Already labelled the ‘new hope’ by Santos fans, the 17-year-old wonder kid, Rodrygo Silva de Goes, was a highlight of the Santos win over Uruguay’s Nacional, scoring the second goal of the 3-1 win with a sublime solo run in the club’s first win in the Libertadores this year. Becoming the youngest Brazilian ever to score in the competition, Santos fans are beyond excited about the young striker, who they feel could be the next […]
Brazil kick off their Olympic campaign on Thursday, against South Africa in Brasília. Under the stewardship of Rogerio Michale, this U-23 side (with Renato Augusto, Fernando Prass and Neymar thrown in for good measure) offers the first clean break from the turgid Dunga era. Rogerio’s squad is top heavy in terms of talent, with Grêmio’s Luan, Santos’ Gabriel Barbosa, Palmeiras’ Gabriel Jesús and Neymar all set to feature heavily. Rogerio has all but confirmed that […]
The most striking feature of the Brazil squad picked by Carlos Dunga for the Copa America was the dire lack of strikers of real quality. For sure there was still plenty of attacking flair in his selection – Philippe Coutinho, Douglas Costa, Oscar, Willian – yet once Neymar announced that he was opting to go for Olympic gold rather than the continental title, Dunga had effectively run out of top quality strikers. That the thirty […]
After three months of largely uninteresting state league football mixed in with some Copa Libertadores fun, Brazil’s national league, the Brasileirão, makes its much anticipated return this weekend. Things are much different now than they were last December when the 2015 campaign concluded. Then, Corinthians were the deserved champions and looking like the best side in the recent history of South American football. Now, Timão has seen so many of the players that made that […]
With the slog that is the Brazilian state leagues finally behind us, the eyes of the country turn to the Brasileirão. The are story-lines aplenty, with Flamengo looking to return to relevance on the pitch, a heavily weakened Corinthians seeking to win back to back titles, and plenty of teams looking likely to make a run at the title. With those in mind, let’s take a look at the best and worst case scenarios of […]
The football world’s shortest off-season comes to an end this weekend, when Brazilian clubs return to competitive action with the start of the local state leagues. Just 55 days after Corinthians were crowned Brasileirão champions, the landscape of Brazilian football is vastly different than it was on December 6th. Corinthians have seen their side raided, with players leaving to both China and Europe, while others have invested wisely, including an influx of talented Argentine players […]
Though fiscal buffoonery remains very much part of the Brasileirão’s fabric, it’s fair to say that clubs are economically stronger than they were in the early part of the 2000s (for now). Generally speaking, the league features a mesh of players at either end of their career spectrum. Rising young bucks toil alongside more mature players that have returned home from Europe (or other far flung territories), for one last graze before they are […]
Corinthians may have wrapped up the 2015 Brasileirão title with three matches to spare, but that doesn’t mean the conclusion to the Brazilian football season will lack excitement. The relegation scrap is poised to be thoroughly entertaining, with 5 teams fighting for just 2 spots to avoid the dreaded drop to Série B. However, if not so great footballing sides fighting to avoid relegation mainly by parking the bus and hoping to poach a goal […]
By now, it is apparent that Brazil’s cupboard is startlingly bare when it comes to attacking talent. The situation has been obvious in the country for some time, but it took the world a little while longer to catch on. The band aid of Neymar allowed the rest of the footballing world to blithely assume that the country was continuing its conveyor belt of jogo bonito action dolls. The stereotypes prevailed and were able to […]
A few months ago a website wanted to pay me good money to go to Santos and write a profile piece on the team’s young striker Gabriel ‘Gabigol’ Barbosa. And I ended up talking myself out of a lucrative commission. The idea started to lose appeal when he did little of note at the start of the year in the South American Under-20 Championships. And it died a death when he was not even selected […]