Wonderkid Factory | Part 12 | Retrô’s First Brazil International

Despite racking up a record points tally in 2035, Retrô Futebol Clube Brasil fell short to Palmeiras in Série A. However, manager Robinho Lazaró was excited for the future as he continued to bring through an array of exciting young talents.

The club also found itself in rude health, coming into 2036 with £110m in the bank and a transfer budget of £35m. And the board invested some of that into an 11,538 seat expansion of Arena de Pernambuco which, when it was completed in June, took the all-seater stadium to a new capacity of 57,692. That’s now supported by state of the art training facilities, superb youth facilities and excellent corporate facilities.

The finances were boosted by selling winger Mourad Chaoui, who Lazaró didn’t rate that highly and hadn’t progressed much, to Man United for a huge £10m and centre back Igor Medaglia, now 21 and definitely hadn’t progressed in multiple loans, to Man City for £5.5m. While long-serving captain Advaldo, whose ability had been hit by an ACL injury, went to Club América for £800k after 357 games for the club. But midfielder Ricardo ended his unhappiness about wanting to join a bigger club, and Lazaró swiftly made him the highest paid player in club history on £30k per week – that’s £11.5k per week more than next highest earner Ricardo Cavalcante.

So Lazaró decided to spend some of it, bringing in promising Brazilian talents in winger Demetrius for £2.5m from Botafogo and strikers Nilsinho for a new club record £3m from Internacional and Luís Felipe for £1.4m from Paranaense. He also brought in exciting Tunisian midfielder Aymen Smaoui for £450k from Espérance Tunis, Angolan striker Adilson Castro from Petro Luanda, midfielder Bryam García for £1.4m from Deportivo Cali, cente back Chukwuebeuka Ogunniyi for £400k from Rivers United. Lazaró also promoted winger/full back Promise Godwill, defender Walace and goalkeeper Christian Hormaza.

Lazaró stuck with the approach he’d introduced at the end of last season, which is a 4-3-3 in possession dropping into a 4-1-4-1 out of possession. Cavalcante and Howar Menjura continue to patrol the wings with Ricardo and Alex in behind de Oliveira. Tamayo steps into defensive midfield, with new captain André rivalling him, ahead of the strong centre back partnership of Colombia international Roberto Cuero and Argentina international Nicolás Pino, who’ve both naturalised with Brazilian second nationalities. Promise Godwill and Roberto Feijao are both learning to play left back, with the former providing backup to Menjura and last season’s emerging star Carlos Eduardo continuing on the right.

Five State Titles Before Série A Push

Despite star man Menjura suffering a broken hip, Retrô enjoyed another strong Pernambuco State championship, including de Oliveira scoring a new club record 5 goals in a 6-1 hammering of Náutico. They eased past Santa Cruz 4-1 in the semis, and a comfortable 6-1 aggregate win over Náutico, led by a Godwill double in the second leg, earned a 5th successive state title. de Oliveira won top goalscorer with 10 goals in 11 games and Godwill was best young player with 5 goals and a 7.44 rating.

Retrô’s hopes were boosted by the media, who predicted them to finish 7th with title odds of 20/1. Palmeiras remain favourites at 3/1, followed by Flamengo (7/2), Sao Paulo (9/1) and Gremio, Vasco da Gama and Santos (18/1).

Série A began with a dominant 3-1 win over CRB with goals by de Oliveira, Alex and Ricardo, who began to pay back his huge wages with a late equaliser at Bragantino and a brace in a thrilling 5-3 success at home to Coritiba. And they went top of the league as Alex and de Oliveira’s second half strikes earned a 2-0 win at Bahia, and Lazaró collected the April manager of the month award. Lazaró celebrated 700 games in charge of Retrô at the famous Maracana, where Ricardo and Cavalcante earning a 2-2 comeback against Flamengo before Castro’s first goal nicked a 2-1 win at home to Atlético Mineiro, which left them 5 points clear after 16 games.

But life without them started well as a Smaoui double led a superb 3-0 victory at Palmeiras. And the strong form continued, with Retrô moving 18 points clear with 10 games remaining, albeit Coritiba and Flamengo somehow had 3 games in hand. Zubcic created the only goal for Ricardo on his debut at home to Corinthians, before joining players on international duty for a month. However, a de Oliveira brace earned a 3-0 win over Santos, and that moved them to the verge of a second title with 6 games remaining – as teams played their games in hand but remained 15 points behind.

Gameweek 33 – Vitória (14th, away): de Oliveira suffered another knee ligament injury, but Alex replaced and also bagged himself a brace in a 4-2 success at Vitória. Flamengo won 3-1 to stay in the title race.

Gameweek 34 – Flamengo (2nd, home): The top 2 went head-to-head in the third of three consecutive games against each other in all competitions, in a game that bizarrely kicked off at 11am amid torrential rain. Retrô made a bright start and Rafinha was tripped in the box, allowing Eduardo to slam home the penalty inside 5 minutes. They remained on top without creating much of note, but Flamengo created even less, including Godinho, who was loudly heckled when he was hooked after doing nothing on 64 minutes. And they were punished, as the same two players combined for Rafinha to curl in a beauty off the bar 5 minutes before the end.

Retrô FC won their second Série A title!

Lazaró rotated a little with the title wrapped up and Retrô went on to win the league by 10 points, finishing on 88 points after 27 wins, 7 draws and 4 defeats, scoring 74 and conceding just 29. Ricardo was the star of Série A, scoring the 5th most goals (16 in 36), getting the 2nd most assists and key passes (16 and 102, only bettered by Cavalcante’s 17 and 130), a new league record 11 MOTM awards and leading the league with an impressive 7.54 rating. Rodrigues also led the league with a new Série A record 18 clean sheets in 35 games. Unsurprisingly, Ricardo won Player of the Year, Rafinha won Young Player of the Year and Lazaró won another Manager of the Year. Retrô also claimed the Fair Play Award, after collecting just 10 discipline points with just 7 yellow cards and 1 red card.

The change in approach boosted Retrô’s possession stats to the 9th best (52%) with the 4th best attack in addition to easily the best defence. They also had the 2nd best cross completion (27%), completed the 6th most passes (21,823), created the 2nd most chances (146), had the most shots (610) and had the 2nd best conversion rate (14%).

A Strong Start in Copa Libertadores

Retrô got a friendly Copa Libertadores group alongside Anzoátegui of Venezuela, Colombia’s Atlético Bucaramanga and Uruguay’s Danubio FC. They began with de Oliveira and Cavalcante earning a 2-0 win in Colombia, before a rotated side dominated Anzoátegui 4-0 at home with goals by Martins, Pinto, Godwill and Joílson. La Luz bagged a brace to earn a 3-2 win at his former club Danubio, before a 3-1 win in the return game secured qualification. Rotated sides drew 1-1 with Bucaramanga and won 2-0 in Venezuela to top the group.

They took on Atlético Tucumán in the second round, and Smaoui scored the only goal in Argentina before Rafinha and Ricardo earned a 2-0 home win, in whcih they set a new record attendance of 55,110 and new gate receipts record of £1.4m. Millonarios were up next and started brightly at home, going 2-0 up before late Alex and Castro goals earned a deserved draw. And Retrô reached the semis with La Luz earning a 1-0 home victory, with another new record attendance of 55,287. They took on Flamengo in the last four, and earned a solid 0-0 at the Maracana before a Pino header just before halftime and Goodwill’s late tap-in secured a 2-0 victory back in northeast Brazil, which saw another record attendance of 56,674. And that sent the club into its second Copa Libertadores Final!

Their opponent in the Final was Argentinian giants River Plate, who overcame a 4-1 defeat at Atlético Mineiro with an impressive 6-0 home win. 48,000 fans from northeast Brazil and Buenos Aires descended on Venezuela’s Metropoloitano de Lara, with the Argentinian side clear favourites to win fifth South American crown. Lazaró had Smaoui missing with injury, and lined up:

Rodrigues; Eduardo, Pino, Cuero, Godwill; André; Rafinha, Alex, Ricardo, Cavalcante; de Oliveira
Subs: La Luz, Hormaza, Martins, Vargas, Pinto, Joílson, Feijao, Castro, Zubcic, Ismail, Guaraná, Walace

River started brighter and had a goal disallowed for offside after 16 minutes. But it was Retrô who struck first as Cavalcante’s corner was passed back out to him, he jinked inside a challenge and slammed the ball into the far top corner. André’s 30-yard shot floated agonisingly wide of the post and they deservedly led 1-0 at the break after 10 shots to 5. The second half began slowly, but River forced two superb saves out of Rodrigues just after the hour mark. They eventually beat him with 15 minutes remaining, as an unmarked player powered home from a corner, and quickly turned the game on its head from another corner just after Lazaró had made a triple sub. Just when it looked like all hope was lost, Cavalcante swung a hopeful cross into the box, Zubcic got his head to it at the back post and it bounced off a defender’s back straight into his path to tap home a dramatic injury time equaliser.

Retrô enjoyed the better of the first half of extra time, with Joílson going closest with a long range effort. But neither side could find the decisive goal and it went to penalties. Zubcic was up first and scored, as did River’s Monti. La Luz snuck his effort past the keeper, River scored down the middle and Eduardo scored comfortably, as did River’s Santamaria. Joílson calmly dispatched into the top corner, before a brilliant save low to his right saw Rodrigues deny Baigorria. That gave Cavalcante a chance to be the hero. He hit at straight down the middle, straight at the keeper… but it somehow went through his hands and into the back of the net. The homegrown hero was mobbed by his adoring teammates, who raced over to the Retrô supporters to celebrate becoming Champions of South America just 20 years after the club was founded.

Retrô Futebol Clube Brasil won Copa Libertadores!

That continental success saw Retrô’s season extended as they entered the Club Intercontinental Championship in early December. They took on New England in the so-called Derby of the Americas, which took Lazaró and his players to Europe for the first time at Santiago Bernabéu in Madrid. It was a dire affair until a delicious Pinto strike in extra time handed them a 1-0 win. That took them into the Challenger Cup against Al-Ahli, who had Ayyoub Bouadi, Rodrigo Mora, Oscar Gloukh and former Retrô man Scumbag Ruiz, who was out with a hamstring injury. However, they probably should have focused on defenders as they were no match for Lazaró’s attack, with de Oliveira and Ricardo earned an impressive 2-1 victory. But 4 days later it got all kinds of difficult against European champions Liverpool in the Intercontinental Champion Final. And, despite putting up one hell of a fight as Alex equalised Florian Wirtz opener to take the game to extra time, Hugo Ekitike scored a 113th minute winner.

Retrô Achieve the Unthinkable

Lazaró loved the young players he’d produced at Retrô, with their Libertadores hero Cavalcante being very much at the top of that list. However, Ricardo was very much the star man at the club now, which was recognised as he was the first Retrô player to be called up to the Brazil nation team in November. He became the first Retrô graduate to pull on the famous yellow jersey when he made a substitute appearance in a 2-1 win over Chile, and scored his first international goal three days later in a 3-0 win in Bolivia.

At domestic level, Ricardo contributed an impressive 49 goal contributions (21 goals and 28 assists) in 62 games with an outstanding 7.44 rating. de Oliveira led the way with 25 goals, Alex scored 17 and Cavalcante scored 10 while delivering 23 assists along with Rafinha (12), Eduardo (11) and Smaoui (9).

Smaoui became the second Retrô player to win the FIFA Best U21 Men’s Player (after Menjura in 2034) in September, after coming 24th on NxGn 2036 with Castro 31st. They had a slightly underwhelming youth intake led by striker Rafael, however, the club’s youth setup was recognised among the best in the world for the first time. They join the rest of the squad in Lazaró’s Ginga tracker, which is now topped by Smaoui (79), followed by Ricardo and Castro (76), Zubcic and Isaac Ismail (75), Pinto (74) and Rafinha and La Luz (73).

We’ll return with a review of the star players and hot prospects responsible for delivering success to Retrô on Wednesday, before discovering whether they could defend their second title next Monday!