The Flamengo, which won the last two editions of the Brazilian Championship, he only got a 2-2 draw in his visit this Monday to the weak Chapecoense, the bottom in the classification, and allowed the Atlético Mineiro confirmed as top favorite to beat the League this year.
The Flamengo I needed a victory at home in the city of Chapecó to add three points, regain second place in the classification and locate, with 56 points, nine units away from Mineiro, which leads the standings with 65 points after playing the 30th day of the League.
The tie, however, left him in the third place, with 54 points, eleven behind the leader and even behind Palmeiras (55), when there are only eight days left until the end of the tournament. Flamengo can still deduct three points from Mineiro because he has a game pending, which would reduce the distance to 8 integers.
But the team led by coach Renato Gaúcho was surprised by a Chapecoense already almost condemned to descend to the second division and once again questioned his ability to catch up with Mineiro.
Flamengo, who this month will face Palmeiras in the final of the Copa Libertadores and has one of the most expensive rosters in Brazil, again left doubts about his potential and suffered a new setback at a time when part of the fans demanded the dismissal of Renato Gaúcho.
The Rio de Janeiro club opened the scoring at the Arena Condá de Chapecó stadium with an annotation by Matheuzinho But, by fully attacking, he opened up spaces in defense and was surprised by Chapecoense, who came back with two goals from Kaio Nunes.
The reigning Brazilian champion completely dominated the match but he only managed to tie at the end of the first half with a goal from Michael after assistance from Gabriel Barbosa “Gabigol”.
Flamengo went on the attack the entire second half but was unable to overcome the bottom and could not even take advantage of the expulsion of the “hero” Kaio Nunes in the 13th minute of the complementary stage.
The Mineiro confirmed his favoritism on Sunday at beat America 1-0 in the classic among the teams of the city of Belo Horizonte and isolate themselves even more as leader of the League, now with ten points of advantage over their immediate guard, Palmeiras.
The absolute leader of the Brazilian Championship and finalist of the Copa do Brasil guaranteed his victory with a goal from Guilherme Arana, the winger who won the gold medal at the 2020 Tokyo Olympics.
In another of Sunday’s games, the Palmeiras won 0-2 in his visit to Santos at the Bela Belmiro stadium and moved Flamengo from second place in the standings.
Despite the fact that the team led by Portuguese coach Abel Ferreira still has a chance of winning the League title depending on the setbacks of Mineiro and yesterday they achieved their fifth consecutive victory, Palmeiras’ priority is Libertadores, whose title will play against fellow Brazilian Flamengo on November 27 in Montevideo.
The Palmeiras, current champion of the Libertadores and who dreams of retaining the title, has lined up some substitutes in his last league matches to reach the final of the continental tournament rested.
