São Paulo starts streak against teams that fight not to fall

The victory in the derby against Palmeiras, in the last round, brought relief to São Paulo, but the team is still threatened with relegation in the Brazilian Championship. In the final stretch of the tournament, four of the last five clashes will be against direct opponents in the fight to get rid of the decline.

The first one will be this Wednesday (24), at 9:30 pm, against Athletico, in Morumbi – Globo broadcasts. The team from Paraná is glued to the tricolor team, both with 41 points in the table.

Afterwards, the squad led by Rogério Ceni will face Sport, also at home. Then, he goes to Porto Alegre, to face Grêmio, and back to Morumbi, where he faces Juventude. In the last round, the São Paulo team will face América-MG, the only team that at the moment is far from the red part of the table, with 45 points.

Achieving the score that the Minas Gerais team currently has is precisely the objective of São Paulo to get rid of the risk of falling, as with this number, América is currently in the middle of the table.

Of the last five duels of the São Paulo team at Nacional, three of them are as home team, which gives a little more confidence to the tricolors. At Morumbi, Ceni’s team has a 49% success rate. Away from home, that number drops to 35%.

So as not to have to do too many calculations, São Paulo hopes to show the same impetus against Athletico that they had against Palmeiras, when they won the derby 2-0, on Wednesday (17), at Allianz Parque.

Even at the opponent’s home, the São Paulo team dictated the pace of the match and could have left the field with a victory for an even more elastic score, since in the end they had a goal disallowed for offside. Gabriel Sara and Luciano were the authors of the goals that gave the team the triumph.

The shirt 11, however, got injured soon after scoring the second goal in the victory over Palmeiras. He underwent wrist surgery, will be re-evaluated this week and still has no deadline to return to activities. Sara, in turn, is confirmed among the starting line-ups to face Athletico, who are coming from winning the Copa Sudamericana, in Montevideo.