing to sketch it out without reverting to generalisations or cliches, the best thing you can do is sit back and soak it in.



You almost certainly haven’t heard of Miguel Angel Ramirez. He is 36 and has never played the game at any significant level. His most high-profile position in European football to date was as an academy coach at Las Palmas, his hometown club in the Canary Islands. He is only a couple of years into a managerial career that he stumbled into by accident.



He is also the most exciting young coach in South America. But we’ll get to that in a minute. First, a sermon.



“Football, for me, is a possession game,” Ramirez tells The Athletic over a shaky Skype connection. “But not in some a superficial way. Having control of the game means having the ball. That’s the foundation on which I can build everything else. I try to outnumber the opposition in places, so what looks ‘risky’ is just actually just the team attacking with as many elements as possible, in as many ways as possible.



“I obviously want to keep a balance, which allows me to defend, but I like to subdue the opponent, playing close to the opposing goal. In terms of the relationship with space, it’s like a chess game: the opponent might leave a gap, or not, and there are certain spaces I want to win. I play with the opponent to win control of certain areas where I think I can do damage.



“When I don’t have the ball, I want to win it back, and I want to do that as soon as possible so I can keep attacking. That’s more or less what we were looking for. In broad strokes, that’s how I want my team to play. That’s how I understand football.



It sounds good in theory, but ideas alone do not make you the talk of a continent. No, that is a factor of the extent to which his vision has been transposed onto the pitch. Ramirez’s team play daring, intricate, futuristic football. It carried them to the 2019 Copa Sudamericana — South American’s Europa League equivalent — and it has made them one of the most watchable sides in the Copa Libertadores this year.



At which point, we must place the final piece into this overachievers’ jigsaw. Ramirez does not manage one of the Brazilian or Argentinian giants, but a tiny Ecuadorian side called Independiente del Valle. Their stadium, in Sangolqui, holds just 8,000 people. Before Ramirez took charge, in May 2019, they had never won a top-flight domestic title, let alone a continental competition.



That Sudamericana success was historic. Now they are competing against even bigger teams — and holding their own. They started their Libertadores campaign with back-to-back 3-0 wins against Barcelona de Guayaquil and Atletico Junior, then recorded a staggering 5-0 success over defending champions Flamengo. That result echoed around South America, and even though Flamengo later achieved some revenge back in Rio de Janeiro, COVID-stricken Independiente remained loyal to Ramirez’s vision.



“It’s normal that a team like Flamengo, or Junior, who are champions of Colombia, will be better than Independiente, because we don’t have the same budget,” says Ramirez. “My whole squad is paid one-quarter of what (Flamengo striker) Gabriel Barbosa is paid. So in normal circumstances, we have no chance of beating Flamengo.



“But I think we’ve had some matches that have ended up making noise, globally. It’s less about the result and more about the way this team plays. It’s attractive football for people who like a spectacle.”
 
2nd part of article.

Blur your eyes a touch when watching Independiente and it’s not so difficult to imagine you’re watching Manchester City — and not just because Ramirez himself could expect to be a finalist in any Pep Guardiola lookalike contest.



They have a goalkeeper who is happy to step out of his penalty area and start moves. They have full-backs who are comfortable slotting into midfield positions. The wingers stay high and wide, stretching the play. There are even, to borrow from Guardiola’s lexicon, a pair of “free eights” who roam between the lines, probing for openings. The ball is occasionally pinged to the far side of the field but otherwise, it stays on the floor.



Ramirez accepts the comparison but insists that his approach is influenced more by those with whom he has worked closely. “For those of us who like the possession game, obviously Guardiola is an important name, a point of orientation for our footballing compasses,” he says. “But I don’t know how Guardiola works. I only see how his team play. The inspiration has come from the people I’ve had around me — people who have helped to build me up, offered me an idea about how to go about being a coach.”



While Ramirez got his start at Las Palmas and then had a brief spell in Greek youth football, he cites his time at the Aspire Academy in Dubai as his most formative experience before he arrived in Ecuador. There, he met his mentor, Roberto Olabe, who is now director of football at Real Sociedad. Over the course of six years, during which he coached the under-12, under-13, under-16 and under-17 sides, his philosophy took shape.



“Roberto had this way of seeing the game as it relates to the player, to space, to the opponent,” Ramirez explains. “I arrived in Qatar unable to see that. By sitting with Roberto and chatting for many, many hours, I was able to start to see the game in a totally different manner.”



The chance to go to Ecuador came in 2018. Independiente have a link with Aspire, who recommended Ramirez for the job of academy coordinator. He didn’t think twice, but the decision to step up and manage the first team when coach Ismael Rescalvo left the club a year later was trickier. Ramirez liked working with young players. He did not harbour a burning ambition to move up to senior football.



Still, it felt like too good an opportunity to turn down. “I had time during that year in the academy to get to know the club, to get to know the people behind the project,” he says. “I knew their vision, and what they wanted. I understood that I could be calm and secure in the knowledge that I was going to have stability at this club.



“What I saw during the nine seasons I was at Las Palmas — a European club who spent a long time in the first division — was a third-world set-up. Independiente have a first-world set-up — a structure and a vision that is very different to other clubs in Ecuador and to most of the rest of South America, too.”



On a practical level, Ramirez must work within certain constraints. “It’s a very responsible economic model,” he explains. “There aren’t funds for big signings, because there’s a salary cap that the club doesn’t want to go past. They want to prioritise the academy and the promotion of academy players to the first team, even knowing that doing so has certain sporting costs.

On a practical level, Ramirez must work within certain constraints. “It’s a very responsible economic model,” he explains. “There aren’t funds for big signings, because there’s a salary cap that the club doesn’t want to go past. They want to prioritise the academy and the promotion of academy players to the first team, even knowing that doing so has certain sporting costs.



“Throughout the club, teams use the same method of training and style of play. There is also a very effective scouting network. Right now, Independiente are the No 1 club in Ecuador for scouting young players: the best talents in the country play in our youth teams. We try to get players into the first team and the idea is that later we can sell them to bigger clubs. So players leave, players come in from the academy, those players are sold… and that’s how the club remains sustainable.”



This suits Ramirez, who already knows all of the youngsters well, down to the ground. Four of the players who started the Sudamericana final against Argentine side Colon came through the academy system. The Ecuador national team have also started to benefit from the production line and Ramirez says there is growing respect for the club’s achievements on the continent. “For Ecuador, Independiente are an example of how to do things,” he says. “It’s a club that don’t have a lot of supporters, but there has been a big reaction across the country. There’s a lot of admiration: people can be fans of another club, but they’re also supporters of Independiente.”



Much of that owes to Ramirez’s style of football. He has won admirers far beyond Ecuador, too: Palmeiras were desperate to secure his services earlier this year and they aren’t the only Brazilian club to have been in contact. Ramirez, though, says he was not overly tempted.



“Let’s put all our cards on the table: I’m just starting out professionally,” he says. “I understand that I wouldn’t have had the guarantee that I have here at Independiente del Valle. I know that a bad result isn’t going to change anything about the project at Independiente, about the vision that the club have and the trust they have in me.



“In Brazil that wasn’t going to be possible. The immediacy, the focus on results, and above all the lack of time to train… it would have been impossible for me to build a foundation for a project. Everything is immediate there: every two or three days, you’ve got to get a result, and if you don’t get that result, you’re out on the street.



“Especially for my system of play, and how I understand the game. However big the club, the circumstances wouldn’t be there due to the immediacy that pervades Brazilian football.”



He has had a few phone calls from this side of the Atlantic, too, and admits the prospect of testing himself in Europe is more appealing. “I’m not obsessed with returning, but it is attractive because the competition there is so difficult. The level of coaches… I know it will push me to new limits. It’ll be a headache to work out how to compete in each match. That’s what motivates me.



“I have to be careful because I don’t think my way of playing would be well suited to just any kind of club. My way of understanding football needs a particular context, which not all clubs have. So I have to be very sure before I take the next step.”



You don’t need a crystal ball to know that his time will come. In the more immediate future, though, there is business to attend to. Tonight, Independiente are in Uruguay for the second leg of their Libertadores last-16 tie against Nacional. The first leg ended 0-0, but goodness knows how: the Ecuadorians had 78 per cent possession and a frankly ridiculous 32 shots. More of the same in Uruguay and they will surely progress to the quarter-finals, where a glamour meeting with River Plate could await.



Which isn’t bad at all for an unknown Spanish youth coach, right? “I never imagined this,” he says with a glint in his eye. “I think everything that has come my way is a gift from football. And a gift from life.”
 
2nd part of article.
Thanks for posting.

Big game for him tonight against Nacional. Will be an interesting test as despite the opening leg finishing 0-0 (in Ecuador) they still have a decent chance of going through.

If you haven't seen him play check out Moises Caicedo. He's a 19 y/o defensive mid and looks a real prospect.
 
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