Rogerio Ceni reaches 1000 games for São Paulo

Rogerio Ceni plays his 1000th game for São Paulo (Vipcomm)

Good day at the office for São Paulo and Rogerio Ceni. Not only did they beat Atlético Mineiro 2-1 but they also moved to the top of the table and celebrated a remarkable milestone: Rogerio Ceni’s 1000th game for the club. Continue reading

Derby day: Vasco coach hospitalized and in critical condition

Lets hope Ricardo Gomes makes a full recovery (Fotocom)

Once in a while football gets put into perspective. Sunday afternoon unfortunately was one of those times when Vasco coach Ricardo Gomes was rushed to hospital after suffering a stroke during the second half of the derby match between Flamengo and Vasco. Continue reading

Brazilian transfer window: all the major deals

Denilson signs for São Paulo (Luis Barreto/VIPCOMM)

The transfer window for Brazilian clubs to sign foreign based players closed on Thursday night. The window has been dominated by the Carlos Tevez saga and rightly so. But some big names have arrived almost unnoticed. Here they are: Continue reading

Brazilian Championship: The big kick off

They are State Champions but can they be National Champions? (Lucas Uebel - VIPCOMM)

The Brazilian National Championship kicked off yesterday afternoon which makes my report at least one day late. Sorry about that! Better late than never, right? In my report, I give a short comment on each of the twenty teams and my prediction about where they will finish in the league table. For a full explanation on Brazilian football and all of the club competitions see this link. Continue reading

State Championships come to an end

Cruzeiro win the Minas Gerais State Championship (Washington Alves - VIPCOMM)

After months of football, the Brazilian State Championships came to a dramatic close today. Starting in São Paulo, Santos won the local competition for the second successive year, beating Corinthians 2-1 in a tense but ultimately low quality game of football. Continue reading

State Champs: stuck with the wrong match

Grêmio and Leandro (left) got the better of Internacional (Jefferson Bernardes, VIPCOMM)

The afternoon got off to a terrible start with the news that Corinthians would be wearing jerseys with their mothers’ names on the back as a Mother’s Day tribute. I needed to call on all my powers of concentration to get this shockingly lame marketing gimmick out of my head and focus on the important afternoon of football ahead, starting 16:00 local time. And what an afternoon it promised to be: Corinthians vs. Santos, Internacional vs. Grêmio and Atlético Mineiro vs. Cruzeiro to name just a few of the mouth-watering ties. Continue reading

Fluminense coach Muricy quits

Muricy shocks Brazilian football by quitting as coach of Fluminense less than four months after winning league title with them

Muricy quits Fluminense (Getty Images)

Muricy Ramalho has sensationally quit as coach of Fluminense. The news is a huge surprise since Muricy turned down the chance to coach the seleção (Brazilian national team) last year in order to honour his contract with Fluminense. It also comes less than four months after he won the National Championship with Fluminense. Muricy cited a lack of structure and Santos (currently coach-less) are said to be interested. Continue reading

Diego Tardelli signs for Anzhi

Diego Tardelli switches Atlético Mineiro for Anzhi in Russia

Switching Atlético for Anzhi (Getty Images)

Diego Tardelli is the latest Brazilian star to sign for this strange up-and-coming team Anzhi Makhachkala from Dagestan, Russia. This team clearly means business and have now signed Roberto Carlos and two of Brazil’s better young players Jucilei (22) and Diego Tardelli (25).

Diego Tardelli has been on the fringes of the seleção for a few years now and came close to going to the 2010 World Cup for his form with Atlético Mineiro. Continue reading

Michael Jackson scores four and masseur does a cartwheel

Adriano Michael Jackson (Getty Images)

Adriano Michael Jackson -named so because of moonwalk goal celebrations – scored four goals versus Comercial from Piauí­ last night in the Brazilian Cup. Palmeiras comfortably progressed after winning the match 5-1 and 7-2 on aggregate. Definitely, the most interesting thing about this game however is the interesting technique adopted by Comercial’s masseur. Forget the injured player, this guy wants to get on TV and this sort of opportunity doesn’t come along too often. Check it out. Brilliant!

In other Brazilian Cup results, Botafogo from Rio rode their luck to get past River Plate from Sergipe (That’s like a team from Hackney Marshes being called Manchester United) on penalties. Atlético Mineiro destroyed Iape from the Amazon jungle 8-1. First division team Atlético-GO beat Brusque from Santa Catarina on away goals to progress and a team called ABC are also in the next round. Very creative name that.