Midweek:
Santos beat Fluminense on Wednesday night, easing to a 2-1 win at home on the back of a double from league leading scorer Borges. Rafael Moura pulled one back for Fluminense, the defending champions. Santos has now won two games on the trot for the first time all season and have given themselves some temporary respite from the the drop zone. After edging Bahia in Salvador on Sunday, this home win is three points of welcome relief for one of Serie A's most talented, yet underachieving teams. Santos improve slightly to 14th spot and 21 points. Their remaining game in hand is against Gremio. Fluminense remain ninth.
Their next game is a Paulista Derby versus Sao Paulo, whom they beat to win this year's state crown. While Santos are on a decent two game winning run, continuing it at Morumbi could be a little more daunting. Sao Paulo started the campaign on fire before being reined in by Corinthians and then Flamengo. However they remain an outside bet for the title and have, arguably the deepest and most all round team in the league. Gettting back four players from Brazil's successful U-20 winning team is an added bonus that will bolster their ranks for the weekend's games.
Borges now has 12 goals this season to take back the outright scoring lead from Sao Paulo.
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Derby Madness:
Week 19 is Derby Week with no less than seven matches between cross-town clubs and another game between regional rivals.
Saturday sees the first of the derbies with Fluminense hosting high flying Botafogo in a key Rio De Janeiro matchup. The latter fancy themselves as an outside bet for the title with a decent month of games under their belt and are in fifth spot, just six points off the lead. In the other games on Saturday, Coritiba host At Para while At Go travel to bottom side America.
Sunday features a double header of Paulista Derbies with sixth place Palmeiras hosting league leaders Corinthians at the same time as Sao Paulo-Santos. Simultaneously second place Flamengo play host to fourth place Vasco; while Internacional travel across town to Gremio, in the Porto Allegre showpiece. Up north, Ceara and Bahia, the two northern most teams in the league, and Northern Cup contenders, square off at the former's homeground in Fortaleza; while Cruzeiro and Athletico Mineiro do battle in Belo Horizonte. In what must surely have been scheduled on purpose, the Florianopolis derby also takes place with the late game on Sunday seeing Figueirense host Avai.
This weekend's matches completes the halfway stage of the Serie A Championship, with everyone having played 19 times, bar Santos and Gremio, who still have to play each other.
A halfway summary and wrap is coming soon.
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