Build Tite's Botafogo Around Montoro and Danilo

Another reset would be an expensive opening move

Botafogo are on their third head coach of 2026 and their tenth of the SAF era. Tite has a contract through December 2028, but the first decision of a long appointment should not be to make the squad pay once more for the club's impatience.

He watched the 3-2 win over Grêmio from the Nilton Santos stands while Rodrigo Bellão coached. Tite cannot claim the result. He can, however, audit the evidence it left behind: Botafogo ended a six-match league winless run through an attacking relationship that already has names.

New coaches are routinely presented as clean slates. It is excellent unveiling language and dreadful squad accounting. Before Tite adds his signature, he should preserve the piece of the inherited team that just produced all three goals.

That is the actual decision under review. Tite is not choosing between continuity and coaching. He is choosing whether his coaching begins by strengthening a productive relationship or by forcing that relationship to survive an avoidable redesign.

The route already has two names

Álvaro Montoro supplied the final pass for both Danilo goals and scored the other one himself. One relationship therefore accounted for the entire Botafogo scoreline, not through a single accident but through a connection that worked twice for Danilo and once for Montoro.

Danilo did not need the attack rebuilt around constant touches. He needed Montoro close enough to recognise the run and release the pass. Montoro, in turn, did not have to carry the whole creative burden alone. His influence reached the penalty area through a teammate rather than ending as an isolated attempt to invent something.

That is the opportunity cost in front of Tite. Every role imposed on the pair can either preserve this route or make two productive players spend their energy introducing themselves to a new diagram. A famous coach's first idea is not automatically more valuable than the squad's existing answer.

The objection arrived in the 87th minute

Grêmio scored in the 87th minute and appeared to equalise in stoppage time before the goal was disallowed. A match Botafogo had led 3-1 ended with a relegation rival one offside decision from taking away the win.

That finish is the strongest case against drawing a grand conclusion from the Montoro-Danilo combination. The pair proved they can create an advantage. They did not prove Botafogo can control one, and three goals should not purchase immunity from examining the closing minutes.

The repair belongs behind the route, not on top of it. Better protection after attacks, clearer responsibility for second balls and a way to carry possession away from danger would let Botafogo keep threatening without turning every late lead into an evacuation. Subtracting the connection until the team looks safer could simply leave the opponent with less reason to retreat.

A 3-2 win can contain both a recommendation and a refusal. Keep the mechanism that produced three. Refuse the idea that the same evidence excuses the finish. Tite's task is to hold both conclusions at once, because solving only the late anxiety would risk removing the reason Botafogo had a lead to protect.

Mirassol makes the audit Tite's own

Tite debuts against Mirassol. Keep Montoro close enough to find Danilo's runs, place protection behind that first forward pass and decide which other attacker holds the defence away from the ball. Those choices would show that performance, rather than presentation order, sets the first hierarchy.

The standard should be observable. Montoro must still have access to Danilo when Botafogo recover the ball, while the players behind them must be positioned to prevent one lost pass from becoming a rush toward their own area. That would connect the attack and the repair instead of asking one to finance the other.

A contract through 2028 gives Tite time to build, not permission to demolish before measuring. If the Montoro-Danilo route survives and Botafogo close the next lead with more control, he will have improved the team he inherited. If it disappears in the name of a visible reset, the eleventh coaching idea of the SAF era will already be charging interest on the tenth.