saving dropdown menu data on custom post type

I’ve found my problem. The choice was indeed being saved, just wasn’t showing to me at the editor (it was always showing me the first choice). The thing is, the $selected function compares the selected input with the string provided which, in my case, was incorrectly filled. so the following code:

    <select name="estadoDaObra" id="estadoDaObra">
        <option value="não construído" <?php selected( $selected, 'nao_construido' ); ?>>não construído</option>
        <option value="em construção" <?php selected( $selected, 'em_construcao' ); ?>>em construção</option>
        <option value="construído" <?php selected( $selected, 'construido' ); ?>>construído</option>
    </select>

should actually be:

    <select name="estadoDaObra" id="estadoDaObra">
        <option value="não construído" <?php selected( $selected, 'não construído' ); ?>>não construído</option>
        <option value="em construção" <?php selected( $selected, 'em construção' ); ?>>em construção</option>
        <option value="construído" <?php selected( $selected, 'construído' ); ?>>construído</option>
    </select>

Dumb thing to get wrong and would be hard for me get any answers here, since I was too lazy or too tired to translate those values to English.

Anyway, if you are strugling with that, just know that you just have to have the same text on both places.

Thanks to anyone who read this, even if you didn’t manage to figure it out.