Ernesto Valverde and Javi Gracia, on the Flamengo list

The defeat in the final of the Copa Libertadores was the sentence for Renato Gaúcho. Hours after falling to Palmeiras, the Brazilian coach would be fired by the Flamengo board. Although from the first moment the name of Marcelo Gallardo, current River Plate coach, was related, according to what they point out from Brazil, “the objective will be a foreign coach”, since at Flamengo they believe that “there are no options in the Brazilian market at the moment”.

In this way, two of those who would have offered themselves to the Brazilian team would be two old acquaintances of Spanish LaLiga: Ernesto Valverde and Javi Gracia. But they would not be the only ones, since the name of Rudi García is also on the list of candidates. While the former coach of FC Barcelona came to the board of Flamengo through intermediaries, from this medium they point out that both Gracia and the Frenchman García “were offered to the red-black leaders.”

The main problem for all the objectives of the Brazilian team are their economic pretensions. Incorporating renowned coaches involves scratching your pocket, but Flamengo cannot afford such a high outlay. In the case of Ernesto Valverde, the differences seem abysmal: while the Extremaduran earned around € 19m at Barça, “Flamengo intends to pay between € 4 and € 5m to their new coach, which is already a very high amount by South American standards”. While Valverde has returned to the market after his months of inactivity on the benches once he was dismissed by the culé team, the last experiences of Javi Gracia and Rudi García were Valencia CF and Olympique de Lyon.