Abel Ferreira frustrated with Palmeiras' lack of creativity in scoreless São Paulo draw

Abel Ferreira walked out of the Morumbi stadium on Sunday evening with a result he could live with but a performance that gnawed at him. The goalless draw with São Paulo was, by the standards of these fierce São Paulo derbies, a predictable outcome—classics of this weight rarely explode into goal-scoring festivals. But the Portuguese coach had wanted something different from his team, and he said so plainly in the minutes after the final whistle.

Ferreira had been given a gift most managers never receive: a full week without a match. Since April, Palmeiras had been grinding through an exhausting schedule, game after game with barely time to breathe. This rare stretch of uninterrupted training time was meant to serve two purposes—to let his players recover their legs and to sharpen the team's technical and tactical edges. He believed he had accomplished both. What he had not accomplished, he felt, was translating that work into the kind of attacking football he had envisioned.

"I was expecting a more dynamic game," Ferreira said afterward. "I told the players before kickoff that I wanted us to play offensively, to create more chances." He acknowledged the paradox even as he voiced the frustration: his own research and experience told him that in matches of this intensity and rivalry, clear-cut opportunities simply do not materialize in abundance. Yet he had hoped his team would be the exception, would find a way to break that pattern. They had not.

The match itself was a tangle of controversial moments that only deepened the sense of incompleteness. Rigoni's goal for São Paulo was ruled offside in the first half. Minutes later, referee Luiz Flávio de Oliveira consulted the VAR and overturned a penalty that had been awarded to Palmeiras when Gustavo Gómez was fouled. In the second half, Gómez scored what looked like an own goal after a free kick from Reinaldo, but the officials determined that Miranda, standing in an offside position, had interfered with play and nullified the goal.

Ferreira's reading of these decisions was measured but pointed. The disallowed Rigoni goal was correct, he said. The overturned penalty was the right call—there had been no foul. On the final controversial moment, he pushed back gently but firmly. Yes, Miranda was offside, but the initial foul call against Renan seemed dubious to him. "The player will run and give his best to compete for the ball," Ferreira reasoned. "That is not a foul."

When asked about the broader pattern of results against São Paulo this season—Palmeiras had yet to win a single match against their rivals—Ferreira refused to treat the rivalry as the central narrative. Three more meetings awaited: two Copa Libertadores quarterfinal clashes and one league return fixture. But he reframed the entire season as something larger than any single rivalry. "This is a marathon," he said. "The competition is not between Palmeiras and São Paulo. It is between Palmeiras and every other team. We will win some games, lose others, draw some. What matters is arriving at the end with more points than everyone else."

Palmeiras remained atop the Brasileirão standings with 32 points, and Ferreira's team would have another week to prepare before facing Fortaleza at home in the 15th round. The frustration of Sunday would have time to settle, and perhaps the next opportunity would bring the kind of creative, attacking football he had been seeking.