According to coach Zé Ricardo, Flamengo deserved a victory against Botafogo after dominating their opponent and creating 21 scoring opportunities. The coach stated that the group "needs to demand more from themselves because they can't miss the chances they had" and that the team will seek to recover in their next Brasileirão matches, away from home, against Sport and Avaí.

Zé also spoke about Diego's return, as part of the coaching staff's plan, the great performance of young Vinicius Júnior, who hit the post, and criticized the conditions of the pitch at the Raulino de Oliveira stadium, which was the venue for the 0-0 draw.

Check out the interview:

Game

I think we dropped two points here based on what we produced, but that's part of the game. We have to demand more from ourselves because we can't miss the opportunities we had. We knew Botafogo would have a more reactive approach. We weren't able to capitalize on the game when it came time to decide it. Now we need to reflect on what we can improve to try and recover the points we lost here on Wednesday against Sport. We had possession in the first half, but we lacked aggression in attack. In the second half, we were more visible and didn't suffer as much. I think we deserved to win, but that's part of the game. Now we have two away games and we have to try to impose ourselves to recover the points and not fall behind the top four.

The idea was to use Diego for 35 minutes of the game. We'll see how he does in training over these two days (until the game against Sport), but the plan is to use him more and more.

Arão has been playing on the wing in some matches when the opponent has possession, and as a fourth midfielder when we have possession. We couldn't finish our attacks in the first round, but we improved in the second.

He's been training very well, and Juan is always ready and prepared; he doesn't need to prove anything to anyone. He earned his place through merit and is extremely important to our squad because of his experience and leadership.

Of course, it would have been much better if he had scored, but he's becoming more and more mature and closer to what we expect from him in this first stage of his professional career. He'll naturally start a match; he deserves the opportunity, and it will eventually happen.

The state of the pitch greatly hampered both teams, especially ours. The field was in very bad condition, then the sun came out very strong, and there was natural wear and tear from the match. I hope we don't have this problem in future matches.