After the first loss in the Brazilian Championship, Mauricio Barbieri spoke about the match and explained the decision to field an alternate team, resting some players for Wednesday, when Flamengo will face a decisive CONMEBOL Libertadores clash against Emelec at the Maracanã. The coach praised the team in the match against Chapecoense and lamented the penalty awarded to the home team in the second half, when Flamengo was the better side. But good things also come from defeat, and Barbieri took positives for the team for the rest of the season. 

"Our idea was to win the game. A team that hasn't been playing together will have difficulties. We made more mistakes than usual. We performed below expectations in the first half. In the second half, we improved. Not at all (I had doubts). We improved in the second half. We were playing better, but in an unfortunate play of ours, they ended up scoring the goal," commented the coach, who spoke about the controversial play that resulted in a penalty for Chapecoense in the second half. 

"There was a penalty, which in my opinion wasn't a penalty. It's been five rounds, and this was the second time Flamengo has been penalized. If they had a video assistant referee, perhaps the decision would have been different. We're talking about two penalties in five games. In this one, Guilherme clearly pulled Jonas first. I don't understand how the linesman managed to see Jonas's pull, but not Guilherme's. Chapecoense, which had nothing to do with it, took their own penalty and won."

With a team with a lot of changes, Mauricio Barbieri was able to take the opportunity to make observations that will be useful for Wednesday's game against Emelec, in addition to rejecting any possibility that the decision to change the team influenced the final result. 

"We made mistakes, we conceded the first goal because of our own mistake. We talked it out, and in the second half we came back stronger and tied the game. We were better when the controversial play happened, we went after the result, and we were better at the end too. But, due to an unfortunate play of ours, they ended up scoring the goal. The loss doesn't hurt anything. It's tough to play here. If I'm not mistaken, their last loss here was against Flamengo in 2017. We went for the win, but we didn't get it, but there are positives. Now it's time to evaluate the players and make decisions for Wednesday's game against Emelec," concluded the coach.

Flamengo returns to Rio de Janeiro on Sunday night and will resume training on Monday afternoon, at Ninho do Urubu, at 15:30 pm.