Former Brazilian striker Ronaldo Nazário This year he is facing one of his biggest challenges as a football businessman: keeping his Cruzeiro in First division on his return to the top flight of the Brazilian Championshipwhich starts this Saturday.
‘O Fenômeno’, owner of 90% of the shares of the club in which he became known to the world, fulfilled in 2022 the goal of promoting the team to the golden division of Brazilian football and now seeks to keep it in the elite without great financial waste.
Since he officially took control of the Cruzeiro a year ago, the main concern of the owner of the Real Valladolid of Spain have been the numbers.
The set of Belo Horizonte It was relegated to the Second Division in 2019 for the first time in its centenary history, hit by a serious financial and institutional crisis. Ronaldo went so far as to say that the club was in the UCI and still maintains that it is in a delicate situation.
It has been three years wandering in the desert that came to an end after the brilliant campaign in the last edition of Serie B, which the sky-blue team beat with a huge advantage over the other three teams that also returned to first division this year: Gremio, Vasco da Gama and Bahia.
Interestingly, the last two also passed into the hands of private investors in the last year. The Vasco was bought by the US fund 777 Partners and the Bahía became part of the powerful City Group.
All this in the midst of the rumors spread by the Brazilian press about Ronaldo’s plans to soon sell 20% of his shares to local businessman Pedro Lourenço, owner of a supermarket chain.
CHANGE OF COACH AND DISCREET SIGNINGS
Returning to the elite, Ronaldo has strengthened the squad with nearly twenty contracts between signings and assignments. All of medium profile and low costs. The most recognized are midfielder Ramiro, striker Nikao and center back Neris. The fans are still waiting for new reinforcements before the market closes.
On the bench, there was an unexpected change of coach a month after the start of the Brazilian Championship. the uruguayan paulo pezzolanothe architect of the promotion, resigned on March 19, after being eliminated in the semifinals of the Mineiro Championship in front of Americaand headed for Real Valladolidalso owned by Ronaldo, to try to save it from relegation in Spain.
Portuguese has arrived in its place Pedro Miguel Marques da Costa Filipebetter known as “Pepa”, with extensive experience in modest clubs in his country and who was free after leaving the al tai saudi
The Portuguese coach made his official debut this Thursday with a 1-0 defeat against Nauticalwhich competes in the third division, in the first leg of the third phase of the brazil cupwhere Cruzeiro intends to reach at least the round of 16.
More complicated will be his debut in the Brazilian Championship, scheduled for Sunday at the home of Corinthians, another of the greats of Brazil, although he has been at a low level for several seasons.
Without the physical exhaustion of playing in the Copa Libertadores or the Copa Sudamericana, the main objective is permanence and dreaming of reaching the qualifying positions for the Libertadores, which would give the club a new and important economic boost. Gone are the two continental titles he won in 1976 and 1997 or the four Leagues won in 1966, 2003, 2013 and 2014.
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Now, the one who rules in Belo Horizonte is the Atletico Mineiro. At the moment, Ronaldo’s priorities are different: polishing the accounts, paying off the debts to avoid FIFA sanctions and keeping the team alive in the most powerful League in America.
