The pronunciation is exactly like the famous legend boxer he was named after by his mother, but his name is spelled Taison. Taison Barcellos Freda is 21 years old and plays for Internacional.

Not a regular starter yet for the Gaucho club, he became, after three months in 2009, the top scorer of the year in the country (although right now only the State competitions and Brazil’s cup is being played – Brasileirao won’t start until May).

But more than his 14 goals in the beginning of Brazilian season (exception of Gremio, local rival, all other clubs were quite weak), Taison shows great and, like every other boy starting in Brazilian football right now, does the ‘pedaladas’ in Denilson and Robinho style. But, not like Denilson and better than Robinho, he scores a lot although he can still set up plays for his team mates. He is very fast, not so tall. Not a good header like Pato, but much faster.

Older than Pato, he took a longer time to reach the Inter first team. But the great group Inter has right now (Nilmar, D’Alessandro, Guinazu, Kleber among other stars) made his life easier. He fit on the first team and had a great.

Profile
Taison Barcellos Freda 
13/01/1988, em Pelotas-RS 
1,72m / 64kg 
Internacional (since 2005)  

Ronaldo Nazario is ready to debebut for Corinthians and he will be back tonight. In a match against Itumbiara, Corinthians’s manager Mano Menezes called the ‘Fenomeno’, to the squad for the first time since his last knee injury, almost one year ago, while playing for AC Milan.

Ronaldo won’t be a starter, but he probably will play a few minutes in the second half. At Corinthians since December, he got into a lot of trouble already, including two polemic nights. The first one, in Sao Paulo, at a regular night club called The Pink Elephant, and the last one, couple of days ago, at a, to say, not so religious place. He had to go back to the hotel at 23h, but Pop’s Drinks, this place, seemed to be very friendly so Ronaldo entered the hotel at 5 am.

He was fined by the club and former player, now director of football for Corinthians Antonio Zago, was fired as he was at the same place with Ronaldo.

As that happened three days ago, Mano Menezes has decided to call him for the squad. The pression for Ronaldo to enter the field is huge.

Itumbiara, a small club from Goias, is the rival for tonight. The team had some money injection and signed Denilson, former Real Betis. Polemic top scorer Tulio Maravilha also plays for the club as he tries to reach 1000 goals in his career.

If Ronaldo plays 15 minutes, he probably will be fit for next Sunday’s derby against Palmeiras. If that happens, after all his nightlife and polemics, it will be another huge game for Ronaldo to play. Exactly the kind of game he loves to play...

What a season Brasileirao 2008 is. Six rounds to go, after 32 games, two clubs are tied topping the league with 59 points (Gremio and back-to-back title holder Sao Paulo). Two other clubs, Cruzeiro and Palmeiras (both with Italian background) are in the Libertadores qualifying zone with 58. And we still have Flamengo, most popular club in the country, with 56 chasing the leaders.

Sao Paulo is in its way up. They were not between the top four a couple of rounds ago but it is notorious their power near the end of the season since Brasileirao is not played with Playoffs finals, but only regular season (they won two out of five and qualified for every Libertadores since then).

But if I had to put some money, I would say Cruzeiro is strong enough to beat Sao Paulo this time. They have a very good and well coached team, everybody knows exactly what they have to do on the field. In the field, they have everything Sao Paulo has and a plus. Three in fact. They have three very  good players. Players that are probably doing their farewell season in Brazil.

Wagner is the brain. A spectacular midfielder that reads the game and always find the best option. Ramires is the lung. He runs like Usain Bolt and is everywhere. He is a defensive midfielder but got the talent and the skill to run with the ball and pass it. Finally, they have Guilherme. Fast and furious Aguero-Romario style. Kind of player born to score and do the difference in small areas.

I don`t believe Palmeiras, Gremio and Flamengo got a chance to win. But they are three of the most winners in the whole history of Brazil and South-America. Together they have two Fifa World Championship, four Libertadores ands more than ten Brasileirao titles.

I have a clue. But I would never guess.

Gremio tied away against Atletico Paranaense, Palmeiras beat Vasco da Gama 2 x 0 and now Brasileirao, after 2/3 of the leader and vice are just one point apart from each other. Gremio completes three games without winning and saw its huge advantage down to just one point.

But with 12 rounds to play, everything can be even more dramatic next week. The three first in the table will play away. Sao Paulo (5th) x Cruzeiro (3th).

Gremio will play the derby against Internacional at Beira Rio Inter Stadium. Palmeiras will fly the northeast to face Nautico, a club still threaten by relegation.

Flamengo, that came back to the G4 group, will also play home against Sport. At last, Botafogo plays home too, against Fluminense. If every home team wins, Brasileirao would enter the last 11 games with just 5 points between the leader and sixth place.

Complete table and standings for Brasileirao 2008

Season is getting started in most of the National Leagues but in Brazil we are already in a very important moment.  As I told befor here at OleOle, Brasileirao is the most difficult national league to win in the world.

Pick any of the top leagues in the world and you know the winner will be one of four teams max. In Spain, everybody knows the winner will be Barcelona or Real Madrid. They should have a playoff NBA like between them.  Seven games.

Premier League is a little bit better as we used to have four, but everybody knows Arsenal can’t make it never so there are three possible winners, like in Italy. I am not even mentioning France, where only one team can win.

In Brazil, we never know. Twelve clubs start the season as favorites.  All of them have their own crowd, stadium and history.

Of course our best players are in Europe.

Certainly our managers suck.

Definitely our fans are not really well treated.

But nowhere else in the world a championship is so difficult to win.

I am not talking surprising results. I am talking about major and favorite teams.

It is not by accident that in 38 years in the so called Brasileirão, 17 teams were already Champions.
The greatest winners, Flamengo and São Paulo, have only 5 titles, the same number Real Madrid can have in a single decade in the Spanish League.

Brasileirão is always unpredictable. No Boca/River domination! 

Anyway, it is starting to become predictable now.  Fourteen rounds to be played, Grêmio is 6 points ahead Palmeiras and Cruzeiro, tied in second place. Grêmio is 10 points ahead the 6th  place, São Paulo.

Game of the week

Cruzeiro x Palmeiras

Tied with 43 points at the second position in the table, this is a key game for the Championship. They are both 5 points down the leader, Gremio. One loss can make one team eight points back in the table.

To watch

São Paulo x Flamengo

Here is another game ‘of six points’. I think the winner is definitely going to next year Copa Libertadores (top four teams qualify). São Paulo is the defending back-to-back champion. Morumbi stadium in Sao Paulo will probably be full as Sao Paulo needs to win to reach Libertadores level, as the fans are very mad if the team, three times Libertadores and Fifa Club World Cup Champions, don’t make the continental competition.

This is the best gossip I got from inside the olympic Village (actually the second best, but the first one I will have to take to my grave). It is not new at all that players like Rafa Nadal, Ronaldinho, Kobe Bryant, and many others are like idols for the others misters and misses nobody from the Olympics.

"I was sorry for Nadal. He can't have lunch, he needs to take pictures with athletes every two minutes", told me a table tennis guy. "I saw Yao Ming being rude to a guy that asked for a pic", told me another.

These two guys and two others confirmed to me that Messi can walk alone the whole day that nobody wants to take a picture with him. "Nobody knows him", told me a girl from Brazilian volleyball.

Anyway, if nobody wants to talk to Lionel, Kobe Bryant himsel said he was dying to get to know the Argentinean. Kobe was at Brazil x Argentina game and also at the football final.

BEIJING (CHINA) - Ambruse Vanzekin probably crossed Isinbayeva at the Olympic Village in his way to the Bird's Nest to play against Argentina the final.

This is the only reasonable excuse for the Nigerian keeper to go out of his small area to try to stop Argentina. This move was really unfortunate. Di Maria had no chance to score if the keeper stayed 'at home'.

Anyway, maybe this is hust my Brazilian part trying to believe Nigeria could win. But Argentina was the best and now they got this second gold medal and we don't have any (in football, in the overall standings at the Olympics Brazil comes first, of course).

BEIJING (CHINA) - Usain Bolt teaches America how to pass the baton to Asafa Powell and Jamaica (who are they running from?) wins gold medal at 4x100m delay.

Even faster, 300 staff people from the Olympics Summer games enter the field to transform the Athletics Competition stage into a football venue to Argentina x Nigeria.

Everything has to be done. White lines, football goals, replant some parts of the field that could have been damaged for a Javelin, benchs and of course change the IAAF banner for the FIFA one. I watched them doing that for almost 1 hour and they were not even half way done.

My chat with the girl in the picture next to the Bird’s Nest was something like this...

- Hi, do you like Brazil?
- I love Beijing. I live here.
- Bra zil! BA GI (Brazil in Chinese). Brazil, not Beijing!
- Not so much
- What?
- Not so much. No.
- Really?
- Yes.
- Why are you wearing this t shirt anyway?
- I like the color

It is like Confucius always said: “Be honest and people will post about you at their blogs”

BEIJING (CHINA) - Communication is by far the biggest enigma from Summer Olympic Games in Beijing. It doesn’t matter if you know the name of your destination in Chinese. When you speak, they just don’t understand. The accent is so different that I already gave up.

For the worst moments, a telephone number with a friend who speaks the local language is the only option.

But, even the telephone can fail. So here is my sad history:

My accreditation is not valid for tennis. I am a huge fan of Roger Federer and I made a lot of effort to get a pass for one of his games. But, I had to do table tennis before as part of my work here. I had enough time. One hour left between the end of my article in the table tennis venue and the Olympic Green, where the tennis courts are.

So I asked a volunteer to help me to find a cab and tell him where he should go. They spoke 3 minutes in Chinese, looked at me and gave me lots of OK OK OK OK. After 50 minutes in the cab (wow) I was at the venue. 10 minutes to the game. Nice! I passed through security and finally I was there... in the BADMINTON VENUE!

I lost the game. Federer lost the game to James Blake. I definitely have to improve my Chinese beyond Ni Hao.