Flamengo will have this Wednesday (3) the second chance to confirm its ninth Brazilian Championship title, with Filipe Luís’ team able to lift another cup just four days after being champions of the Copa Libertadores.
With two rounds left until the end of the competition, with only six more points up for grabs, the red-and-black team leads the leaderboard, with 75 points, five ahead of Palmeiras, vice-leader.
In the previous round, Flamengo could have already been champion, if they beat Atlético Mineiro, and Palmeiras lost to Grêmio. The Tricolor from Rio Grande do Sul even won their match, 3-2, but the Rio de Janeiro native was unable to escape a 1-1 draw with the Minas Gerais team.
Now, for the 37th and penultimate round of the Brazilian Championship, Flamengo hosts Ceará —14th in the table, with 43 points, two behind Internacional, the first team in the relegation zone—, at Maracanã, at 9:30 pm (Brasília time).
If they win, the Rio club will reach 78 points and confirm their victory in the championship one round in advance, regardless of the result of the Palmeiras game, which travels to Belo Horizonte to face Atlético Mineiro, in a delayed match of the 34th round, also at 9:30 pm.
In the event of a draw or defeat against Ceará, Flamengo will still be able to become Brazilian champions in front of their fans on Wednesday, as long as Palmeiras does not win their clash in Minas.
According to calculations by the Mathematics Department at UFMG (Federal University of Minas Gerais), the red-and-black team has a 97.2% chance of securing the Brazilian title, compared to just 2.8% chance for Palmeiras.
If the fight for the 2025 Brazilian Championship title is already very close to being defined, on the other side of the table, the fight for relegation continues at full steam.
There are still two places remaining for next year’s Series B, since Sport and Juventude no longer have a mathematical chance of remaining in the national first division.
According to calculations by UFMG mathematicians, there are still ten teams at risk of playing in the second division in 2026.
Fortaleza, 18th and second to last in the table, with 40 points, is the team most at risk of falling, with a 69.5% probability of competing in the access division in 2026.
Coming from a sequence of eight unbeaten games, with four wins, Argentine coach Martín Palermo’s team seeks to maintain the positive momentum against Corinthians (9th), at Arena Castelão. Fortaleza ends its participation in the Brazilian Championship on Sunday (7), against Botafogo, at Nilton Santos.
Internacional (17th), Santos (16th) and Vitória (15th) are next among the most threatened.
Interncional, with 41 points, appears with a 40.8% chance of being relegated. They face São Paulo (8th), in Vila Belmiro, and Red Bull Bragantino (12th), in Beira-Rio, in the last two rounds.
Santos, also with 41 points, has a 51.4% chance of being relegated again, after falling for the first time in 2023.
Although it is above the team from Rio Grande do Sul in the table, the black and white team from the beach appears to have a greater chance of falling, since UFMG’s simulations consider the recent retrospective and the history of clashes of each team against the next opponents.
Santos will face Juventude (19th), in Caxias do Sul, in the 37th round, and Cruzeiro (3rd), in Vila Belmiro, in the last round.
Vitória, with 42 points, comes next, with a 30.6% risk of relegation. The Bahian team travels to Bragança to face Bragantino, in the penultimate round, and ends the championship in a game against São Paulo, at Barradão.
A little calmer in the fight against relegation, Ceará has a 7.5% probability of falling. After the game against Flamengo, the team hosts Palmeiras, at Castelão, on Sunday.
Bragantino (0.15%), Atlético-MG (0.0428%), Vasco (0.0204%), Corinthians (0.0017%) and Grêmio (0.0004%) still have a residual probability of being relegated.
