For those who tuned in, it was another round of unmissable Novella-like drama in the Brasilerão.
Viver a Vida is Brazil’s most popular Novella, and last week one of the main characters was plunged down a steep slope inside a bus. She survived, but only just - of course - and in a seemless piece of life imitating art, round 34 of the Brasilerão saw Palmeiras’ title chances plunge down a similarly steep slope. Their title chances are still alive, but only just - of course.
With São Paulo registering a point away to Grêmio in the early match of the round, Palmeiras needed just a draw to re-take top spot, but all they could manage was a dougnut - going down 1-0 at the Maracanã in the latest instalment of Fluminense’s plucky attempt to avoid what had looked to be certain relegation. As such the Alviverde are now officially the “former” leaders of the Brasilerão, having relinquished their advantage at the top of the table for the first time in 20 rounds of football stretching back over three months.
Not that their defeat came without controversy. Of all the beautiful random things that clearly mark the Brasilerão as league football from the unsanitised old school, there are some things that will be familiar to fans of pretty much every other league in the world – namely, the sometimes questionable standard of refereeing.
The twists and turns of the race for the Brasilerão have been thoroughly engrossing, but even by those unpredictable standards the “highlight” of round 34 was the altogether unusual performance of referee Carlos Eugênio Simon in the defeat of Palmeiras’ against the revitalised Fluminense in Rio de Janeiro.
First, some background on Mr Simon. The 44-year-old journalist is Brazil’s most experienced official, has already officiated at the 2002 and 2006 World Cups and was shortlisted by FIFA in October 2008 to complete a hat-trick next summer in South Africa.
As we all know, a FIFA badge is no guarantee of refereeing quality, and so we move to his Maracanã rap sheet…
Interestingly, it all started so well for Simon, with the balding official taking careful note of Rio’s sweltering 37-degree temperature to call an unusual - but no doubt welcome - temporary halt to proceedings 22 minutes into the first half so all the players and officials could take on refreshments.
That’s where the sanity ended however.
Less than 10 minutes later, the game’s most controversial moment occurred when Palmeiras striker Obina appeared to have headed home the opening goal. It was immediately ruled out by Simon who from less than 10 metres away had spotted some pulling by the Palmeiras attacker. His call was met with even more animated protests than usual and the slow motion replay clearly showed why.
Far from being the offender, Obina had been not inconspicuously man-handled by Fluminense’s Maicon – the finale of which included an almost full headlock, before Obina broke free to head the ball home. In normal circumstances he’d have had a cast-iron case for a penalty, let alone the goal, but Simon confidently waved away the protests and displayed a shirt-pulling motion, presumably an imaginary one.
Simon later went on to wave away a Palmeiras penalty call for a very similar arm around the chest of the attacker. He rounded off his afternoon by “missing” a headbutt on Palmeiras midfielder Sandro Silva before ordering the player off the pitch to clean up the blood that was oozing from the resultant wound.
In between all the drama Fluminense’s talisman Fred scored the only goal of the game, a 59th-minute header, to give the 2008 Copa Libertadores runners-up another crucial win in their bid for top-flight survival. Rumours of Simon having an illegal “São Paulo-champions and Fluminense-to stay up” double are still unfounded…
With São Paulo happily watching events at the Maracanã with their feet up, the other big title race winners of round 34 were Flu’s Rio neighbours Flamengo. They claimed a 3-1 away win over Atlético-MG and leapfrogged their fellow title hopefuls into third spot.
As of writing, the top four are covered by a single victory and the next two teams, Cruzeiro and Internacional, are just two and three points further adrift respectively.
Palmeiras have the early game of round 35, taking on bottom of the table Sport at home where anything less than a win would be too painful for the fans to imagine. Let’s hope there are no close penalty calls.
The top
São Paulo - 59
Palmeiras - 58
Flamengo - 57
Atlético-MG - 56