Lets hope Ricardo Gomes makes a full recovery (Fotocom)

Once in a while football gets put into perspective. Sunday afternoon unfortunately was one of those times when Vasco coach Ricardo Gomes was rushed to hospital after suffering a stroke during the second half of the derby match between Flamengo and Vasco. The 46 year old coach remains in critical condition despite the three and half hour long operation on Sunday which successfully stopped bleeding inside his brain. Let’s sincerely hope for the best and that he makes a full recovery.

Defenders were on top in this match (Fotocom)

After my childish excitement about the weekend’s derby matches, this news is a sobering anti-climax to what was otherwise an entertaining weekend of football. I spent my Sunday morning watching Manchester City hit five past Tottenham and Manchester United beat Arsenal 8-2 in the Premier League so compared to that kind of action the games in Brazil were a let-down. Not that Botafogo, Palmeiras, Grêmio, Avaí­ or Cruzeiro fans will care though one bit though. The game between Flamengo and Vasco finished 0-0 and Vasco were unable to breakdown Flamengo despite having the better of the play and being a man up for the entire second half. Two of the other derby matches finished as draws: Coritiba v Atlético PR; Santos v São Paulo – where São Paulo also had a man sent off in the first half.

Felipe Souto equalized for Atlético MG against Cruzeiro. But it wasn’t enough and they lost 2-1 in the end. Check out the second goal here on 1m 09s (I couldn’t find an isolated video of the goal):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JFrKW-aiL8s

These two aren’t bad either. First one is from Lucas for São Paulo, second one is Ganso’s equalizer for Santos:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fWdxizWjC1o

Don’t want to miss a post? Sign up for email alerts (see top right hand side of page). Follow on Facebook and Twitter too.