Adilson Batista is fired by Santos (AE)
Santos coach Adilson Batista has been fired following a poor run of results culminating in a 1-1 draw at home to the lowly São Bernardo on Saturday night. Corinthians continued their recovery in the post Ronaldo era, winning 4-0 (Liedson scored another two) and São Paulo and Palmeiras drew 1-1 in a rain drenched Morumbi stadium. Little-known Mirassol now top the table after ten games. Continue reading
Ronaldinho and Flamengo win the Guanabara Cup (Maurício Val/VIPCOMM)
Flamengo beat Boavista 1-0 in the final of the Guanabara Cup – part one of the Rio State Championships. The match was an all-round uninspiring affair which was settled by a moment of magic from Ronaldinho. Continue reading
Happy now? (Getty Images)
Paulo Henrique Ganso looks like he will end speculation about his future (for the time being) by signing a new deal at Santos.The player has been out injured for seven months with torn knee ligaments and was not happy that his contract talks were put on hold as soon as he got injured.
He has publicly declared his dissatisfaction with the situation and wants to be paid on a par with the likes of Neymar and Elano; Ganso’s salary is currently around one third of that.
Despite complaining in public, the player wants to remain at Santos for at least another year. Now that he is nearing a return to first team action, he should get his way with a deal of around GBP 30k per week. Inter Milan and AC Milan have both shown interest in the player but it looks like they’ll have to wait to get their man.
Things are picking up for Vasco under new coach Ricardo Gomes (Maurício Val / FOTOCOM.NET)
The standout result of the Brazilian Cup this week was Vasco’s 6-1 away win over Comercial-MS (the MS means that this team is from the state of Mato Grosso do Sul). The idea that there are no more easy games in football anymore is not entirely true when you come up against a team from Mato Grosso do Sul (Santos beat Naviraiense, a team from the same state, 10-0 in the Brazilian Cup last year). However, credit must still go to Vasco. Continue reading
Wallyson scores another two (Juliana Flister - VIPCOMM)
It was a mixed week for Brazilian clubs in the Copa Libertadores as Cruzeiro and Internacional produced convincing wins while Grêmio lost in Colombia and Fluminense drew at home. Continue reading
Felipe was the hero for Flamengo after saving two penalties against Botafogo (Alexandre Loureiro/VIPCOMM)
A few days after my rant against Vanderlei Luxemburgo, Flamengo beat Botafogo on penalties to set up a final with Boavista next weekend in the Taça Guanabara. The Taça Guanabara is a fancy name to say part 1 of the Rio State Championship Continue reading
Fábio Santos, Roberto Carlos' replacement, struck two goals for Corinthians (Getty Images)
Corinthians surprised many by beating Santos 3-1 in the match of the weekend in the São Paulo State Championship. Corinthians were inspired. It can’t possibly have been because of the silly marketing and gimmicky tributes to Ronaldo before the game so I’ll put it down to good coaching. Continue reading
Ronaldinho (Maurício Val/VIPCOMM)
Ronaldinho’s Flamengo ran out 3-0 winners against a well drilled and skilful northern team called Murici in the Brazilian cup on Wednesday night. This is the first time I’ve watched Flamengo this season (they don’t show Rio state Championship games on TV in São Paulo). Despite the glossy score line – which allows Flamengo to progress without a second leg – I was not impressed. Continue reading
Lucas in action for Brazil's under 20's (Getty images)
Lucas, Brazil’s new sensation, has signed a new deal at São Paulo with a release clause of 80 million euros. That is more than the estimated 50 million euro release clauses of Ganso and Neymar. Lucas will now earn approximately GBP 50,000 per month, more than 10 times his previous salary. Not bad for a young lad.
Liedson saves Corinthians’ blushes. Corinthians were headed to a disappointing draw at home to Mogi Mirim (Rivaldo’s team that he doesn’t even like) until Liedson popped up with two goals late in the game. Corinthians 2 Mogi Mirim 0. Ronaldo who?
The Brazilians of Shakhtar Donetsk (UKR) beat Roma 3 – 2 in the Olympic Stadium in Rome. The Shakhtar goals were all scored by Brazilians: Jadson, Douglas Costa and Luiz Adriano.
Ronaldo against Tolima (Getty Images)
After a glorious career, former World Player of the Year Ronaldo has retired from football aged 34. After last week’s Libertadores fiasco, subsequent injury and threats/abuse from fans, Ronaldo has decided to call it a day. Speaking to a local newspaper, he said: ”I can’t take it anymore. I want to continue, but I can’t. I think of what I want to do on the field but I can’t execute it the way I would like. It’s time. It was beautiful”. So that’s it. WOW. The great man is retiring with immediate effect.
For such a great player who has achieved so much, it would be wrong to criticise him. Yes, he was overweight and didn’t do much running at the end. But put that into context; he came back from three career-threatening injuries and continued to score goals and play at the highest level wherever he went; he won two World Cups; he was the all-time leading scorer at World Cups with 15 goals; he was the 3 times World Player of the year; he won countless trophies at club level; he played for Cruzeiro, PSV, Barcelona, Inter Milan, Real Madrid, AC Milan, and Corinthians. Pretty darn good I say.
He was one of the generation’s most talented footballers. As a gangly 20 year old for Barcelona his performances were amazing. At Inter Milan he was unstoppable on his day. He fought back from his second career threatening injury to lead Brazil to World Cup glory in 2002. Despite being overweight in 2006, he was the one Brazilian player who took the fight to France in their 2006 World Cup quarter final defeat.
When he came to Brazil after suffering his third serious injury, he was even fatter. But, despite that, he scored the equalizing goal and was man-of-the-match for a 20 minute cameo against Palmeiras in only his second match back. He went on to score lots of goals for Corinthians in 2009 and won the Campeonato Paulista and Brazilian Cup in his first year.
Apart from the odd incident with a transvestite or new kid springing up on another continent, he is a respectable guy. No drink or drug problems. He’s no Paul Gascoigne, Diego Maradona or Adriano in that sense. What more he could have achieved if it wasn’t for those injuries, I wonder?
I only saw him play live once. In 2004. Brazil x Argentina in Belo Horizonte. He was fat and lazy and didn’t run at all (nothing really changed). But he got the ball three times, ran straight for goal cutting left, right, step-overs, faints, shimmies. All of the football lingo you like. He was unstoppable. He was tripped in the box three times and converted all three penalties. Brazil 3 Argentina 1. On his day, for me, he must be the best centre-forward since Maradona. Comments/tributes welcome.
Couple of nice links here to refresh the memories: