In the Victorino Chermont Press Room, at Ninho do Urubu, coach Zé Ricardo gave the last press conference before the classic against Botafogo, which takes place on Sunday (04). The coach analyzed the panorama of the competition so far, emphasizing the importance of the result of the next red-black challenge.

Four points for every six contested. This is the coach's goal in the title race, according to calculations made by mathematicians using scores from previous editions of the championship as a parameter. "This is a statistic we have from the last points competitions in the Brazilian Championship. Logically, we aim for it. We know that, as I said, this may not happen regularly, but on average, we need to be close to those four points out of six to be able to fight all the time," he commented.

Zé Ricardo then analyzed the matchup and praised Sunday's opponent. "We have a very tough opponent, who's been on a very good run, even better since Jair (Ventura) came on. The match should be very evenly matched if everything goes well, but we'll theoretically be playing at home, and we need to assert ourselves to get the three points, which would keep us at this level for the first four rounds," he added.

Among other topics, the manager discussed the returns of Éverton and Diego to the squad for the upcoming match, as well as providing an overview of the work being done by Darío Conca. "We're dealing with the situation of the three players returning from injuries, but, as planned, we'll maintain everything we planned. Éverton and Diego are available for the game, but Conca isn't yet. We've had a plan in place for him for some time, to participate in one or two friendlies once he's fully cleared by the medical department," he explained.