São Paulo officially announced on the afternoon of this Tuesday (10) the arrival of coach Roger Machado, aged 51, who signs a contract with the club valid until December 31, 2026. Along with him, assistants Roberto Ribas, James Freitas, and Adaílton Bolzan, fitness coach Paulo Paixão, and performance analyst Guilherme Nunes also join.
The new coach will lead today’s training, which will be held at 4 PM (Brasília time), and will be presented shortly after, at 6 PM, at the Barra Funda training center. He will be in charge of the team in the match against Chapecoense, for the fifth round of the Brazilian Championship, which will be played at Canindé starting at 8 PM on Thursday (12).
“I am very happy and very motivated with this opportunity. I know it’s a very big challenge and I know the size of São Paulo. We arrive very confident to do a great job,” said the new São Paulo coach.
Management explains the switch from Crespo to Roger
“Roger’s arrival is the result of our conviction, of everything that, together with our football management, we observed and heard about his work. He is a coach who comes highly recommended for his good work, which resulted in achievements at different clubs and immense respect from people who worked with him professionally,” explained president Harry Massis Júnior.
“São Paulo is hiring an excellent professional, extremely dedicated and who will live the club intensely. We trust greatly in the way he thinks about football and we are sure he will do an extraordinary job with our squad,” said executive Rui Costa, directly responsible for hiring Roger.
Roger Machado’s most recent work was at Internacional, between July 2024 and September 2025. The coach led the team to an unbeaten streak of 16 matches in the 2024 Brazilian Championship, a club record in the points system era, and secured a spot in the following year’s Copa Libertadores by finishing the national competition in fifth place. In 2025, he won the state championship undefeated, ending an eight-year drought in the State Championship, the longest ever faced by Internacional in its history.
CAREER
Roger Machado had a successful career as a left-back. Born in Porto Alegre, he played over 400 games for Grêmio, the club that revealed him and with which he won a Libertadores (1995), a Brazilian Championship (1996), three Brazilian Cups (1994, 1997, and 2001), and four State Championships (1995, 1996, 1999, and 2001).
After a stint in Japanese football, where he played for Vissel Kobe, he returned to Brazil to play for Fluminense and win the Brazilian Cup for the fourth time, in 2007, scoring the winning goal. Only goalkeeper Rafael, who will now be one of his players at São Paulo, and midfielders Zinho and Arrascaeta have lifted the Brazilian Cup as many times as he has.
Roger ended his playing career in 2009 and took on the role of assistant in Grêmio’s permanent technical staff in 2011, when he had the opportunity to make his debut as a coach leading a B team in a Gre-Nal played in Rivera, Uruguay, and valid for the State Championship: he won 2-1. He had seven more games as interim before starting his solo career on the sidelines, at Juventude, in early 2014.
After a stint at Novo Hamburgo, he took over Grêmio in May 2015 and led the team to third place in the Brazilian Championship. He chose to leave the club in September 2016, months before the Brazilian Cup victory.
From there, the coach went through Atlético-MG (won the Minas Gerais Championship in 2017), Palmeiras, Bahia (was Bahia state champion in 2019 and 2020), and Fluminense before returning to Grêmio (won the State Championship and the Gaúcha Super Cup in 2022), Juventude, and then moving to Internacional.
ROGER MACHADO
Name: Roger Machado Marques
Birth: 03/04/1975, in Porto Alegre-RS (51 years old)
Clubs as coach: Juventude (2014), Novo Hamburgo (2015), Grêmio (2015-2016), Atlético-MG (2017), Palmeiras (2018), Bahia (2019-2020), Fluminense (2021), Grêmio (2022), Juventude (2024), Internacional (2024-2025), and São Paulo (since 2026)
Titles as coach: Minas Gerais Championship (2017), Bahia Championship (2019), Bahia Championship (2020), State Championship (2022), Gaúcha Super Cup (2022), and State Championship (2025).
Awards: Best Coach of the Paulista Championship (2018), Best Coach of the State Championship (2025)
This article was translated into English by Artificial Intelligence. You can read the original version in 🇧🇷 here.
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