Thursday, at the microphone ofESPN in Brazil, Ricardo Oliveira, former Brazilian international striker (16 caps, 5 goals) passed by Valencia, Betis or AC Milan, now retired from the field, returned to an episode from the end of his career. A crazy anecdote about Jorge Sampaoli, current coach of Olympique de Marseille. A story that says a lot about the character of the Pelado. “In 2019, I was on cloud nine with Atlético. I started the year being top scorer in the Libertadores, breaking important records for me… At that time, Sampaoli was at Santos. He calls me, I still have the messages on my phone, I talk to him… He calls me and says to me: “I want you to come to Santos, because you are the player I need , I need someone like you, to put the balls down. I saw what you were doing.” I replied: “thanks, great, great. But we have a problem. I’m under contract. I just arrived at Atlético. I left Santos and signed with Atlético. So we has a problem. We will have to discuss with Atlético to see if there is a possibility.” He immediately said to me: “no, no, no discussion with Atlético.” I said: “It’s not possible. We will see if Atlético is open or not.”, he explained before continuing.
“We spoke with Atlético and the club said: ‘no, impossible’. The president at the time (Sérgio Câmara) called me: “Ricardo, it’s impossible. I’m going to tell you the same thing as last year, I can’t let you go. Libertadores, you stay here, I can’t let you go.” I thought to myself, “Okay”. So I spoke with Sampaoli: “It’s not going to be possible, because the president doesn’t want to release me.” He answered me: “go to the clash. Because when you want to leave, you go to the showdown. You will not regret it.” I told him: “no, that no. I won’t do that because I’m a professional, Atlético bet on me, invited me and I’m not going to behave like that, it’s against my principles.” The season has ended. In 2020, Sampaoli arrives at Atlético. He arrives, turns to me and there… he puts me aside, he prevents me from accessing the training grounds, puts me in the cellar. I trained at home. Why ? Because I didn’t want to do what he asked of me., he blurted out. We are not joking at the Argentinian…
