Opinion – PVC: Leaders’ games were more afraid than ambition

It is the Campeonato Brasileiro do lose and win, in which the championship has the lowest score of a leader after nine rounds. If you thought of a triangular between Palmeiras, Atlético and Flamengo, they keep oscillating and leaving the first place for Corinthians.

Someone will say that performance should have been better after a week off training. It should. But a week after months of wear and tear can serve to take the weight off your back instead of focusing on work.

It was more the marking and less fatigue the problem of Palmeiras, which improved in the second half, even without doing enough to maintain the leadership of the Brasileiro, which is in the hands of Corinthians. As against Santos, in Vila, he was far from his best performance. For the second game in a row.

Atlético carefully studied Palmeiras to prevent Abel Ferreira’s favorite game. During the entire first half, the home owner was unable to make any tackles in the attacking field. He only started to stabilize after the 30th minute, during which time he increased possession to 46% and finished seven times.

None right.

Galo hit only one, from Allan, but it was superior in the first half of the game.

The loss of Raphael Veiga, in the 13th minute of the first half, hindered Palmeiras a lot. Rony went to the left, Navarro as center forward and Scarpa as point guard. And the most creative midfielder on the team was missing.

It’s difficult to mark Hulk and, without Gustavo Gómez, called up for Paraguay’s friendlies against Japan and South Korea, even tougher. Hulk invents goals. Even when he leaves the area, as he did against Cruzeiro, in the final of the Campeonato Mineiro, or in the impressive submission against Avaí, for the eighth round.

This worked for Abel. Hulk didn’t shoot on goal in the first half of the match. He finished the game with just one shot.

In theory, there is no comparison between the current stage of Palmeiras with the one experienced in the Libertadores semifinal weeks. That should mean that Allianz Parque saw their team attack Galo, as they couldn’t do six months ago. Atlético de Cuca was better than it is today, and Palmeiras was worse.

Again, Abel suffered to make his team overcome Galo’s strategy.

Without the same number of embezzlement caused by the FIFA date, Atletico had a perhaps more important problem: Zaracho’s injury. Perhaps to compensate for the absence of an articulator, who competes a lot and helps with tackles, Atletico coach Antonio Mohammed changed a striker, Sasha, for a defensive midfielder, Otávio.

It was the reaction to the improvement in Palmeiras in the second stage.

Because he received a yellow card soon after entering the field and compromised the Galo’s marking a little more.

The fact is that there has not been a confrontation between two of the best teams in the country. The quality was higher in Fla-Flu and in Corinthians x São Paulo, for example.

Balance is the tone of this classic. In the four games in which the two titular teams faced each other, in Libertadores and in the last two Brazilian matches, there were four draws. At this point in the campaign, there was more fear of allowing the rival to take off than the ambition of Palmeiras and Atlético to take the lead and prove to be the biggest candidate for the title.

CORINTIAN ACCORDION

Vítor Pereira does not play the game he would like. He’s competitive, not handsome. But he has 18 points. What works the most is the ability to change the system with the same players on the field. In the victory against Atlético-GO, it started in 4-3-3, ended in 5-4-1.

ROGÉRIO PISTOLA

Rogério Ceni is right to be angry about the penalty missed by Calleri and the performance that fell in a game almost won. The question is to understand if the charge will make the team understand the behavior necessary to win or if it gets worse.