Hasn't fully lived up to expectations yet (Ricardo Ramos/VIPCOMM)
Ronaldinho missed a penalty in the last kick of the game against Macaé in their Rio Cup match. A win would have put Flamengo (who beat Botafogo in a crunch match last weekend thanks to two goals from Thiago Neves) top of their group and meant a semi-final at home to Olaria. With the draw, however, they finished second in their group behind Vasco (who drew 2-2 with Olaria and will face them in the semi) and now play away to Fluminense in the semi-final. Fluminense have recovered well in the competition and topped their group. They beat Nova Iguaçu 1-0 thanks to a Fred penalty. Botafogo are the one big club to have been knocked out and unsurprisingly their fans are not happy about it, cursing and swearing at their players, coach and Vasco.
The winner of the Rio Cup will go on to play Flamengo (who won the Guanabara Cup) to decide the winner of the State Championship. If Flamengo win the Rio Cup then they would win the State Championship as winners of both the Rio and Guanabara Cup. See explanation of the competition rules here. I’ve also added new tabs with the Rio and São Paulo State Championships final league standings and knockout phase line-ups.
In the São Paulo State Championship, the final league matches were played and the once glorious Portuguesa sneaked into the last eight with a last minute goal that bobbled off their players shin. The final positions also changed at the top of the table with Palmeiras dropping into second place, São Paulo taking their place at the top. Santos and Corinthians switched between 3rd a 4th a couple of times throughout the afternoon (thanks to goal difference) but it was Corinthians who finished in third in the end. See league table and semi-final line-up here.
Why you always post Ronaldinho’s pics? hahaha
Looking foward to wednesday’s match of Santos for Libertadores… hopefully will be a brilliant game for Neymar and Ganso!
I saw somewhere Luis Fabiano is about to debut in his return to Sao Paulo. Also looking foward to it!!
Hey Gil,
Well, he is the two times World Player of the year after all….
I’m trying not to be too São Paulo centric. Perhaps I’ll try and find a pic of Elkeson next week. Would that make you happy?
haha just kidding. I know you love your boys from Santos so there may just be a nice pic of Ganso kissing the Santos badge after scoring the winner! Who knows. I’m looking forward to the Libertadores too. With Santos winning in Paraguay last week, all they need now is to beat Deportes Táchira at home. Sounds easy enough…. Not sure about Luis Fabiano’s debut just yet but have you heard anything else about Diego Forlan to São Paulo?
Have you seen the size of Adriano??? It’s one out, one in for Corinthians as far as overweight and overpaid centre forwards goes…
I don’t believe in the coming of Diego Forlan. Sao Paulo got plenty of fowards… so what would happen to Dagoberto, Fernandinho, Marlos, Fernandão (hard to believe but he’s still there!) if he comes? Also, I’m not sure LF and Forlan would perform as expected if acting together, what you think?
Given his current overweight, I can’t even speak of Adriano as a soccer player… maybe Corinthians is about to bring Benny McCarthy too! haha would be funny at least.
I think now the whole world has turned their eyes to Spain. Still 3 Barça x Real in 3 weeks, that’s the best to watch for sure!
Do you think Mourinho will be able to stop them again? 69% of ball possession and 1-1? No, I don’t think so haha
Haha, good one. Benni McCarthy. Whatever happened to him? one too many pies…
About Forlan, well, as we saw at the WC he can play behind the front strikers so him and Fabiano could be a good partnership. The thing is they are both in their 30s so the attack would lack a bit of pace unless they played alongside Dagoberto too. I guess we’ll see if Forlan signs and maybe its just a rumour with nothing in it after all.
The problem with São Paulo in my opinion is that they have too many players that are quite good but not really that good and they cant decide on their best team. Fernandinho, Marlos, Fernandão, Rodrigo Souto, Jean, Juan. Even guys that are good like Dagoberto, Ilsinho, Carlinhos Paraíba and Casemiro are in and out of the team…. They’ve got plently of good youngsters coming through in attack: Lucas, Willian José, Henrique, Lucas Gaúcho. Obviously Lucas is a starter but Willian José and Henrique could probably be given more games.
About El Classico, I actually thought Real Madrid would win until Albiol was sent off. I dont think Mourinho in his pragmatic, bureaucratic, negative, blame -the-ref-and-media-for-everything mentality cares about ball possession. The next three should be great. For the sake of the beautiful game, lets hope Barça win though!