Round 24: Round of Finals

By: Bruno Romani | September 8th, 2007

Thanks AJ for keeping this blog running. Your writings have been very helpful. And you, dear reader, should check out his blog.

By AJ from Cruzeiro’s blog.

Results
Goiás 2 x 3 Atlético-PR

Corinthians 1 x 0 América-RN

Juventude 1 x 0 Cruzeiro

Flamengo 4 x 1 Figueirense

Grêmio 3 x 1 Vasco

Santos 2 x 1 Internacional

Atlético-MG 0 x 0 São Paulo

Botafogo 1 X 1 Palmeiras

Sport 0 X 2 Fluminense

Paraná 2 X 4 Náutico

The Games
Sorry for the late posts guys, but I’ve been away and I’m going home in a couple of days so I’m enjoying my last bit of vacation before I have to go back.

Because of such big games being played, this round was dubbed the decisive round, but the matches from midweek didn’t change the table too much. To start off Atlético-PR completed a heroic comeback to beat Goiás — 3 x 2 was the final score. Having been in the top four in the early part of the season, Goiás now finds itself with the possibility of not qualifying for Libertadores next season. As for Atlético-PR, they are battling relegation so this win was important to them. Corinthians beat América-RN by a lone goal. Corinthians are tied with Goiás on points and have a chance to qualify for Libertadores. As for América, they are almost certainly relegated, with only ten points in 24 games, 14 away from their nearest competitor Náutico. Cruzeiro hit a huge road block at midweek when they lost to Juventude 1 x 0. Especially with the São Paulo draw, Cruzeiro could have taken advantage of this,
but they lost for the first time in nine games, as Juventude stay determined to not be relegated. The new Flamengo beat Figueirense 4 x 1 and are clear of the drop (thanks to CBF). Figueirense is just outside the bottom four and need to be careful if the want to stay in the first division. One of the biggest matches of the round was played between Grêmio and Vasco. Grêmio won the game 3 x 1, and are now looking to establish themselves in the top four like last season. Like the title suggests, there were huge games in this round, and
Santos vs. Internacional was one of them. The two Brazilian giants are having
opposite seasons. After coming out huge in the last couple of years, Internacional’s poor form this year continues, they lost 2 x 1 to Santos, who are now Libertadores contenders and if the other teams commit enough mistakes, Santos could be a title contender. São Paulo’s famed goalkeeper, Ceni, came out huge in the last minute of Atlético-MG vs. São Paulo and denied Atlético’s Coelho from the spot. Ceni’s heroics kept this game a 0 x 0 draw.

Thursday saw top four challengers, Botafogo and Palmeiras tie each other 1 x 1. Botafogo led this years championship for so long and now they might not even participate in the Libertadores, what a shame. Palmeiras find themselves in the same situation, only two points back of Botafogo. Midtable-rs (is that a word?) Sport and Fluminense did battle as well. Sport came up from the second division this year, but is probably the best supported team in Brazil, with an average crowd of something like 25,000. That though didn’t help them, they lost to Brazilian Cup holders Fluminense 2 x 0. Finally, second to last placed Náutico, turned up the heat on Paraná (who had started this years tournament so promisingly). Náutico 4 x 2 win over Paraná will help them in the relegation problems. It wasn’t good news for Paraná, who were battling for Libertadores this time last year, and now find themselves just inside the relegation zone…not good for them.

Once again sorry for the late report, I’ll be back either Sunday or Monday with the next review, thanks and enjoy all the football action from around the world this weekend.