Brazilian Serie A Week 23

Another week, another twist.

This Brazilian Serie A season refuses to lie down and go through the motions. Everytime a pattern emerges, a round of results take one look at the form book and sets fire to it. And then sprinkles the ashes across the pitch. Teams on a run promptly succumb to a complete loss of form and embark on a set of bad results, while teams struggling for any fluency suddenly upset the leagues leaders and high flyers. It's completely mental, it's all Serie A !

Week 23 of the season was typically crazy with the top four all dropping points, with three of them losing and six of the top eight in the table crashing to defeat altogether.

On Saturday, Santos continued their recent mini-revival with another win scraped over Cruzeiro at home. After Borges, who else had scored the early marker, Cruzeiro lost a man after an hour and then at the death. Santos improve to 13th with their third win in five games, during which they have gone unbeaten. Cruzeiro drop to 14th.

The late game that day saw the bottom two clubs play out an exciting 2-2 draw that does neither club any favours. America went into a 2-0 lead with goals from Andre Dias (second goal in two games) and Gilson before William and Cleverson brought Avai back into the game in Belo Horizonte. They remain 20th and 19th respectively.

On Sunday all the three Sao Paulo clubs lost with leaders Corinthians losing at Fluminense (Fred scored after 21 minutes), Sao Paulo lost at Gremio (Douglas after 65) and Palmeiras slipped to an embarassing 3-0 home defeat to Internacional. Leandro Damiao continued his astonishing run of recent good form with a hat-trick. Fluminense, who looked completely out of the race a month earlier have now won four games in a row. They sit in fifth spot, above previous leaders Flamengo and just six points behind Corinthians in the lead. Inter are now seventh and Gremio improve to 12th.

While Corinthians remain in the lead they are now just a point clear of Vasco in second while Sao Paulo  sit a point behind in third on 41. Remember Botafogo, who were threatening to take the lead outright after four straight wins themselves ? Well they lost 5-0 at Coritiba to remain in fourth, a point behind Sao Paulo on 40. Emerson, Marcos Aurelio, Bill, Rafinha and Everton Costa all netted for the cup-finalists.

Fellow Rio sides Vasco and Flamengo had contrasting results. While the former drew 1-1 at Figueirense (Wellington Nem) with Fagner levelling the scores, Flamengo slumped to their fourth consecutive defeat, going down at home to At Para.

Wellinton scored a late consolation for the 2011 Carioca winners after Heracles and Joffre Guerron had put the visitors into a 2-0 lead. Guerron scored for the second game in a row and then got sent off just after the hour.

In the North, Ceara held At Go to a 1-1 draw with Egidio's opener for the homeside being cancelled out by Felipe's late goal. Sunday's late game saw Atletico Mineiro beat Bahia at home, 2-0. Magno Alves scored a double to give Mineiro their third win in four games.

Borges is now three clear in the scoring race with 16 strikes, Damiao is now in second with 13.

Full table can be found here.

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At least the top 13 sides will qualify for continental competition next spring while the bottom four teams will get relegated to the 2012 Serie B. Santos added to the four spots the league gets in the 2012 Copa Libertadores by winning this year's edition.

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Vasco Da Gama, who won the Copa Do Brasil, have booked a spot at the 2012 Copa Libertadores.

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