Vasco is the new leader in the Brasileirao

By: Bruno Romani | June 10th, 2007

Another weekend, a new leader. Vasco crushed Grêmio, who was saving its main players for the finals of the Copa Libertadores, with a 4-0 victory at São Januário. And guess who scored again: Romário visited Grêmio’s net twice. Is he gonna last until he scores one thousand goals in official matches? There’s only about 90 to go.Vasco is the new leader because Botafogo failed to get the victory against Palmeiras on Saturday in São Paulo. But in fact, the team from Rio should be happy it didn’t lose. Palmeiras lost again a high number of chances, and for another week lost points at home. Palmeiras is playing well, but missing too many chances.

The last game on Saturday had again the good Paraná Clube from coach Pintado. The club visited Naútico at the Aflitos and got a fantastic 4-4 draw. Striker Josiel scored had a hat-trick and Paraná built a 3-0 advantage in the first-half that fell like a sand castle in the second-half.

If in one hand Paraná has consistently played the most entertaining games of the weekend, São Paulo is the constant owner of the title “boring match of the weekend.” Atlético-MG visited the tricolor at the Morumbi and won by 1-0 in one of the few chances it had. Muricy lost control over his players and the fans. It is clear that some of the players are not putting effort into the match just to see the coach leaving, including Rogério Ceni. Some players also seem jealous with the attention the striker Dagoberto has gotten from the fans and the media, and decided to boycott him, by not passing the balls and showing up to receive his passes. The fans want Muricy to leave but President Juvenal Juvêncio says he stays. São Paulo 07 resembles a lot Brazil 06.

Bad moment for São Paulo, excellent one for its main rival Corinthians. The timão went to Natal to face América-RN and had a 2-1 comeback. In the first-half, Corinthians made too many mistakes on passing the ball, and seemed to be close to lose its first match in the league. Paulo César Carpegiani made a few subs a Corinthians returned to the second-half refreshed and with a different attitude. Finazzi, the veteran striker considered a player of smaller teams by some critics, scored the second goal with a header. But the main responsible for this great start of Corinthians is Carpegiani. It is the best start by Corinthians since 1999.

The two finalists of Copa do Brasil showed their good moment even after such an intense final. Both clubs had large victories this Sunday. Fluminense extended its party to the Maracanã and invited Sport to be the victim. With a good participation of Alex Dias, Fluminense sealed a 3-0 victory. The cariocas also celebrated the fact that their rivals Flamengo visited Figueirense and was defeated by 4-0.

Clubs that started very poorly are slowly recovering. Goiás visited Atlético-PR and came up with a good 3-0 victory. Juventude visited Cruzeiro and won the second round in a row, this time by 3-2. Cruzeiro is mediocre, and rumors say coach Dorival Jr. is to leave the club.

Finally, Internacional and Santos played a match that started delayed due to the heavy rain that hit Porto Alegre. Despite the fact that both clubs are not playing during the week, the refs and CBF officials forced the clubs to play the match. The Beira-Rio, Inter’s stadium, became the “rio”. (got it? Beira-rio, rio, hun?). The players seemed to be playing water-polo, and what a better strategy than having someone used to water to get the victory? Alexandre Pato (pato means duck in Portuguese) scored the only goal of the match. Santos gave a few extra days for some of its players to recover from the intense semifinals of the Libertadores, and played with a tired Internacional, champions of the Recopa.

Ps: sorry for the lazy report. I have a hangover today. =P

goals of the weekend:

http://video.globo.com/Videos/Player/Esportes/0,,GIM687182-7824-ASSISTA+AOS+GOLS+DA+QUINTA+RODADA+DO+BRASILEIRAO,00.html