This was supposed to be about a semifinal, not another round of institutional brinkmanship. Yet here we are: Boca Juniors Vs Vasco Da Gama has become a fight over geography, legal interpretation and plain common sense, with Pedrinho making the most forceful point of all. If a match has already been allowed at the Maracanã, reopened for ticket sales and sold out, then dragging it away again would not just be awkward. It would be a mess.
Pedrinho did not hide his anger when he spoke to on Tuesday, before the first leg of the Copa Sul-Americana semifinal. He called the possibility of moving the second match to Paraguai a "covardia" and said it was "uma covardia com a instituição e com a competição". That is not the language of a club president trying to smooth things over. It is the language of someone who believes the whole debate has crossed from procedure into farce.
A legal fight that keeps swallowing the football
The sequence matters here. On Tuesday morning, Vasco obtained a new liminar granted by judge Joaquim Domingos de Almeida Neto. After that, the club reopened ticket sales and the tickets sold out. Then, on Tuesday afternoon, the Consórcio Fla Flu filed a recurso against the decision allowing the match at the Maracanã. In other words, the stadium situation was already settled enough for supporters to buy in, only for another challenge to reopen the wound.
And that is precisely why Pedrinho’s frustration lands. He argued that even without the contract with the Consórcio, common sense should allow the game to go ahead at the Maracanã. "Um jogo não vai estragar o gramado," he said, cutting straight through the idea that this is some impossible sporting emergency. The decision, he insisted, was based on safety, not the pitch.
He also made clear that this is no longer just a cold institutional disagreement. "Hoje eu assumo esse conflito com o presidente do Flamengo," Pedrinho said, adding that it has become "menos técnica e mais para ver quem tem a tinta mais pesada para prevalecer." That is a damning line, because it suggests power politics have started to matter more than the match itself.
Fans have already paid the price once
There is a real football consequence to all of this. Vasco already reopened ticket sales after the liminar, and the game sold out. That matters. It means people have made plans, spent money and bought into the idea that this semifinal would be staged in Brazil. Moving it again would not just inconvenience a club. It would punish the crowd that has already been asked to absorb the chaos.
Pedrinho pointed to that directly when he said the sold-out sale "tira até da possibilidade do Engenhão". He also made the safety case for São Januário and the Maracanã in plain terms: if the BEPE cannot guarantee security for 4 mil pessoas in São Januário, then the club needs to play at the Maracanã. That is a practical argument, not a theatrical one.
Then there is the reported risk of taking the match to Paraguay. Pedrinho was blunt: "Eu não estou medindo força para parecer poderoso e sim porque eu preciso jogar." That is the whole issue in one sentence. This is not about bravado. It is about preserving the integrity of a semifinal that should be decided on the pitch, not in endless procedural limbo.
The next decision could say plenty about the system
The case will now be analyzed by the president of the STJ, minister Luis Felipe Salomão, and that means the next move carries more weight than ever. What should be obvious by now is that this has gone well beyond a routine venue dispute. Once a game is approved, tickets are sold out and the competition reaches this stage, constant reversals become hard to defend.
Pedrinho said he believes the matter has turned personal, and maybe that is the bleakest detail of all. When a semifinal between Vasco and Boca Juniors starts to look like a proxy battle between institutions, everyone loses something. The clubs lose focus. The competition loses clarity. And the supporters are left wondering why the football always seems to come last.
Pedrinho has at least said the quiet part out loud. Calling a move to Paraguai a "covardia" may be inflammatory, but it is also a warning. If this semifinal is meant to mean anything, it cannot keep being treated like a problem to be shuffled elsewhere whenever power gets uncomfortable.
