Cruzeiro – Santos: The unexpected comeback of Neymar’s Santos  (1-2)

Santos and Cruzeiro took the field for the 19th Matchday of the Brasileirão. On one side, Neymar’s team, looking to pull away from the bottom of the table after a win. On the other, Cruzeiro, with the best coaching work in this Brazilian season, aiming to stay in the title race after losing their last game at home against Ceará.

Tactical analysis and match report by Marcus Arboés.

We decided to make this article free to read. If you want to support our work, consider taking a subscription.

Leonardo Jardim, known for his spells at Monaco, Al-Hilal, and in Portuguese football, has been thriving in the league, sticking to a starting XI that has been delivering results in a 4-2-3-1 formation: the experienced goalkeeper Cássio; William, Fabrício Bruno, Villalba, and the young Kaiki in defense; Lucas Silva (former Real Madrid), Lucas Romero, and Matheus Pereira in midfield; Christian on the right, Wanderson on the left, and Kaio Jorge (former Juventus and the team’s top scorer) playing centrally in attack.

On the other side, Santos are led by Cléber Xavier, former assistant to Tite with the Brazilian National Team. He is having his first experience as head coach of a professional team and has been under criticism from the media and fans. His side has been playing in a 4-4-2 shape and lined up with Neymar and Rollheiser playing through the middle, flanked by two wide wingers. The squad also features other well-known players, such as Barreal, Rincón, centre-back Gil, and goalkeeper Gabriel Brazão, who was previously at Internazionale.

Cruzeiro’s high press

Cruzeiro’s start to the match was overwhelming. Backed by the tireless support of their fans, every two or three minutes there was a sense they could open the scoring at any moment. This happened because they managed to dominate the opponent in three main aspects: they won most post-loss actions, applied effective pressure on Santos’ buildup, and built through the middle quickly, consistently reaching the opposing box.

Cléber Xavier’s Santos went into the match missing their starting centre-back Luan Peres, giving an opportunity to the young Luisão. Although he took his chance and had a good game, he does not offer the same quality and security as Luan in the buildup. On the other hand, the return of Guilherme, the team’s top scorer who had been injured, gave the side more depth. As a result, their buildup structure had two wide wingers (Guilherme on the right and Barreal on the left), with a fluid square in midfield formed by the holding midfielders, Neymar, and Rollheiser.

Even with the dynamics to try to play out from the back, Santos were completely smothered by Cruzeiro’s pressing, based on man-oriented marking and focusing on boxing the opponents in on the flanks. When the ball reached one of the fullbacks, each Cruzeiro player, from their 4-2-3-1 shape, would lock onto the nearest opponent, cutting off options to build or escape into attack. The winger on the opposite side (Christian, in the example below) would tuck inside, tracking the opposite-side holding midfielder but positioning himself strategically to switch his reference to the centre-back or full-back on the other side in the rare cases of a switch of play.

This scenario left Santos completely inactive. On the right side, even though they had the young holding midfielder Bontempo as an excellent technical option to unlock the short buildup and Rollheiser moving constantly, they could not make use of the team’s only depth option: Guilherme, who was playing as the right winger, unlike his usual role. Santos’ top scorer is used to making off-the-ball runs down the left flank, where Barreal was playing.

On the left side, Rincón was rarely used as a passing option. Neymar would drop deeper, either inside or wide, constantly switching corridors with Barreal to create options. As a result, the team couldn’t break free from Cruzeiro’s marking. The team’s star stood out far more negatively due to successive technical errors. On the pitch, Santos could not string together attacks, nor could they make use of direct play, as they had no target man to hold up possession and only one player making depth runs, Guilherme, who was closely marked by both Kaiki and Villalba.

The first half could’ve ended in a rout

In possession, Cruzeiro were extremely direct and fluid, attacking with a very clear offensive identity: relational and quick attacks, highly vertical, with the wingers playing inside and with the opposite fullback always attacking spaces of opportunity. The team’s number nine — who in fact wore number 19, Kaio Jorge — was constantly mobile to create one-twos, vertical progression lanes, and spaces for the wingers to exploit, while the number ten, Matheus Pereira, played with total positional freedom, finding space in any area of the pitch as a target for play creation.

Most of the attacks came through the middle, with quick, intense, and direct combination and overlap plays, or with more patience, starting from switches of play to the overlapping runs of left-back Kaiki, usually fed by passes from Matheus Pereira and holding midfielder Lucas Silva. The team’s mobility and relational play create uncertainty for any defense, and the opponent’s box can be attacked through any gap.

The control of the centre of the pitch with Matheus Pereira, two wingers, and even one of the holding midfielders providing inside support created a numerical superiority in midfield, where Santos’ defensive midfielders were overloaded. In fact, Rincón, who had just returned from suspension, received a yellow card, which ended up affecting his confidence in making more aggressive tackles. This led to greater defensive insecurity for Santos, whose back line, with Gil, Luisão, Mayke, and Souza, constantly had to find ways to make up for organisational flaws with last-ditch actions just before the shot.

Even so, Cruzeiro managed to create chances both on the ground and in the air. At one point, Santos needed goalkeeper Gabriel Brazão (perhaps the best player on the pitch) to make highly difficult saves on three opportunities created by the opponents, before they finally opened the scoring after a short corner, where a cross from the edge of the box found the powerful header of centre-back Fabrício Bruno, who had previously been called up to the Brazilian national team.

If it weren’t for the former Internazionale’s goalkeeper, the first half could have ended 3–0 or more. And when Cruzeiro didn’t break through with all that attacking volume and lost the ball, their aggressive man-to-man counter-pressing quickly won possession back. That was even how they scored another goal in the second half, but VAR ruled it out for a foul in the challenge.

Cléber Xavier’s tactical solution

The only chance Santos had to score came after a serious mistake in Cruzeiro’s buildup, when Neymar missed a clear opportunity by shooting powerfully over the bar — it definitely wasn’t his day. The certainty for the spectators going into the second half was that Cléber Xavier urgently needed to make changes, after being destroyed in all phases of the game in the first half. The coach took a risk and made three substitutions.

The first change was Zé Rafael coming on for Rincón, who had received a yellow card. Although they combined well on the pitch, the match context meant the connection between Neymar and Rollheiser didn’t work; all of Santos’ attacking attempts were either blocked on the ground or resulted in loss of possession in behind the lines. Tiquinho Soares came on as a target man, which allowed Cléber Xavier’s side to win more aerial duels and hold possession in attack through direct long balls, something that barely existed in the first half. Santos changed to a positional 4-2-3-1 formation with Neymar in a free role.

Using Tiquinho Soares as the central attacking reference, tasked with duelling Fabrício Bruno and offering solid technical quality, gave Neymar more room to operate. Yet, although Neymar’s performance improved slightly in a match littered with errors, he wasn’t the one who truly shifted the game in Santos’ favour away at Cruzeiro. That turning point came from coach Xavier’s main change — replacing the ineffective Barreal at half-time with Paraguayan forward Gustavo Caballero.

This change solidified a side switch that had already happened in the first half, with Guilherme moving to his natural flank, playing as a left winger. Beyond that, it sharply changed Santos’ style to long buildup through direct play, since now they had three attackers good at winning physical duels, two wide players who made deep runs and a target man. With this, they overcame Cruzeiro’s press and gained more possession in attack, even if not very effective.

Their first goal came from a move started by Bontempo, who found Caballero with enough space to deliver a cross into the box targeting Guilherme’s diagonal run from outside in, behind right-back William, who was booed by Cruzeiro’s fans. Almost instantly, Cruzeiro regained the lead with a goal from Kaio Jorge, but VAR ruled it out for a foul in the challenge, as mentioned earlier.

The video referee’s intervention changed the game’s narrative. It would have been a bucket of cold water to kill Santos’ momentum, who had just equalized. From then on, Cruzeiro had few shots, Matheus Pereira dropped in performance, and they even tried pushing Matheus Henrique into left midfield to help organise the team. The match balanced out, but Santos managed to turn the score with the game’s protagonists.

Goalkeeper Brazão executed a textbook distribution, finding Guilherme open on the left wing. The left winger controlled the direct ball with class, carried it inside on a quick attack, against the movement of Cruzeiro’s defense. Neymar acted as a decoy and Guilherme returned the assist to Caballero’s run behind the opponent’s defensive line. Santos won 2-1, their second consecutive victory under a contested coach who had a direct impact on the result.

If you were expecting a Neymar spectacle, there is some consolation in a scene where he left Fabrício Bruno, one of the best centre-backs in the Brasileirão, on the ground with a sequence of two dribbles, but that was his highlight in an otherwise supporting role.

We decided to make this article free to read. If you want to support our work, consider taking a subscription.

Use the arrows to scroll through all available match plots. Click to enlarge. Check the match plots page for plots of other matches.