São Paulo officially registered Colombian James Rodríguez for the Paulistão on Monday (26).
The player will take the place of Luiz Gustavo, who was removed from the competition after an Achilles tendon injury that will keep him sidelined for a period of four to six weeks.
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James in the Paulistão
To make the change in the list of registered players for the Paulistão, São Paulo presented a medical report to the Medical Committee of the São Paulo Football Federation regarding Luiz Gustavo’s injury. This is one of the situations in which FPF allows the registration of a new player in the competition outside the deadline, which ended on the 16th of this month.
“Luiz had this injury, and the recovery period extends beyond the competition. We will take steps to make the player change. I hope he will be a reinforcement for São Paulo; we have processes here, and he will be another to help us,” said coach Thiago Carpini after the 1-1 draw against Guarani in Campinas.
“There is a hierarchy, above all the institution, the environment, and he understood that, never created a problem, always fulfilled his obligations, has a good spirit. We hope he will help us at some point in the competition on the field,” he added.
James Rodríguez has not yet played this season. The player had physical problems that kept him out of the first matches of the year and, after that, even requested to terminate his contract with the club. São Paulo accepted the request, but James reconsidered his decision and stayed with Tricolor.
Now that he is registered in the Paulistão, he can be included in São Paulo’s next match against Inter de Limeira at 9:35 PM this Wednesday (28). The postponed match will be valid for the fifth round of the competition.
With James, Tricolor will have nine foreigners on their player list. In addition to them, the club also has Ferraresi (Venezuela), Arboleda (Ecuador), Alan Franco (Argentina), Galoppo (Argentina), Michel Araújo (Uruguay), Bobadilla (Paraguay), Calleri (Argentina), and Iba Ly (Senegal).
The Paulistão, like all championships organized by the CBF, allows a maximum of seven foreigners to be included for each match, among starters and substitutes.
