As the Copa Libertadores returns for 2026, even Brazilian football aficionados could be forgiven a double take when they peruse the list of teams. There among the giants of South American football are Mirassol. And their story remains astonishing.
Alongside Flamengo and Fluminense, Corinthians and Palmeiras, here is this tiny club from the outskirts of Sao Paulo. Mirassol finished fourth in the Brazilian league despite being favourites for the drop, a newly promoted side with the smallest budget around.
“This is Wrexham without the money,” says Fabio Aurelio, the former Liverpool player, when trying to put this into some sort of British context. But Wrexham aren’t in the Champions League and even they were never quite as low as the sixth tier like Mirassol.
That was in 2018. At the start of this decade, they were still in Serie D, barely a blip on the radar. But bolstered by a sell-on clause when Luiz Araujo left Sao Paulo for Lille, they invested savvily in some infrastructure to help facilitate their rise through the divisions.
That explains how Mirassol were able to turn themselves into a destination club of sorts, rising above some in the Sao Paulo region, taking advantage of the city’s status as one of world football’s hotbeds of talent. But it does not explain the miracle of Mirassol.
Mirassol players celebrate after beating Vasco da Gama in December
Finishing as the fourth best team in Brazil upon promotion to the top division for the first time in their history? Doing so by playing some of the most entertaining football on the continent? To manage that required the magic of head coach Rafael Guanaes.
How did this man who had never managed at the highest level himself pull it off? “Hard work,” Guanaes tells Sky Sports. “When I got to the club, it was really clear. We had to be the team with the highest work rate in the championship. I made sure they knew it.”
He explains: “Despite being a small club in a small town, we had the capacity to play great football if we worked hard so we kept increasing our GPS numbers. Each week, I went to the physio to see the intensity numbers as I wanted us to press really high.”
The affable Guanaes talks of his love for Jurgen Klopp and valuing the metric that shows how often his side wins the ball back within five seconds. It is an aspect of all this that makes what Mirassol have done even more extraordinary. They attacked the big boys.
“In the beginning, the main goal of it was to create that belief that if we worked hard as a team then we could achieve great things together. It was all about building an environment that could give them that courage and that confidence to play football.
“In our offensive phase, we wanted to create lots of movement, lots of variations. Even though we did not have the greatest players, we had that mentality and that courage.” It worked – and spectacularly so. “The players just trusted everything that I said,” he adds.
Guanaes, 45, is a persuasive figure but there was little reason to believe him. His predecessor had left upon promotion to take another gig in Serie B, not exactly a ringing endorsement of the club’s prospects. But Mirassol saw something special in Guanaes.
“This is how I have always done it since my first club in the bottom division of the Sao Paulo State Championship,” he says. “Even then, I was telling the players to base it around ball possession and try to control the opponent with and without the ball.”
Of course, it never worked quite like this. “But even in the bottom division, with players of lower technical ability, I believe this very complex system can work really well if you work together as one living organism,” he insists. At Mirassol, it all came together.
In May, they came from behind to beat Corinthians and then went to Sao Paulo and beat them too. But it was beating Fluminense in August that Guanaes points to as the key moment. “That was when we reached the magical number to keep the team in Serie A.”
If that sounds like he was keeping feet on the ground, not a bit of it. “At that stage, I had been talking to our players and I told them that we had the capacity to achieve not only the Copa Sudamericana but Copa Libertadores because we were playing very well.”
He adds: “I was always trying to put in the players’ minds that it was possible to achieve more. After Fluminense, I even told them that we could be champions. I was talking about the title.” Shoot for the moon. Even if you miss you’ll land among the stars. That’s the idea.
“I am studying neuroscience. I want to know how our brains work,” he says. “It is a very powerful tool and as a leader I have to know just the right way to deliver my ideas in the way that is working best for each player. How long that I should speak to them, for example.”
Negueba of Mirassol celebrates his goal during the match against Cruzeiro
Maybe having a coach who thinks differently helps. Guanaes is a dreamer too. His coaching ambitions started long before he ever got on the grass. He was first achieving the impossible on his computer while playing Football Manager. “I was addicted,” he admits.
“My coaching career began on Football Manager. When I was 15 years old I would spend hours and hours trying to build the team, getting to know players, the hot prospects for the future. It gave me ideas. I was preparing to be a coach even though I did not know it.”
Did he ever play as Mirassol? They were not even an option on the game back then. And besides, he laughs, he is more than making up for that now because he is doing it for real. “My life is the biggest save of Football Manager that I have ever played,” he says.
He remains a student of the game, name-checking Pep Guardiola, Mikel Arteta and Roberto De Zerbi. He watches Cesc Fabregas’ Como and Luis Enrique’s Paris Saint-Germain for ideas too. “I like to study how other teams play, read about the game.”
He talks of “building a way of playing, leaving a legacy” and maybe a move to Europe will come one day. The adage that if you can survive as a coach in Brazil then you can cope anywhere certainly feels relevant now because Mirassol have had an unsettling start.
Rafael Guanaes has had to rebuild the team that was so successful last year
One win from the first nine games of the season has left them bottom of the table ahead of their Copa Libertadores debut against Argentinian side Lanus. Defying gravity looks to have become difficult. It is not only European football where reality bites.
“We lost lots of players,” says Guanaes. “At this moment, we are rebuilding the team because we changed a lot. We are still working on making sure the new players learn about Mirassol and the way that we play. It is a much bigger challenge than last year.”
He is honest enough to admit that not being in continental competition gave them an edge. “We had fewer games compared to, say, Palmeiras and Flamengo. So, every week we used this time available to create our elaborate tactical and strategic plans.”
The worry is that it will all be too much in this second season. “Life has changed. The spotlight is much bigger,” he acknowledges. But for now everyone is on the same page. “It is a marriage. The directors here think about the human being as well as the player.”
Time for another great story? A successful run in the Copa Libertadores is not being ruled out by Guanaes. “I believe the team is prepared. Much more than we were at the beginning of the year.” Maybe there is another chapter to the Mirassol miracle yet.
