I’ll give credit to Ponte Preta — they came to win. They got three corners by the fifth minute and they never let up, even after they went a man down in the second half. So hats off to Ponte for their attacking football; unfortunately, our future opponents won’t be so keen to try it after looking at the scoreline here.

Our lethal quartet was on the pitch together for the first time — Dentinho and Herrera up front, Douglas and Morais in midfield — but it was center-back Chicão who bagged the first goal. Was it a free kick? A penalty? Maybe a header from a corner? No, our defender ran into the opponent’s box and scored like a classic poacher, after André Santos and Herrera failed to do the job. This is Chicão’s seventh goal of the season, making him one of our five major goalscorers:

The second half got off to a promising start when Ponte Preta defender Gum was sent off for dissent after committing a mere yellow-card foul. This was a gift to Corinthians, but also to every sportswriter in Brazil who was looking for an easy Tropa de Elite reference. (To prepare for this game, Ponte Preta gave their players a motivational speech from a former captain of BOPE, Rio’s elite police unit.)

It was mostly one-way traffic after the red card, but Ponte’s excellent goalie Aranha (one of the stars from this year’s Campeonato Paulista) kept the game at 1-0 until the dying moments. Two plays from Herrera sealed our victory. In the 88th minute, he popped the ball across to Morais, who scored the “easiest” goal of his career and his first for Corinthians. Three minutes later, Herrera sent the exact same cross to Douglas, who made it 3-0 at the final whistle.

Full highlights:

With this win, Corinthians is up to 58 points. Thanks to some surprising results — Avaí and Santo André both drew, and Vila Nova blew a 3-1 lead to lose 4-3 at Juventude — we’re now 11 points ahead of second place, and 13 points ahead of fifth place. Our year in purgatory is quickly coming to an end…

 • Next up — Fifth-place Bragantino is our opponent tomorrow night, and it’s probably going to suck. It’s never a good sign when the players openly say that before a game, and sadly, they’re right. Expect to see “mad dog” Moradei and friends park the team bus in front of their goal and try to man-mark us to sleep.

Mano keeps telling the guys to settle these games sooner and stop making the endings so dramatic. As much as all good corintianos love to suffer, I hope they listen to him tomorrow, because an early goal is the only thing that will make the game watchable. At least that’s what I’m afraid of.

That’s how I had to watch this miserable little game. Then, to top it off, Wordpress ate the first draft of my write-up. Bad news all around.

Not that I’m surprised. Despite all the hype about how soon we could get promoted, not to mention the purple kits we wore, we went to Brasília without a lot of key players. In particular, we didn’t have our midfield maestro, Douglas, who was suspended.

Our team doesn’t have a lethal number 9, so our attack depends on the space opened up by our numerous playmaking options; that’s why Morais has made such a difference without even scoring any goals. But you don’t have playmaking options without a playmaker. Without Douglas’s vision and creativity, Brasiliense was able to mark us hard, keep the space from appearing, and just wait to pick up our missed passes.

And how many passes did we miss?!? Carlos Alberto — playing defensive mid in place of Fabinho and Nilton, both injured — can run and fight like hell to get the ball, but he’s amazingly good at giving it away. One minute into the second half, he handed the ball to Marcinho right outside our area, and Brasiliense went up 1-0. Fortunately, our lads had an immediate response. Morais ran up the right and made a 16-meter backpass for Elias’s attractive equalizer (below the fold):

Five minutes of action decided the game. And the Corinthians fans in Brasília were spectacular, putting on more of a show than the team itself. Otherwise, a dull match (full highlights here)… a match I’m sure we’ll forget about once Douglas, Alessando, and Dentinho come back on Saturday.

Other news:

 • Futebol feminina: Our women’s side continues to tear through the Campeonato Paulista. Cristiane scored two on Monday night, in a 3-1 win over São Bernardo:

 • Signings, and agent drama: Corinthians has signed a number of new players in the last couple weeks. And (what else is new) there’s some controversy about the role that agent Carlos Leite has been playing in the team lately. Expect some upcoming posts about the latest news at Parque São Jorge.

This is the kind of game that wins hearts and minds, that shows you what a team and its supporters are really about. Corinthians is about struggle, on and off the pitch, and every soul in that packed stadium did their part in this hard-fought victory.

Just look at the bare facts: two red cards, eight yellow cards, 11 total minutes of stoppage time, a missed penalty, a penalty that the referee marked and then took back, a bloody head-butt, and finally, in the 94th minute, the winning goal from (who else?) André Santos.

Thanks to Santo André and Vila Nova, who both lost on the road, we now have a record-breaking lead in the second division. We’re up to 54 points, nine more than second-place Avaí (who also won a dramatic game at home), and 15 points ahead of fifth-place Barueri.

The game started out pretty cagey, with Felipe making a few sloppy saves, but the real drama started 22 minutes in.

Herrera was fouled by Duílio on his way into the box, and both the referee and the linesman marked a penalty. Barueri players insisted the foul was outside the area (which it was). Cue five minutes of bickering while the ref talked to the linesman, the fourth official, the players, the coaches, maybe called up his mom to get her opinion, I don’t know.

Eventually he took back the penalty, gave a free kick outside the box and sent off Duílio, who was the last man when he committed the foul.

Before the red card, we had most of the game. Afterwards, we never let Barueri see the color of the ball. I don’t know the exact possession we had, but it must have been close to the 92% that Barcelona had earlier in the day.

The star of most of this action was Renê, Barueri’s goalie, who is a Corinthians supporter but worked some absolute miracles to keep his favorite team from scoring. Just in the first half, he blocked two close shots from Lulinha, like this:

and a long-distance rocket from André Santos:

Also, Herrera hit the crossbar, and in the last few minutes Nilton, with his typical grace and subtlety, nearly took a player’s head off while challenging an aerial ball. (There’s no video of that; they were washing blood off the guy’s head with a hose.)

Mano turned the screws in the second half with his substitutions, although I wouldn’t have taken out Lulinha, who was having a good game. The onslaught never stopped, and 17 minutes in we won a penalty — this time the referee didn’t change his mind, and the offending player got his second yellow and his marching orders. But of course, this is Corinthians, so nothing is easy; Renê saved Chicão’s penalty shot:

With a two-man advantage, Corinthians created chances at will, but were thwarted by Renê and by poor finishing. It wasn’t until the last play of the game, 49:06 in the second half, that the fusillade finally hit the target, with yet another spectacular goal from André Santos:

That’s four goals in four games from the left back, each more beautiful and important than the last. You can see the match’s full highlights here.

A fantastic game, won in the Corinthians style. The kind of game that makes little kids fall in love with the team and come back to Pacaembu again and again, to be part of this great nation of fans:

After the game, Débora Miranda turned on her radio and heard Renê, the goalie who stifled our pressure for over 90 minutes, admitting, “I’m a Corinthians fan, I love this team.” Who can blame him?

Fortaleza put up more of a fight than Gama or ABC, but they didn’t fare much better, as Corinthians brought home an easy 3-1 win. Chicão converted a penalty and Preto scored a comedy own goal to make it 2-0 at halftime; Bambam came off the bench in the second half to score for the hosts, before André Santos nailed the coffin lid shut with a magnificent goal.

With this result, we’re now seven points clear of the second-place team, Vila Nova, and 12 points ahead of fifth-place Barueri. All eyes are on the first division now, and the press is already calling up mathematicians to predict how soon we’ll be promoted.

Highlights and thoughts…

 • First, André Santos. Take off your hat and bow, my friend, that’s two beautiful goals in two games. Our left-back is back, with the form that had European scouts sniffing around a few months ago. I almost wonder if Mano told him to disappear for the summer, just to shake off the foreign suitors. (Globo noticed the timing, too.)

 • The stray goal syndrome — As usual, we’re our own worst enemy. The guys played well — not the full-court press of the last two games, but the smart, conservative football you’d expect from an away game in muggy northeast Brazil. They earned two goals, with a little help from Fortaleza’s defenders, and then… kind of went to sleep for a while. If you’ve seen Corinthians at all this year, you know what I’m talking about: the stray goal syndrome.

It’s the “1″ in all the 3-1 and 4-1 games we’ve played. Worse, it’s the “1″ in all the 1-1 games we’ve played. And, of course, it was a stray goal that ultimately snatched the Copa do Brasil from our hands.

This time, at least, we woke back up. Careca came on for Bebeto, a couple minutes later he set up André Santos’s golaço, and we lived happily ever after. Still, too close for comfort, for a while there.

Full highlights:

While I’m at it…

 • Silly names — Brazil’s Série B is the first division when it comes to truly silly names. In the last three games, we’ve faced Rodrigo Ninja, Ben-Hur, and Bambam. And fans of vintage cinema may be surprised to see Allan Dellon lacing up for Brasiliense, but club officials assure me that he is not, in fact, the 72-year-old French actor.

 • Perdigão — I think he’s only on the squad so he can squeeze into every celebration shot. (And I do mean “squeeze.”) They should just put him in a musketeer outfit and make him the official mascot.

 • Classification calculations — The mathematicians are saying we could be promoted in four rounds. Mano and I don’t get too worried about these things, but you’re welcome to take out your calculators:

That’s all for now. Next game’s on Saturday, at home against Grêmio Barueri. Have a great week and leave lots of comments =)

As far as I know, this is the first-ever Corinthians blog in English. Hopefully I can do justice to the fine blogs from Brazil, like Edson & Co. over at Blog do Timão and Débora Miranda at Globoesporte.

Over time, I’m going to write posts about the history, politics, and passion of o Timão, but for now let’s get right to business:

Corinthians 4 x 0 ABC

‘Cos you can’t argue with success. (Highlights below the jump.)

Yes, on Saturday Corinthians continued to play champagne football (well, “champagne” for the Brazilian second division — maybe Champale football?). We put four past ABC, who flew some 1,800 miles for the privilege. Check out the goals (the third is a true work of art):

(Globo’s full highlights reel is here, although it leaves out the first two goals.)

Gorgeous, gorgeous stuff. In this game and the 5-0 whipping we gave Gama last week, the team rediscovered the rampant, attacking style that we had back in May/June.

What happened? Well, I’ll admit we’ve been playing crap teams. No getting around that. But América-RN and CRB are even worse, and we struggled to beat them. Something changed in the last two weeks. Roger at BT thinks Gama’s green kit might have gotten the lads’ blood flowing.

Whatever the reason, the midfield has woken up. We’re almost playing a kind of total football, with a swarm of attacking players who can drop back or surge forward as needed. The heart of it is Elias, Douglas, and Morais, who feed each other sugar-coated passes in limitless combinations.

Add in our two fullbacks, plus Herrera, who missed some truly embarrassing chances but made up for it with two pretty assists. Hell, even Lulinha won us a penalty. The numbers are impressive: nine goals in two games, from six different players. And only two of those goals were from strikers.

Of course, this is exactly the kind of enthusiasm that Mano always warns against. And he’s right, there’s no time for complacency. Every team in the second division is dying to scrape points off of Corinthians, and a lot of them already have. Against better opposition we can’t afford to miss shots like this. We could still use a proper center-forward for the games where we’re not blessed without about 1,400 chances, and I’m not sure where Dentinho’s going to fit in when he comes back.

But, for now, I like what I see. Sometimes you just need a couple easy games at home to get your confidence back. If we can keep this football flowing at the Castelão on Saturday, I think the next few months will be happy ones for the nação corinthiana.