Fluminense's leader and talisman (Agência Fotocamera)
What a difference a couple of days make. Defeat to bitter rivals and fellow title contenders Flamengo last weekend, stuck on a Mexican bench for Brazil (Hulk and Jonas were preferred) on Tuesday night, one could have expected Fred to have been feeling a little bit sorry for himself. Not a chance, not with Fluminense needing the points and their captain. What a player!
Brazil’s top clubs splashed out for a chartered flight bring their overworked stars straight back to Brazil on Tuesday night. The idea was to get them back in time to play in Wednesday night’s important Serie A fixtures. A very tough ask for the likes of Ronaldinho and Neymar, who have played more than 50 games each so far this year if you ask me. As it happened, the private flight was delayed and those players due to play on Wednesday night (like Ronaldinho) missed their game (Neymar and Santos played on Thursday night by the way. Neymar was tired, frustrated and got sent off as Santos lost again). Luckily for Fluminense and Fred, they were playing on Thursday night.
So back in Brazil and straight into Fluminense’s starting line-up against Coriba Fred went. He captained them to victory and scored a hat trick including an amazing bicycle kick in a 3-1 win. On Sunday, Fred and Fluminense went to São Paulo to take on Palmeiras. Fluminense won 2-1 with Fred scoring both of their goals again.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9MrhHXM4qtw
Why doesn’t he show this kind of form for Brazil? Actually he hasn’t really been given much of a chance and when he does play he normally does quite well: he scored Brazil’s only goal against Romania in Ronaldo’s farewell game in June in a 30 minute run out and he spared Brazil’s blushes against Paraguay in the Copa America. Remember of course that he very rarely starts games for Brazil. What if he did? He is an unfashionable choice and I myself admit that I often overlook him as a very important attacking option for Brazil.
On his day he is unplayable, impossible to get the ball off. A real leader on the pitch and never shirks his responsibilities. He always steps up to take vital penalties and very rarely missed them (except on that joke of a pitch in the Copa America). I remember earlier this season in Argentina, against all the odds, he dragged Fluminense into the next round of the Copa Libertadores with two goals in their 4-2 win against Argentinos Juniors. Two years ago with Fluminense deep in the relegation zone, he almost single handedly pulled them out with some brilliant performances and goals.
He isn’t a glamour player and his off-field discipline can be questioned at times but I’m 99% sure all Fluminense fans would tell you that they wouldn’t swap him for anybody in the world. Does he deserve more chances in the seleção?
Crazy days in the Serie A by the way with only four points separating the top five teams with eight games to play. Fantastic action ahead and more to come on that in the coming weeks of course.
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Is Fluminense going to beat Atletico-MG on Engenhão, Rio de Janeiro? Atletico-MG is leadered by REVER, who is performing very goods games, however Atletico is on the red zone.
If I was a betting man (which I’m not and there is probably a good reason for that), I would put my house on Fluminense beating Atletico MG at the Engenhao, Rever or no Rever. Both clubs from Belo Horizonte are in crisis!!!
In my opinion, Cruzeiro will play the “Brasileiro série B” championship next year. Cruzeiro doesn´t have a victory since Joel Santana managed the team, many months ago.
Last week, Santos and Fluminense rent a private airplane to take Neymar and Fred back for Brazil – in order to play the matches against Atletico and Coritiba.
Neymar won a RED CARD and leaved the match crying. Fred scored three times!!! What a player!!!
Manager Muricy Ramalho, from Santos, went very upset with this child behavior.
Fred is an enigma. Either he’s really good or really bad. There’s often no middle ground.
I have to say that the red card for Neymar was a blessing in disguise. The guy needs some rest. Once Santos are out of relegation trouble he should sit out a few games.
I wonder when that will be though. The 1×0 loss to Gremio yesterday didn’t show that the players had anything fight left to escape such a scenario. It’s hard where to put the blame nowadays. The players have to take some of the flak, but Muricy deserves his share as well. I don’t see how he thought throwing on Breitner – who did nothing in his loan spell – was a good idea. Tiago Alves I can understand to some extent, though he still doesn’t know what the word “pass” means.
I originally thought that Muricy’s exploits in the first half of the year gave him immunity until next year. Now, I’m not so sure.
He can be inconsistent, yes. But, when he is fully focused and motivated, he is so so good. In terms of seleção, that is a job for Mano’s man management skills which I feel are very much in question.
As for Santos, very very strange this terrible form of theirs. Muricy wins the Libertadores and Campeonato Paulista under the most difficult circumstances, then he signs the players he wants and it all falls to bits. Not helped by Ganso injury, Neymar in and out thanks to national team duties, etc. But, surely they should be doing better than this.
Brazilian football is very hard to understand sometimes.
Muricy won Libertadores and Paulista, he ordered some players and it fails!!! Now, seems to me that he has green card to do what he want to do – There´s no motivation on Santos FC team 🙁 .
This World Championship is going to be easy for Barcelona.
fred is good but he’s behind pato, hulk, neymar, damiao, robinho and nilmar in the pecking order for strikers in brazil. So i dont know why they keep calling him for the selecao when you have those other players available.
The likes of Pato, Neymar, Robinho and Nilmar all have very different characteristics to Fred so I don’t agree with the direct comparison. Fred can hold the ball up like nobody else and that could be a very useful option. But I would agree and say: what’s the point of calling up him if he just sits on the bench and gets very little game time?
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