RIO DE JANEIRO - One day after losing to Figueirense 2-1, Atletico-MG's head coach Dorival Junior was fired.

A string of negative results left the club's fans and directory anxious, resulting in the coach' s dismissal in hopes of salvaging the team's permanence in the first division of the Brazilian Championship in 2012.

After suffering the team's eighth loss of the Brazilian Championship, Dorival Junior expressed his loss of words to describe what is happening with his team.

After a meeting with the club's presidency, Dorival Junior was fired. Just as the decision to dismiss Junior was unexpected, the club does not have any particular coach in mind to immediately fill the position.

The head coach was hired in September of 2010 and saved the team from relegation into the second division of the 2011 Brazilian Championship.

In his time with Atletico-MG, Dorival Junior led the team into 52 games, producing a record of 25 wins, 11 draws and 16 losses.

However, in the 2011 Brazilian Championship the coach produced a dismal record of four wins, three draws and eight losses.

Atletico-MG currently stands in a troublesome fourteenth place with 15 points. The team has to avoid placing among the bottom four teams of the twenty-team tournament in order to remain in the first division next season.

Atletico-MG club president Alexandre Kalil hopes to name a replacement for Dorival Junior as soon as possible, but promised to think long and hard about a worthy substitute.