Rapidly improving youngsters led Santos FC to a first top-5 finish under Robinho Lazaró and the Copa Libertadores semis in 2027. They also dominated the awards for best young players, which proved the serious amount of potential at the club.
There were also set to be major changes off the pitch as, 12 months on from extending their current stadium, the Santos board announced plans to build a new stadium to accommodate demand for tickets. But, realistically, it will be at least 3 years until that’s built. Also, Lazaró brought in the legendary Taffarel as a goalkeeping coach, joining the likes of Benni McCarthy and Kolo Touré on the backroom staff.
The off-season saw long-serving goalkeeper Joao Paulo depart for £4.8m to Sao Paulo following some terrible performances last season, and moaning midfielder Joao Victor joined Juventude for £2.1m in July. Lazaró drafted in some exciting new talent led by Chilean winger Kennet Sierralta for £2m from Colo Colo, along with centre backs Glaudestony Penchel, who’s been labelled the next Márcio Santos, for £4.5m from Cruzeiro and Edson for £2.5m from Internacional, Paraguayan midfielder Alcides Sanabria for £700k from Olimpía, right back Claudio Leuci for £4m from Huracán and Paraguayan goalkeeper Carlos García for £1.1m from Nacional.
Lazaró debated switching to a two-striker formation utilising 6ft 4in Thierry Henry and 6ft 5in Marcos Aurélio. But he eventually decided to stick with the narrow 4-3-3 approach that worked last season, but changed Aurélio’s role to a Trequartista.
Solid Start To Série A
The state championship began with 9 players on international duty at a pre-Olympic tournament. Despite losing the opener at Palmeiras they still performed well, including Henry’s brace leading a 6-1 win at Gremio Novorizontino, but eventually lost 3-1 to Palmeiras in the semis.
The bookies still didn’t fancy Santos’ chances, predicting an 11th-place finish with title odds of 50/1. Corinthians are 7/5 favourites, even though they’ve not won the title in this save, followed by Palmeiras (13/5), Flamengo (8/1) and Botafogo (20/1).
They began with solid 0-0s at Flamengo and Atlético Mineiro. Aurélio edged a 2-1 at home to Gremio and Valentín Corti and wonderkid midfielder Iqaquiel Penchel earned the same result at home to Vasco. But they hit top gear at Paranaense as Henry’s brace and Aurélio and Juan Manuel Zapata strikes saw them win 4-0. Another mass youth international exodus, plus right back Jefferson Jaramillo earning his first Ecuador cap, saw Santos lose for the first time at home to Cuiabá before a Zapata brace, which remarkably took him to 9 for the season, earned a 3-0 win at 4th-place Vitória and Aurélio’s double downed Fluminense 4-0.
Santos had somehow played 3 fewer games than most of the teams around them. That meant playing 13 league games in July and August alongside a host of cup games, which wasn’t helped by 4 players going to the Olympics with Brazil U23s. So Lazaró had to regularly rotate where possible. A solid 0-0 at Palmeiras left them 7 points off the leaders, which became 4 as Henry’s brace inspired another 4-0 win over Botafogo. A tired team earned draws home and away against Fortaleza and at Corinthians. And they headed into their second half of the season in 6th place, 11 points behind Palmeiras with 3 games in hand. And the top 8 could become very tight.
Lazaró’s efforts saw the board hand him a new 5-year contract on £9k per month until 2032, with £100k payouts for winning Série A and Copa Libertadores. But could he cash in either this season?
Easy Copa Libertadores Group
Santos’ improved league finish meant they went straight into the Copa Libertadores groups for the first time. And they got a favourable draw alongside Colombia’s Águilas Doradas, Chile’s Cobreloa and Paraguay’s Libertad. They opened up with Henry’s hat trick inspiring a 4-0 win at Libertad before a dominant 4-1 win at home to Cobreloa and Henry and Dimitri earned a comfortable 2-0 in Colombia. Qualification was sealed as Dimitri bagged a hat trick in a 5-1 thumping of Águilas before beating Libertad 3-1 at home and a fully rotated team drew 1-1 in Chile.
A potentially tricky 2nd round draw saw Santos take on Vasco. A wild start to the away leg saw midfielder Lucas Rosado and left back Kevyson answer 2 Vasco goals inside 30 minutes. Another lively start saw an own goal, Jair’s header and Henry put Santos 3-0 up after 25 minutes of the home leg and they held on to win 3-1. Santos’ reward was a clash with reigning champions River Plate and the Argentines just about had too much for them, winning the first leg 1-0 before Edson earned an impressive 1-1 in Argentina. River went on to reach the Final again, but lost a thriller 5-3 against Palmeiras.
Penchel Sale Inspires His Former Colleagues
Santos suffered a huge blow in July as star academy graduate Penchel attracted interest from Europe’s elite. Lazaró reluctantly accepted a £35m bid from PSG, who’d originally offered just £10m. That becomes the 3rd most expensive sale in club history behind Neymar to Barcelona (£73m) and Rodygo to Madrid (£37m). And it pushes Santos’ bank balance past £100m for the first time.
Santos set a new club record 15 league draws last season, and it appeared they fancied a shot at breaking it. Life without Penchel began with another Santos old boy Gabriel Barbosa scoring a penalty for Flamengo. But Aurélio’s close-range finish earned a point, which took them to 4 successive league draws and 11 from 20 games. Henry and attacking midfielder Luiz Fernando broke that streak in a 2-0 win at Gremio before scoring again in a 4-0 crushing of struggling Atlético Mineiro and the out-of-form Dimitri bagged a brace alongside G Penchel’s first for the club claimed an impressive 3-0 win at Vasco.
A potential title race was very much on as Palmeiras lost at Cruzeiro before Santos won 3 home games in a week against Paranaense, Corinthians, thanks to another Dimitri double, and CRB. Lazaró was rewarded with only his 2nd manager of the month award, while Santos went top of Série A for the first time, leading Palmeiras by 2 points with 2 games in hand.
Santos’ players got their first weeks off between games in over 3 months. And that helped the run continue in 3 consecutive away games against struggling sides in September. Henry and Aurélio scored early to lead a 4-1 win over Botafogo, Henry bagged a brace in a 5-2 thumping of Mirassol and Henry and Aurélio earned a 2-0 at Cuiabá. That saw Santos finally catch up on games, and move 6 points clear at the top of Série A with 9 games remaining.
Brazilian Title Race Heats Up
Back on home ground, main men Aurélio and Henry scored to earn a 2-0 win over Mirassol. Jair’s late header nicked a 1-1 at 3rd-place Coritiba to take Santos 7 points clear with 7 games remaining. Henry continued to fire in the goals, scoring twice inside half an hour to lead a 4-0 win over Vitória and the only goal at lowly Fluminense to take Santos 9 points clear. However, a five-month run without a league defeat ended with two in a week, 1-0 at home to Palmeiras and 3-2 at home to Internacional, which left Santos 6 points clear of Corinthians, who had a game in hand, with 3 games remaining.
Game 1 – Cruzeiro (8th, away): Corinthians closed the gap to just 3 points as they won 1-0 at Flamengo. But Santos eased some of the pressure as the improving Rosado and Charles scored second-half goals for a 2-0 victory.
Game 2 – RB Bragantino (20th, home): Corinthians played first again and nicked another 1-0 away win at Gremio. Santos were gifted an opener against relegated Bragantino, whose centre back’s loose pass handed Henry his easiest goal of the season and his 100th league goal for Santos. The big striker had one disallowed then missed a huge chance before Aurélio hit the post and Rosado also had a goal disallowed. And, despite missing a host of chances, Santos secured a dominant 1-0 victory.
Game 3 – Sao Paulo (17th, away): An odd situation saw Santos play their final match a week before the rest of the league and before Corinthians played their final 2 games. Santos knew that a point at rivals Sao Paulo, who were in the relegation zone on goal difference, would secure the title. However, they went into it with both goalkeepers missing as García was ludicrously on international duty and Chaparro was recovering from injury, which forced 19-year-old Mazinho to step up. Rosado went close with a header early and Henry put a header wide on 17 minutes. But they fell behind to Sao Paulo’s first shot, a pretty tame 30-yard free kick, and were 2-0 down 3 minutes later. Lazaró couldn’t get his team going and they fell to a pretty pathetic 2-0 defeat.
The title was still likely to be theirs, however, as Corinthians had to win twice and have a 17-goal swing. They went some way towards that by thumping Atlético Mineiro 4-0 but, thankfully, didn’t achieve the impossible on the final day, losing 3-0 at Vasco.
Santos FC were Champions of Brazil for the first time since 2004! And they became the outright 2nd-most successful team in Brazilian history with 9 Série A titles in total.
Santos won the league by 3 points from Corinthians, finishing with 78 points after 22 wins, 12 draws and 4 defeats, scoring 71 and conceding 26. Henry was the league’s top scorer for the 3rd time in 4 years with 21 goals, Aurélio led the league with 6 MOTM awards and he departed Penchel had the highest average rating of 7.25. Santos also had Kevyson, centre back Penchel, Jaramillo and Henry in the Série A team of the year.
Glory For Santos’ Exciting Youngsters
Lazaró led Santos to Brazilian glory with a squad that had an average age of just 20. Only 4 players are aged over 21 and 12 of them are still teenagers. So Lazaró was delighted with the success but really excited about the future with this group of players. Santos were overlooked for NxGn, but Henry won his 3rd successive Kopa trophy with Aurélio in 2nd.
Henry broke his own club record of 31 goals with 32 in 57, followed by Aurélio (21), Dimitri (14), Rosado and Zapata (9) and Charles (8). But Lazaró’s player of the season was very much Rosado, who stepped up for the departed Penchel with a club-high 14 assists followed by Rafinha (12), Kevyson (11) and Charles (10).
The Ginga tracker is now up to 22 players, led by Dimitri’s improved 79 rating followed by Fernando (73) and Aurélio (71). While Henry is the first player to pass a Ginga objective with his 121 goals for Santos. You can see all the players’ stats and ratings by clicking the chart below:
The latest youth intake wasn’t at the same level as recent years but did produce two exciting talents in attackers Bolívar Moura and Richard Gomes Filho.
Lazaró wasn’t quite expecting such quick success at Santos, winning his maiden title in his 5th season at the club. However, the progression of his young stars has been staggering and he was really excited to see them continue to improve.
Could Santos defend their title and go a step further in Copa Libertadores? Join us next Monday to find out!
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