Reds New Backline Impresses in Pre-Season Win

The new-look Reds backline took its first real steps together on Sunday – and wasted little time making an impression.

Summer arrivals Jeremy Jacquet and Ronaldo Araujo, the latter joining on loan, both featured in a pre-season win over Como, offering an early glimpse of what the club hopes will become its defensive foundation for the campaign ahead.

Jacquet started and immediately set the tone. Aggressive, front-foot, unafraid to step in. He finished his 45-minute outing with more tackles than any other player on the pitch (three) and joint-most duels contested (seven), a busy and assertive half before making way at the break for Araujo.

Fatigue caught up with him by half-time, which was hardly a surprise given the long lay-off before these first minutes of the summer. The verdict from inside the camp was clear: a good start, and now the challenge is recovery and repetition.

Araujo took over after the interval and delivered his own statement on home debut. The Uruguayan won five of his seven duels and recorded the second-most tackles (two), reading danger sharply and showing the kind of physical edge that quickly wins over a crowd.

The numbers told one story. The developing partnership told another.

On the pitch, language barriers still exist. Off it, the message is that football does a lot of the talking. Jeremy Jacquet’s English is described as a touch more advanced than Ronald’s, but the sense from the dressing room is that shared instincts are already starting to bridge any gaps.

“We can see and smell some moments on how to defend certain situations,” came the assessment, underlining that anticipation and positioning matter more than vocabulary when the ball starts to move.

The staff are under no illusions, though. A backline is built, not wished into existence. Connections need time. Mistakes, adjustments, small corrections – all part of the process. The view is that it’s “absolutely normal” for the understanding to take a while, even if everyone involved is pushing to accelerate it.

For now, it is about stacking these minutes. About Jacquet shaking off the rust from that first intense 45. About Araujo backing up an encouraging debut with the same level of bite and concentration.

The early signs are there. The real question is how quickly this partnership can harden into something opponents genuinely fear once the season starts for real.