São Paulo beat Santos convincingly in a game of two Argentine managers on the sidelines. | OneFootball

São Paulo won with a resounding 4-0 for their first Paulista clash of the 2021 season. The game also marked for an ‘Argentine classic’ in a duel between Hernán Crespo and Ariel Holan.

The most prestigious of the regional championships in Brazil, the Paulistão has just started.

For this third day of Paulistão A1, the first division of the state of São Paulo, SPFC received Santos at Morumbi.

The two teams started the match with main players of the 2020 season except Lucas Veríssimo who went to Benfica from Santos and Brenner who moved to Cincinnati from Sao Paulo.

After a poor first half in goals and under a torrential monsoon rain, it was the locals who mastered the second half. Gabriel Sara opened the scoring with a header followed by an own goal against Luan Peres.

Peixe collapsed trying to come back with a goal from a counterattack from midfielder Pablo and a shot from Tchê Tchê three minutes from time.

In this game, Hernán Crespo showed his adaptability as he did not hesitate to take out one of his three defenders at half-time to seek victory.

With two wins and a draw in his first three games, Sao Paulo supporters and commentators are optimistic even if everything remains to be done for the winner of the Sul-América 2020.

It was the first game as Santos boss for rookie manager Ariel Holan, the former coach of the Universidad Católica de Chile.

Santos, finalist of the Copa Libertadores 2020 must go through play-offs to reach the 2021 edition and will play the first leg against the Venezuelans of CD Lara on March 9 at the Vila Belmiro.