After more than a year in which I said goodbye here, with sparse participation since then, I feel ready to continue as a mere reader/spectator. Even why the casting of columnists seems complete and to write today, I asked prior authorization from my friend Régis Martins, Tuesday’s headliner.
I understood that it was pertinent to come here at this moment, however, not on a game day or even to talk about the team’s performance the following day, since the politics that seem to accompany Internacional before, during and after each new electoral process, have already been dictating (or trying to) the pace of the Club as a whole, either via the means of communication and communicators, or through behind-the-scenes movements: on the one hand, those who are trying to maintain their ‘coherence’ in the project, on the other, the old group that decreed the direction of the club for two decades and, obviously, he wants to get back on his feet.
And I decided to talk about it after a comment I made yesterday, on post by Mauro Loch which, rereading, seemed to be a pertinent subject. And I start there: How far is President Alessandro Barcellos’s conviction hindering the team’s performance? I explain.
Once again, and now explicitly, the Colorado representative made it clear that business is linked to the Club’s financial capacity and, therefore, this will dictate the pace of arrival of reinforcements. There are those who say, for example, that even with the European window closed, there is no player effectively in the process of being signed. Therefore, what we see reflected in the field will continue for who knows when.
Here comes my question again: How far is President Alessandro Barcellos’s conviction hindering the team’s performance?
Look, noble readers of this Red Blog, at this moment (as has been said and repeated here), we don’t even have enough players to form two teams. There are 26 players in the professional group, of which 4 goalkeepers, 1 with a long recovery injury (Gabriel) and 2 from the base – Felipe (who, although training with the main team, so far has not even had a few seconds experienced on the field) and Lucca ( who entered two or three games and I don’t even remember if he actually touched the ball). And nothing else.
With three forwards like in the last match, we don’t even have an acute option for the course of the matches. The titular striker has not yet arrived and the, in theory, reserve comes poorly and without confidence. Reserve left-back I don’t know if he’s really ready. Not even Matheus (now with a renewed contract) is the first steering wheel. With that, the team that ended well and excited us last year, strictly speaking, still hasn’t debuted this year.
So, to be consistent with myself, even though I might believe that it might take a while to bring in undisputed starting players, for those in the group it’s unacceptable that they aren’t here yet. The newly arrived goalkeeper is not even registered with the BID. Baralhas should have already arrived at the presentation in December. After all, what is protection and conviction, and what is incompetence in this hiring process?
The ‘long year’ in the title of this post it may refer to the need for a substantial group, as at least 3 major competitions await us; it could also be the state of mind that we fans will have to face once again, weakening the good prospects that (still) are drawn for the season; but it could be a clear message to the management that, in addition to not forgetting that a football club lives on this and on the titles resulting from it (and this comes at a cost), it still has an electoral process that depends on the good results of this long year.
I can say with conviction that it is now or never. And if they haven’t learned from their own previous mistakes of leaving it to the last minute, maybe they won’t be able to complain at the end of the year after (and with) the election results.
Luck is already released in February. And in football she is not always patient.