Muricy quits Fluminense (Getty Images)

Muricy Ramalho has sensationally quit as coach of Fluminense. The news is a huge surprise since Muricy turned down the chance to coach the seleção (Brazilian national team) last year in order to honour his contract with Fluminense. It also comes less than four months after he won the National Championship with Fluminense. Muricy cited a lack of structure and Santos (currently coach-less) are said to be interested.

The news broke yesterday afternoon shortly before kick off in the local derby between Fluminense and Flamengo which ended in a boring 0-0 draw. The game was tactically interesting but technically poor with more than 80 misplaced passes. Ronaldinho was disappointing but was again playing as a lone striker and Flamengo coach Luxemburgo annoyed Flamengo fans with some of his substitutions and tactical decisions. Flamengo have some uncultured footballers in their team who unsurprisingly misplaced passes but so too did the usually impeccable Conca for Fluminense.

As for the coaching merry-go-round which is already reaching overdrive in the early stages of the season (Santos and Vasco have already fired their coaches) it is now said that Dorival Junior is the favourite to take over at Fluminense. Dorival gained a lot of respect for his managing of Santos last year when he brought through the likes of Ganso and Neymar and won the Brazilian Cup playing some brilliant football. He was fired when he refused to back down over a row with Neymar and moved to Atlético Mineiro. He steered them clear of relegation and has made a good impression since.

Muricy meanwhile is interesting Santos and according to his friends has said that two clubs in the world would interest any coach: Barcelona and Santos. High praise indeed! Santos meanwhile have said: ”Muricy would interest any club. We’ll talk about this next week”. So, there you have it. Muricy to Santos and Dorival to Fluminense.