4 minutes into 7 minutes of added time Lucas Perri goes up for a corner. Flamengo clears and Cebolinha wastes a chance, couldn't even get a shot off on the open goal. The play continues as Botafogo iwn the ball back and Lucas Perri takes a shot with all the quality you'd expect form a goalkeeper... lucky for him the defense puts it our for a corner. Lucky for Flamengo on the corner Botafogo wasted it by playing it back to the kick taker who was offside. Botafogo puts on some pressure, but Flamengo survives.
Botafogo's first home defeat of the league. Flamengo are in third tonight with 39 points, 12 points behind Botafogo. Palmeiras are in second and can cut the difference from 11 to 8. Eight points with 16 matches left would feel a lot different, a lot more doable than closing the gap felt a few weeks ago. Grêmio can also join Flamengo on 39 points if they win tomorrow and they still have a game in hand. Those extra games have been scheduled now and will be played in late September. Fluminense and Bragantino, on 35 points, can climb up to 38 tomorrow, behind Flamengo and Palmeiras.
Get it down to 6 points and I start dreaming. Although with the short squad, I will be on pins and needles for injuries. Libertadores is priority. I think we can get 3 points tomorrow away at Corinthians. They are not playing well and they might be tired from the Sul-Americana midweek game. Botafogo has Atletico and Corinthians away next. Neither team is doing well. Hoping that Atletico playing in their new home will find inspiration to steal more points from Botafogo. Flamengo played well today specially with the absences of Arrasca and Gabigol. 12 points is still a bit far, but you never know.
Corinthians 0 x 0 Palmeiras Wasted chance. Both teams missed incredible scoring chances (1 each). Corinthians in the 1st half and Palmeiras right at the end. 10 pts
That's got to feel like a small relief for Botafogo fans, but right now their biggest talking point is coach Bruno Lage's bizarre press conference last night. I think the simple interpretation is that he thought he would take pressure off the players by saying what he did, but it was a bit dramatic. Fluminense was also heading to a 0x0, but they got an added time goal to win. Bragantino just tied, so there is a tiny bit of separation (2 points) now between 5th (Flu) and 6th (Braga). Palmeiras are in second, Grêmio will play their extra match on the weekend after the international break, so they could move ahead of Palmeiras. Flamengo are in 4th (tied with Grêmio on points) and Flu is 5th. @manimal bad news for Santos as they lost to América-MG in a 6-pointer between relegation candidates. The good news is that the teams directly on top of them (Bahia and Goiás) only won 1 point each. so they didn't separate much.
Hulk is a big wuss. He literally forced himself 3rd accumulative yellow by not subbing out at the nearest sideline and arguing with the ref that he wanted to walk all the way across the field to sub off. Now he is suspended against Botafogo. Either didn't want to play them or has some personal plans lined up. Football players are generally really the most infuriating and dubious athletes of all sports.
Yep.... I just hope they can make it over the line at the end of the season. I mean.... Even if they relegate which would suck.... Iam fine with it, if their academy wouldn't be affected by it and they would continue developing talent as they did before
The next two weeks of Brasileirão are a bit unusual. Because of the Copa do Brasil final (Sep 17 and 24) the rounds are spread out through the whole week and teams with a match in hand will be playing those matches during this week. This week, matches will happen from today to Saturday. Sunday will be the first match of the Copa do Brasil. Corinthians x Grêmio, one of the pending matches, will be played Monday. Then, next week, matches will be played between Monday and Saturday, with the Copa do Brasil final second leg on Sunday. The last two pending matches will be played on Monday, Sep 25 (América x Vasco) and Wednesday, Sep 27 (São Paulo x Coritiba). After that, all teams will have 24 matches played, with 14 to go. It's a pretty smooth end of season, schedule-wise, which is a big positive for the Brasileirão this year. There are still some weird things, like the matches happening the day after the FIFA window (like today), but I think overall it's a positive example for good organization and scheduling.
Well, tonight's matches were Flamengo x Athletico and Inter x São Paulo as Flamengo and SP have to play on Sunday for the Copa do Brasil final. Both of them lost tonight. Flamengo lost 3x0 to Athletico and had Gabi sent off for an elbow. São Paulo scored first but Inter turned the game around in the second half and won 2x1. Pretty poor match by Flamengo. Sampaoli tried out some tweaks to the formation but it didn't help. Then Allan came in for David Luiz, who had had a poor firs half, and Allan left injured. Flamengo did have most of the ball even with one less on the field, but Athletico got two late goals to make sure they didn't let the win slip away somehow.
It's so funny to see how the media reacts when Flamengo and Palmeiras have their rough patches. On our side, a couple of months ago when we were knocked out of CdB and hit a bad patch in the Brasileirão, the Palmeiras media were pointing to Flamengo's active transfer policy to point fingers at Leila and her cautious stance in the transfer market. Now with Flamengo out of Liberta and hitting a bad patch, I see Palmeiras being shown as the example of a successful administration because they keep Abel year after year giving the team consistency. Granted some of the media I am talking about are different. But it's still funny to see. At the end of the day, from 2019 till now both teams have basically been equally successful. So even with the coaching musical chair game Flamengo has had, they've achieved the same compared to the stable administration Palmeiras has had. The obvious differential is that Flamengo has had players that are more technically gifted.
Bragantino up 2 x 0 on Gremio almost at HT. Gremio throwing their game in hand away. Santos lost to cruzeiro 3 x 0 and are starting to dig themselves into a deep hole.
Mtch ended 2x0 to Bragantino, putting them in 5th place, tied with Flamengo (4th) on points. Even if Grêmio wins their Monday match and Palmeiras wins tomorrow's match, the Grêmio loss today is good news for Botafogo. Now the worst that can happen is that if they lose the difference falls to 7 points, not 6. So, Palmeiras plays tomorrow (vs. Goiás). Botafogo plays Saturday (at Atlético-MG, should be a tough game, but who knows in Atlético's state) Fluminense also plays Saturday and can leapfrog Flamengo and Bragantino into 4th place (and temporarily move ahead of Grêmio into 3rd) Grêmio then play Corinthians, who are in dire form right now, on Monday. If Grêmio win, they'd maintain at least third place, but if they lose they can now fall out of the top 4 on goal difference. And to top it all off, next week is Grêmio x Palmeiras!
Palmeiras 1 x 0 Goias Breno Lopes scored a goal in injury time to grab the 3 points. But another terrible game. Should have ended 0 x 0. Breno also went to the section where Mancha was after he scored the goal and provoked them by flipping them off and doing the "let me hear you" sign. Mancha started chanting for him to respect the shirt. Breno has been heavily criticized, specially after the miss vs Corinthians. I know he probably heard some heavy things if he looked at social media and Palmeiras alternative media, but this is just plain dumb. Dude scored a goal that fell on a platter and thinks he proved something. I want to see how Abel will deal with this now. SMH Abel needs to put Artur back on the right and bring in Kevin or Endrick on the left.
Luis Suarez was on Bola da Vez last week and it's a good interview. I was interested in his views about Brazilian football and hopefully he didn't give a PR answer. A couple of interesting points he made (one positive and one negative) were that tactically speaking, the defenses are a bit of a mess as defender movements are not well coordinated compared to Europe (some teams might an exception .. I think Abel has Palmeiras doing that pretty well but Suarez hasn't played against them yet). The positive that he said is that he was surprised that every team has one or even two very fast fairly technical players up front. Something else of note is his dedication to training and playing. This guy is a true soldier. I already knew this from his time at Barca but he still has that hunger. I've mentioned that in games I've watched Gremio play, I was impressed that at his age he still had a great work rate. Even in games that Gremio had already lost and the game was near the end and out of reach.
Well, Atlético-MG beat Botafogo, so the difference at the end of the round is 7 points, the smallest it's been in months. There were complaints about the field before the match, and there was a controversially disallowed goal by Botafogo, which has led to comments from Bruno Lage and Diego Costa accusing the championship of being rigged, which will probably get them fined. Grêmio can cut their difference down to 9 if they win the extra Monday match, but with 15 matches left and only 7 points behind, Palmeiras are in good position to reach Botafogo.
I really don't see how that's not offsides on Diego Costa. I don't see the controversy. I am looking at the table and with the Libertadores in mind, I think it might be too late for us barring a bigger collapse from Botafogo. We have a tough away Gremio next right before the 1st leg vs Boca. I think we will use the starters since it's a full week before the game vs Boca, but I can see us dropping points (although Abel does own Renato). Then we will be away at Bragantino before the 2nd leg where I think we will use a reserve team. Bragantino has been doing well. So we will surely drop points. Plus, the clash vs Botafogo will be just a few days before the Libertadores final in case we make it there. Which is really unfortunate if we are within shooting distance.
This is some crazy game between Corinthians and Gremio. Two comebacks so far. 4 x 3 for Gremio right now in beginning of 2nd half.
It ended 4x4 and Grêmio should have had a PK at the end but no call was made and VAR did not send it to review. Crazy match. Corinthians' come back from 2x0 down in the first half came at 44, 45+4 and 45+6 minutes. The Grêmio turned it back around as celito said, two comebacks, before Corinthians tied it. That PK, had it been given, might have been the third turn around. Good news @manimal in the other match today Santos got a comeback victory of their own, beating Bahia 2x1. Bahia are now only 1 point ahead of Santos, so this was a pretty direct confrontation. Still, 14 matches to go is a lot of time to dig themselves out of this hole.
Yes, that was definitely a penalty kick. Corinthians fans went home with a sense of injustice, but at the very least, they and the visiting Grêmio fans got their money's worth by being entertained with a great match with 8 goals. Not too common in the Campeonato Brasileiro.
Sense of injustice ? I am talking about the handball. Unless you're talking about the slide PK that wasn't called in the first half against Gremio.
Palmeiras and Flamengo are somewhat mirroring each other in some recent issues. Flamengo - There was some sort of fight between conselheiros when they were voting wether to extend the President's mandate length from 3 to 4 years. And also if people holding Government positions could be President or another high rank in the club. As far as I heard they could finish up voting. - Gabigol subs out and claps and laughs ironically at the fans booing him and the team. - Today, Marcos Braz attacks a Flamengo fan who was harassing him while he was at the Shopping Mall with his daughter. The case is with the police now. Palmeiras - A dozen conselheiros write a formal letter to Leila asking for more transparency and clarification regarding the relationship between her new airline and the club. And asking details about opening up the team's jersey for sponsorship bidding next year. In the last game, Leila cut those conselheiros off from receiving the free tickets to the game they typically receive. - Breno Lopes flips off Mancha fans after scoring the winning goal vs Goias. He has met up with Mancha people and straightened it out. But Leila put out a public support for Breno and did not reprimand him for his action. - Leila has filed a restraining order against Mancha directors because she feels threatened by some of the Organizada fans. - Now Leila will not guarantee Libertadores SF tickets for the Organizada. Normally they pay for tickets, but they are guaranteed a number of ticket to buy. Now they will have to buy tickets like all other fans through the Avanti system. Not sure if this applies to the home game.
Goiás x Flamengo was a forgettable match that could put anyone to sleep. Glad I had other things to keep me awake. It ended 0x0. I don't think Flamemgo forced a save from the Goiás keeper until 40 minutes or so of the second half. Two more matches tonight, starting now. São Paulo x Fortaleza and Fluminense x Cruzeiro. Fluminense won't play again until the Libertadorss semi in a week and have a lineup mostly of starters. São Paulo of course have the CdB final on Sunday and are facing Cruzeiro with their reserves. That means James gets a start.