Corinthians: The Worst Weekend Ever!

By: Bruno Romani | September 30th, 2007

As São Paulo walks calmly towards the title after the 2-1 victory against Internacional in Porto Alegre and Cruzeiro’s 2-1 defeat at home against Figueirense, the headlines of the moment are all about Corinthians. The club fell to the 18th spot in the table.

On Saturday, Corinthians lost in front of 30 thousand fans against Sport, club headed by one of the many coaches who worked with Corinthians in the last 2 years and direct rival in the relegation fight.

Bad enough the defeat in the comeback of coach Nelsinho Baptista, a series of results made Corinthians’ a nightmare. On Saturday, Naútico, once a rival in the fight against relegation, won the fifth game in a row. Naútico destroyed Atlético-PR with a 5-0. The only good news for Corinthians is that Atlético-PR is another side fighting relegation.

In Rio, the other Atlético, from Minas Gerais, lost too. But these are the only good news for Corinthians. The club from Rio once fought against relegation, but with the 1-0 has achieved the 12th spot and sees série B more distant. Atlético-MG, on the other hand, enters the relegation zone in the year they returned to first division. The career of coach Leão is going down…

Besides the victory of Figueirense against Cruzeiro in the stoppage time, Corinthians also watched this weekend Goiás and Paraná win. The first visited Botafogo in its worst week ever and crushed the locals with a 3-0. Paraná defeated Fluminense with a 3-1. One of the goals was a beautiful long shot by Baptista and another was a terrible blunder by keeper Fernando Henrique.

Finally, the other 2 clubs with tickets to série B influenced directly the fight of the contenders to a Libertadores spot. Juventude lost as usual to Grêmio, 2-1, sending the tricolor gaucho to the third spot in the table. Palmeiras, on the other hand, left the group of the clubs that have a spot in the continental competition after getting a mediocre 0-0 draw against América-RN, a club with 13 points in 28 matches.

The only match that did not affect Corinthians was Santos x Vasco, a match with 2 contenders for a Libertadores spot. And Santos won by the minimal score, with Rodrigo Souto claiming paternity of the lonely child.

goals:

http://video.globo.com/Videos/Player/Esportes/0,,GIM737158-7824-ASSISTA+AOS+GOLS+DA+RODADA+DO+BRASILEIRAO,00.html