Two years ago they won everything
Botafogo lifted the Copa Libertadores and the Brazilian title in 2024. They are now 14th. That is the context for the signing the Rio club confirmed on its social channels on Thursday afternoon.
Hakim Ziyech is the name. The 33-year-old Moroccan attacking midfielder arrives from Wydad Casablanca, where he played 16 games and scored nine. Respectable enough, and over as of this summer.
He did not rush the decision. Botafogo had been at it for days before the left-footer finally said yes.
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He has arrived at the wrong end of the calendar
Brazil runs its season inside the calendar year, so the league finishes in December. Ziyech is walking into a campaign already months old, with a short stack of fixtures left to make himself matter.
What he brings is a CV nobody else in that dressing room has. Ajax, then Chelsea from 2020, then Morocco’s run to the semi-finals in Qatar.
The table is the whole problem
Fourteenth means Botafogo spend more time checking what is behind them than what is ahead. Points now carry weight they should not have to carry at a club of this size, and the drop zone is closer than anyone in Rio wants to say.
Whether Ziyech can find his rhythm fast enough in a league that has been running since February is the part nobody can answer yet.
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