Uruguay 4-1 Venezuela. Brazil 6-1 Chile. Mexico 6-0 Paraguay. Argentina 4-0 Peru.

Are these the scores for the 1940 Copa America? No, it´s the 2007 Copa America!! This Copa America that started with little expectations because of the Brazilian stars absence became the most exciting international tournament of the last years, or even decades! I have no doubt to say that it´s been the most entertaining Copa America that I´ve ever seen in my life.

After a 2006 World Cup with a goals total so low, it´s always a pleasure to see a Copa America like this one. It´s a big response for all people that says that South American football is being weakened with early transfers of its youth players to Europe.

People of Venezuela are being blessed with great football, wonderful goals and fine talent. All four teams reach the semifinal with chances of winning the Cup, although my predictions are that Brazil and Argentina will make it to the great final and then in this giant clash I hope that Brazil will win.

After this wonderful Copa America, can we hope to have something similar in Euro2008? I don´t think so... however, let´s keep the faith ;)

The latest issue on Brazilian domestic football is the discussion about whether the country´s most famous "lineswoman" (yes, we have women working in football matches) was right to accept Playboy´s offer to pose nude for the magazine, she will be the August edition cover.

Ana Paula Oliveira, the lineswoman, was one of the first women to work at Brazilian football and she always got in the lights because she´s beautiful and used to do good jobs. However, in the last years all she´s doing is ruin great matches with doubtable performances (just like any bad linesmen). In the Brazil Cup semifinal, she harmed Botafogo which helped to their elimination. After that she was relegated to work at São Paulo State 2nd division matches and she blamed the prejudice because she´s a woman, and football is a men´s world, and all that things that feminists like to say.

I don´t even wanna extend commenting what I think about that because I just don´t like this girl. What made me write this post with this title is because this Sunday I read a short interview that she gave to Brazilian variety magazine called Veja.

In that interview, the magazine asked her what was the worst moment in her career. She answered that it was last year, one week after she pointed a foul that helped the referee to deny maybe the most beautiful goal in Carlos Tevez career, in a Corinthians x Palmeiras match that ended 1-1.

In that next weekend she was working as a lineswoman at a São Paulo State A2 division, at Araras, a city about 100km far from São Paulo. Obviously, there was a low attendance, however a very special group attended that match. She said that about 400 Corinthians fans were in the stadium, and they ran along the sideline, "talking" to her and following her through all the match. She said that she even thought about retirement after that moment.

Now let´s quickly analyse it. Can you imagine a dialog between two of these guys before the match?

1 - Hi, what´s up? Have something to do this afternoon?

2 - No, I´m ok... got anything?

1 - Let´s go to Araras, Ana Paula will work there, we´re planning to ruin her match.

Can someone explain what makes 400 crazy guys to attend a match just to annoy the lineswoman?? This is football...

 

Carlos Tevez goal

 

Maybe the international community didn´t know about this, but it´s worth mentioning here. Besides being a wonderful goal scored in a "clássico" with the importance it has (as I wrote in the previous post) by the loved (by Corinthians fans) and hated (by the rest of Brazil) Carlitos Tevez, the performance of the referee was just bizarre. As you can see in the video below (it´s the 2nd goal) the referee let everybody celebrate - Tevez, the crowd, the TV commentator, everybody. And then some moments later Ana Paula called the ref and they denied the goal. I was at the stadium and I don´t know if I celebrated a goal more than this one, it was just fantastic, and against our biggest rivals. Ref errors happens, but it´s just cruel to let the supporter celebrate and then take this moment away from him. Just to let you know, the ref pointed a foul by Tevez in the 1st defender, while they jump for the ball.

 

Today will take place at the Morumbi Stadium the biggest rivalry in the São Paulo State football: Corinthians x Palmeiras. The oldest "clássico" in the State is one of the biggest rivalries in Brazil. As Brazil is a large country the rivalries are more divided by State, with teams from the same city/state being rivals. For example, in England Liverpool x Man Utd is considered a match with great rivalry, in Brazil Corinthians x Flamengo, which are also the 2 most supported clubs in the country, are not rivals because they´re in different cities/states and they have enough rivals inside their area.

Established in 1910, Corinthians is the oldest big club in São Paulo, while Palmeiras was founded in the same city, by dissidents from Corinthians, in 1914. Since then, they became fiercy rivals with lots of curiosities, historical matches, big heroes, great losers and every spice you can imagine that makes it always a special match to be watched.

Corinthians and Palmeiras have already played each other 324 times through history. Palmeiras has a slight advantage with 116 wins, against 112 wins by Corinthians, and also we had 96 draws. Both teams have also decided many titles and Palmeiras has some advantage over their rivals. However, it´s been a long time since they faced each other in deciding matches. Palmeiras won its last title in 2000 (Brazil´s Champions Cup) and since then they saw Corinthians lift 6 championships (1 Brazilian League, 1 Brazil Cup, 1 Rio-Sao Paulo Cup, 1 FIFA World Championship and 2 São Paulo State Leagues). In their two face-to-face elimination matches in this period, Palmeiras eliminated Corinthians in the 2000 Copa Libertadores after penalty shots, and Corinthians knocked Palmeiras out of the São Paulo State League semi-final in 2003. Corinthians also was unbeaten for more than 3 years, since the loss in that 2000 Libertadores Cup match (2-3) until a 4-0 rout by Palmeiras in the 2004 Brazilian League.

In this meantime, Palmeiras was relegated to Brazilian Serie B in 2002 which could be the happiest year ever for a Corinthian supporter. In 2002 Corinthians won the 1st semester double (Rio-Sao Paulo and Brazil Cups) but lost to Santos in the Brazilian League Final. Palmeiras won the Serie B in 2003 and returned to the Brazilian League in 2004.

Today´s match is only a Brazilian League Round 8 match, however a Corinthians x Palmeiras is never just a simple match. Palmeiras is depleted by injuries, players on National Team and transfers, and sits only in the 14th place with 8 points in 7 matches enjoying a 5-match winless run. Corinthians also had some injury and national team problems, but it´s the 6th placed team in the league with 12 points in 6 matches, being still unbeaten and having the best defense in the league (only 2 goals allowed).

All the pressure will be over Corinthians because they still need to prove they are a contender to the title. The whole stadium will be supporting them, despite the 50-50 division in ticket allocation, until yesterday the sales were pointing 21000 to Corinthians and 1500 to Palmeiras. However, I´m sure it will be a very hard match, as always, and I´ll be at Morumbi to watch it.

Good luck for both, peace, and may Corinthians win this one ;)

Brazil played a horrible first half, allowed 2 goals to the competent Mexican team, and then in a desperation act was all over Mexico in the second half. However, a great performance by the GK Ochoa, a lot of bad luck and missed chances, and we lost the opening match by 2-0. It´s important to say that the referee made a huge mistake when the match was 0-0 as Diego scored in normal position and was called offside.

Everybody knows that this isn´t Brazil´s best team, as it´s not Mexico best team. It was not a tragedy anyway. Brazil had a dozen shots on goal while Mexico had only 3 or 4 (and what a chance missed by Castillo!! It could be 3-0, morale devastating), but the ball just refused to get in.

In a competition where 3 teams from a group can qualify, I can say that there´s no need to worry for Brazilian fans. Brazil will qualify as a 2nd or even 1st or best 3rd and it just doesn´t matter. Brazil has quality to beat any opponent, it´s not like the World Cup where there´s a easier path or a harder path. In America Brazil can´t and mustn´t fear anyone.

And take a look at the table, there´s good news to Brazil - the 1st placed on the Group B (Brazil´s group) plays the 2nd placed on the Group C (Argentina, Paraguay, Colombia or USA). The 2nd placed in Group B plays..... the best 3rd placed team! So, as I said, no need to worry.

Yesterday I started to watch Venezuela x Bolivia around the 15th minute of the first half, expecting just to watch some minutes and then give up because of the lack of football skills that these 2 teams use to show us. However the match was pretty entertaining, wide open, and some nice goal chances. It was like the kind of football I use to play Wednesday night with my friends... great chances, great misses and some bizarre and funny plays.

The only Corinthians player in Copa America, Juan Carlos Arce, was clearly the most skilled man on the field, however it´s hard to play fast and forward when your partner is legendary and almost retiring Jaime Moreno. Arce managed to score the deadlock goal when he gave up preparing the plays on the right and entered the box to finish. Although it´s weird to see a Corinthians player wearing a green jersey, it´s still a great proud for us supporters. Arce is a great guy, he´s still young, he´s fast and he doesn´t give up any ball, running over goalkeepers. He has a great shot in being one of the best Bolivian footballers ever as we can say that the competition is not that big.

The European season barely reached its end and the transfer market is already up and running. We saw some shock moves this week, especially concerning the two big losers of the past season: Barcelona and Bayern.

With the new signings, both teams put themselves up on the favorite charts of their national leagues and international competitions. Can you imagine Barça not scoring a single goal when you have at your team Ronaldinho, Messi, Deco and Henry, not to mention Eto´o. I can´t think of Barça staying with all these guys for the next season, unfortunately I believe they will be dumping somebody, and I think this one will be Samuel. Well, if they stay with all them, would it be the best attacking line ever? In my opinion Henry elevates the respectability of this team to higher levels. Ok, Eto´o is fantastic, but Henry is Henry, he is classy, he is cold, he is a killer and in the free time he´s also a magician. It´s a dream to see him and Ronaldinho playing together. I understand that Ronaldinho took a break this season. Few brilliant moves, some only "regular" goals, well I think he was just resting. Now what can we expect with him partnering with Thierry Henry?? My God, Ronaldinho and Henry together, I gotta move to Barcelona and buy a season ticket package asap.

On the other side of the trade, let´s see what´s gonna be Arsenal´s next move. Arsenal had a bad season and we all knew that Wenger was building the squad with young talents. However, with Henry saying that Wenger will quit at the end of the next season, what can we conclude? Maybe the young stars project didn´t work the way Wenger wanted. I don´t live the atmosphere of English football and perhaps someone around here could comment on this post with more accuracy, but seeing from outside, it seems to me that unless Arsenal rebound from this HUGE loss their fans will have to wait some seasons to have the glory days back.

Now talking about the German side. Could we say that Bayern´s board got really, really pissed off with last season results? Bayern rebuilt their entire attacking system with great players. I don´t remember Bayern signing so many great players in just one season. I think that it can be the best Bayern team of the last years. With an attack featuring Podolski, Klose, Zé Roberto, Ribery, Toni and Altintop, you can´t expect less than the German title. It´s win or die for Bayern, and honestly I think they will win this time. They will have a full year to develop this squad and come back to the Champions League very consistent in the 08/09 season.

Today the Copa America kicks off and, at least in Brazil, nobody is giving a damn to it. Brazil sent to Venezuela a team that still didn´t impress the fans and with the absence of Ronaldinho and Kaká our attack is pretty harmless. In my opinion, it´s time CBF and Ronaldo sit down and settle their differences, he´s still our best striker by far.

Speaking about the tournament, it´s crystal clear that Argentina are the big favorites, and also reading some of their players´ statements on the press you see that they want revenge from 2004 when Brazil beat their A- squad with our B squad. Now Argentina sent their A++ squad and Brazil their A-. Argentina is better than 2004 and Brazil is worse. However, in the last years Brazil´s been so dominating over the hermanos that I don´t doubt we can beat them.

For me, this Copa America is down to Brazil knocking Argentina out. If we can win the title, better, but the main goal is to beat the hermanos and increase this sweet, envious anger they have upon us.

Today I´ll try to watch some of the Bolivia match, I want to see how our Corinthians attacker Juan Carlos Arce goes in international level.

Let me introduce myself. I´m a 25 years old guy from Sao Paulo, Brazil, who loves sports, football and my team Corinthians. Despite my fanatic background, I do think that I have a broad and rational vision of the beautiful game so I´ll try to write here my thoughts. I also work with football and hope that I can provide readers with some view from inside a club, not only what press usually writes to us. Thank you for your visit :)