In football on the field, no one beats Palmeiras, whose football matches their position in the table: leader. After another round in which the other two identified as the main contenders for the title stumbled (Flamengo lost to Inter at Beira-Rio, and Atlético-MG drew with Santos at home), the team led by Abel Ferreira continues in its best moment since the Portuguese arrived.
It is true that he has already won Libertadores and Copa do Brasil and repeated the feat as two-time champion of America in the same year. But I would be very surprised if the Palmeiras that we see now didn’t win any titles at the end of this season – in addition to the ones they already won, Paulista and Recopa. That’s because football today is even more consistent than before.
In 2021, Palmeiras found it difficult to impose the same rhythm in all the games that they used to impose in the knockout matches of Libertadores, for example. This year, despite having gone the first three games of the championship without winning (against Ceará at home and Goiás and Flamengo away), he followed up an impressive streak – in the last six games, he scored 12 goals and conceded none.
It’s very difficult to score a goal in this Palmeiras (only three teams have made it so far, Ceará, Goiás and Fluminense). It is very difficult not to concede a goal from this Palmeiras (in 11 Brazilian matches, only Flamengo and Atlético-MG did not win). Even without two of its pillars in recent games –Gustavo Gómez in the defense and Raphael Veiga in the midfield–, the team remained very safe in defense and deadly in attack.
And if someone says that Palmeiras doesn’t have a repertoire, it’s because they’re not watching the games. At the end of three, Marcos Rocha is essential in the construction on the right, which always has Dudu and Veiga or Scarpa associating very well – and it is in this plot that most of the goals come out (6 of the 18 in the Brazilian).
The dead ball is a very well used weapon and with many variations (including the much-criticized “short corner”, as it was against Coritiba) – it was responsible for 10 of the 18 goals in the championship. And there’s also an almanac counterattack, like the one pulled by Zé Rafael that led to Rony’s goal at Couto Pereira.
The shirt 10, by the way, is in his top scorer phase since he arrived at Palmeiras. Veiga has already equaled the number of goals in 2021, only he needed far fewer games for that, and almost doubled the number of assists. Scarpa, the leader of goal passes in 2021, now makes the Palmeiras fan calm, even with Veiga injured. Will anyone be able to stop this team?
love and football
Football off the field also taught important lessons last weekend. The popular “kiss camera” went around the stadiums to celebrate Valentine’s Day and, at Morumbi, caught a striking scene: the kiss between two women shown at halftime between the game between São Paulo and America on TV Globo in São Paulo.
For a society that says that football is for men and that insists on wanting to impose only one form of love, the message was given. The broadcast of football on a national network led by a woman (Renata Silveira) showed the scene that made it clear: it is really wrong not to love.
The image is symbolic because gays and lesbians who attend stadiums know the fear that surrounds them. Any manifestation of affection can make them the target of violence. The lesbian kiss shown among so many other kisses by heterosexual couples on the TV broadcast helps to naturalize what many still find strange and condemn.
As Casagrande defined it well: “There is no love if there is no freedom. And freedom will also not exist if there is no love. Love has no gender, no color, no race, no social class. Love is love and that’s it. “.
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