Brasileirão 2007
The Brazilian national championship began on Saturday with Champions Sao Paulo favourites to defend their title and gain its fifth crown, matching Flamengo’s record.
This season twenty clubs from around the country take part, with the top four qualifying for next year’s Copa Libertadores and the last four relegated to the second division.
“Sao Paulo today has the best squad of all the teams in (Sao Paulo) state,” former Corinthians and Brazil national team hero Socrates wrote Thursday in the Estado de S. Paulo newspaper.
The last three national champions are “paulistas” – Sao Paulo, Corinthians and Santos – and the state’s teams are again at the front of the pack.
Santos, national champion in 2004 and 2002, is riding high after its dramatic win in the Sao Paulo state championship over Sao Caetano last week. Coached by former Brazil and Real Madrid manager Vanderlei Luxemburgo, the team came back from a 2-0 loss in the opener to win 2-0 and take the prestigious title because of a better league finish.
Corinthians, which signed a lucrative deal with the British group Media Sports Investment in 2005, has struggled since Argentine stars Tevez and Javier Mascherano left to join English Premier League club West Ham. New coach Paulo Cesar Carpegiani was hired to regroup the four-time national champions.
“Carpegiani’s problem is the group he has to work with is very poor,” Socrates said. “It will be hard to do anything with the players he has now.”
Palmeiras, another four-time champion, also is a question mark.
The team finished 16th last year – 34 points behind champion Sao Paulo -and failed to reach the semifinals of the state tournament.
Former striker Edmundo, 36, may be playing his last season, and fans are pinning their hopes on Chilean all-star playmaker Jorge Valdivia.
Foreign players could be a factor in this year’s tournament.
Long “exporters” of soccer talent, 11 of the 20 first-division clubs have non-Brazilian players – the vast majority from fellow South America countries such as Argentina, Paraguay, Chile, Uruguay and Colombia.
Rio clubs are grappling with a financial crisis, and none are considered top contenders. Flamengo – champion in 1980, ’82, ’83, ’87 and ’92 – won the Rio de Janeiro state tournament but has no well-known players and finished 11th last year. This year probably won’t be much different – it was this week by Uruguay’s Defensor Sporting from the Copa Libertadores.
The last Rio club to win the national title was Vasco da Gama in 2000. The team features Argentines Dario Conca and Emiliano Dudar but failed to qualify for the finals of the state tournament this year.
Gremio and Internacional, from the southern city of Porto Alegre, and Cruzeiro, the 2003 champion from Belo Horizonte, are considered possible outside contenders.
