This Sunday (8) the winner of the 2024 Brazilian Championship will be known. Current two-time champions, Palmeiras hopes to achieve the third, but knows that it does not depend solely on its own strengths: worse, it needs a victory from one of its biggest rivals , São Paulo, which no longer has any relevant goals for the year.
The alviverde team has 73 points, against 76 for leader Botafogo. In case of equal scores, they will have an advantage in the tiebreaker, with one more victory. There is only one scenario, therefore, for the tri: victory for Abel Ferreira’s men over Fluminense, at Allianz Parque, in São Paulo, and Botafogo’s defeat against São Paulo, at Engenhão, in Rio de Janeiro – all matches in the 38th and final round are scheduled for 4pm.
“It’s practically defined. Botafogo plays at home, and you know Brazilian football”, smiled Abel ironically, referring to the history in the competition of points running with questions regarding teams that have games that interest their rivals in the final stretch, in the fight for the title. A history that has Palmeiras himself playing a central role.
In the most ridiculous case, recorded in 2010, a Palmeiras manager even called for a duel in the penultimate round, in Greater São Paulo, the Fluminense fans, who would face the Alviverde team and fight for the trophy with Corinthians. “Come. We still have 8,000 tickets available. It will be the title game,” said then-executive director Antonio Carlos Corcione. “I’m sure it will be a very pleasant afternoon for both Fluminense and Palmeiras fans.”
It didn’t start like that. The usual reserve Dinei immediately surprised himself with a kick and was cursed at Arena Barueri. “I scored a great goal, the most beautiful of my career, but the fans didn’t celebrate. They were angry and even booed”, he recalled, in 2010, in an interview with ESPN. “But Fluminense turned the score around, and everything became calmer.”
It was so embarrassing that the CBF (Brazilian Football Confederation) instituted a final round with classics the following year. And Corinthians were champions with a 0-0 draw with Palmeiras, at Pacaembu.
The formula was later abandoned, but the discussion about it returns to the surface now that the Alviverde club needs São Paulo. No tricolor top hat has given an explicit interview like Corcione’s, but the tricolor team already knows that they will finish the Brazilian Championship in sixth place, regardless of Sunday’s results. At a holiday pace, the team hasn’t won in a month, is coming off a defeat at home to Juventude and will have to rest important athletes.
“If we were fresh in the head about important cases [briga por objetivos maiores na temporada] and also physically fresh, I could be a little less conservative with the players now in the final stretch. But next season could start badly, and then we won’t have anything left”, said coach Luis Zubeldía.
Final round has a fierce fight against relegation
If the top part of the table has a more or less clear design – seven of the eight places in the Copa Libertadores are defined, and Bahia only needs to win at relegated Atlético Goianiense’s home ground to take eighth place –, the situation is different in the final positions. . Four teams fight against the sticking, with different scenarios that are quite plausible.
Criciúma (18th), Atlético Goianiense (19th) and Criciúma (18th) have already fallen. Bragantino (17th, with 41 points), Athletico Paranaense (16th, with 42), Fluminense (15th, with 43) and Atlético Mineiro (14th, with 44) battle to avoid the last and undesirable place in the next edition of the Brazilian Championship Series B.
Each of them depends only on you. Even Bragantino, who is behind, will leave the relegation zone in case of victory, regardless of the other results, because Atlético Mineiro and Athletico Paranaense will face each other in Belo Horizonte. The Bragança team will play at home against the already defeated Criciúma. Fluminense will visit Palmeiras.
