A chastening season in Brazil’s top tier, which they were nowhere near ready for, saw Retrô Football Clube Brasil take a fairly welcome step back down to Série B for the 2029 season. Manager Robinho Lazaró just about survived after relegation, but was fairly offended the board had even considered sacking him after all he’d done for the club.
The Série A TV deal had boosted the club’s bank balance to a new high of £1.7m, but Lazaró remained committed to developing his homegrown talents. Eight players were released at the end of 2028, including underperforming defender Danillo. However, the off-season began with plenty of clubs showing interest in Retrô’s young talents and a host of them getting poached.
Flamengo made a £900k bid for star man Rodrigo Godinho, who’d also attracted Arsenal, Man City and PSG. That surprisingly prompted his agent to request a new contract, and he became the club’s highest paid player on £1k per week. However, they did bring in their first cash sale as last summer’s signing Souza went to Durango for £140k. Defender Laécio Connely kicked up a fuss about wanting to play for a better club, the squad demanded he be sold, so Lazaró obliged by selling him to Goiás for £400k, while they annoyingly lost midfielder Arthur, centre back Zé and striker Leonardo Mantega to minimum fee release clauses to Gremio for £325k, Flamengo for £2.1m (with a free loanback) and £1.3m. Santos then made a couple of dubious decisions to pay £450k for midfielder Gabriel and a huge £1.7m for Danilo Pereira, who had high potential but terrible technicals. And that mass of sales boosted the bank balance to £8.2m.
Lazaró replaced them in the first team with 16-year-old midfielder Ricardo, goalkeeper Mayaro, right back Messias Palomares and winger Juninho. The Connely sale forced Lazaró to prematurely promote 16-year-old Palomares. He slots into the team in the 4-2-3-1 approach that Lazaró introduced at the end of last season, with Juninho coming in on the left, André and Advaldo patrolling the midfield in behind playmaker Diego Guerra and Zé alongside Rodrigo Gueti at the back.
Return To Série B
The Pernambuco State championship provided a much-needed respite, starting with Advaldo, Godinho and André earning a 3-1 win at Central. André bagged a hat trick as they thrashed Santa Cruz 5-2 and Juninho scored his first goal in a 3-0 win over Afogados. They went on to top the table with 6 wins from 7, but lost out 4-2 on aggregate to Sport Recife in the semis.
The bookies didn’t fancy Retrô’s chances upon their return to Série B, predicting them to finish19th with title odds of 100/1. Sao Paulo are unsurprisingly 1/20 favourites, along with Bragantino (9/4), América Mineiro (7/2), Mirassol (5/1), Sport Recife (17/2) and CRB (11/1).
Retrô returned to Série B with Juninho’s early strike enough to claim a 1-0 win over Atlético Goianiense, before Vinicius Votobel and Guerra earned an impressive 2-1 victory at Mirassol. They drew at home to Operário before a Votobel brace earned an excellent 2-1 victory at CRB and Gueti and Guerra earned an impressive point at home to América Mineiro. At this point, something weird happening in FM26 (surprise surprise) and, after progressing to the end of the season and having a really successful season, the save file suddenly became unplayable, so I was forced to resume all the way back in May 2029.
What hadn’t changed was the club’s youngsters making significant progress, with André, Advaldo and Godinho recognised as having Série A quality, and over half the squad being at least Série B players. Indeed, 17-year-old midfielder Juliano de Melo was the latest to step up to the first team and scored the only goal on his full league debut at home to Athletic (MG). They were joined by exciting centre back Roberto Cuero for a club record £325k from Envigado in July, with the Colombian coming in as the long-term replacement for Zé. But that club record was broken a month later as striker Damián Gracés arrived for £400k from Racing de Montevideo.
This time around, the form dropped off a little but a good run in June, including Godinho’s hat trick inspiring a 4-0 win at ABC, saw Retrô climb back into promotion contention at the halfway point of the season – when just 4 points separated the top 8. Back-to-back Godinho braces then sent his side top of Série B for the first time, only to draw 5 games on the bounce and lose at Botafogo-SP to find themselves 11 points off promotion and 2 outside the playoffs with 10 games remaining.
de Melo’s brace ended a 7-game winless streak by downing local rivals Sport Recife 2-1 and an upturn in form saw them in the heart of the playoff race with 5 games remaining. A 3-0 win over Inter de Limeira took them into 5th and Godinho’s late goal at Athletic confirmed a playoff spot. Another draw on the final day against Sao Bernardo saw them finish in 6th place on 66 points after 17 wins, 15 draws and a league-low 6 defeats, scoring
That teed up a promotion playoff against rivals Sport Recife. Retrô came into the home first leg with a mass of injuries, and a tight affair saw both sides score with their only meaningful attacks to draw 1-1. A few days later, a trip Sport Recife started badly and got worse as they whimpered to a tame 2-0 defeat. And that meant they were staying in Série B. The main positive of the campaign was Godinho winning Série B top goalscorer for the second time after 21 goals in 34 games, while André was named as the league’s Young Player of the Year.
Even More Exciting Youth Talents
Lazaró was pretty pleased with his young team’s response to relegation, fonly losing 5 times en route to going close to an immediate promotion. Godinho was again the top scorer with a new club record 36 goals in 52 games, along with 5 assists. But the big talking point has to be the emergence of de Melo, who scored 16 in 36 and is still only 18. André also impressed with 10 goals and 10 assists, Guerra got 8 goals and 8 asssts, Votobel delivered 13 assists and Juninho got 18 assists from the left wing.
Retrô had yet another stellar youth intake containing 9 elite prospects – that’s now 36 elite prospects in 4 seasons! This bunch was led by wingers Tiago and Dennis, attacker Danilo Vigol, left back Diego Martins, right back Roberto Feijao and 6ft 4in centre back Jefferson Pranzetti.
Lazaró felt this squad was making plenty of progress, especially with several players now considered to have Série A quality. But could he keep hold of his exciting youngsters and push for promotion back to Brazil’s top flight? Join us next Monday to find out
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