Moving in
After roughly a month at the club’s disposal, Palmeiras have finally started using the two already finished buildings of the New Arena complex – the multiuse building, containing various courts for different sports activities, and the administrative building where, as you’d suspect, all administrative sectors will be found, including the general directors. The reason for the delay in moving in is to be found in the sluggishness of the directors in defining and buying furniture and other equipment for the two buildings: just one more example of the lacking professionalism at Palmeiras.
As of now, and with Palmeiras clearing out of the old buildings, WTorre can refocus on the actual stadium, starting on a new foundation where the old indoor sports training facility used to lay and where an exhibition room – featuring Palmeiras’ trophies and other memorabilia – will be set up as an integrated part of the New Arena. On the whole, the outlook remains the same: construction completed by the second semester of 2013. WTorre informs that some 36% of the New Arena has been finished and judging by the pictures, things are indeed progressing fast now.
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Mazinho and Fernandinho in the bag
Palmeiras have confirmed the purchase of 50% of forward Mazinho and midfielder Fernandinho from Oeste. Both players arrived a few months ago as loans with contracts ending at the end of the year, but can now sign new contracts with longer durations. This is good news: Mazinho first and, as of late Fernandinho, have showed good potential and contributed positively to recent results.
Is there something rotten in the state of Denmark?
Well, at least Cesar Sampaio’s got something to think about. After last week’s defeat against Cruzeiro – where both the mineiro goals were actually invalid – Sampaio expressed concerns that there might be something factual behind all that talk about Scolari being specially roughly treated by the establishment: referees, Supreme Sports Tribunal, CBF… Sampaio seems to have realised that Palmeiras are losing an unnaturally high number of points due to polemic decisions, and not as of now: possibly also Sampaio has checked out the Placar Real (translates into “Real Score”) website. The guys behind Placar Real have taken it upon themselves to analyse all games in the Brazilian Championship since 2011, looking for tricky situations and determine whether the referee got it wrong or right. Based on these assumptions, they present “corrected” tables, suggesting what the championship could have looked like, in addition to graphs showing which teams benefits the most, the least, and which referees make the most or least mistakes. As you can see below, Palmeiras were the third most negatively influenced team in 2011. And so far in 2012, we’re heads and shoulders in front of all competition. Coincidence?
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Palmeiras vs. Internacional
Tomorrow Saturday, Palmeiras face Inter in yet another “home game” at the Barueri stadium. In the relegation zone, the three points are fundamentally important to give our men a bit of breathing space. Both Thiago Heleno and Valdivia have trained normally during the week and should be available. Henrique is out due to another suspension imposed by the STJD, this time for the red card received against São Paulo on 15 July.
Internacional are actually one of the few clubs that have a positive balance against Palmeiras, having won 31 times (Palmeiras have 24 victories) in 75 games played. Tomorrow night, Palmeiras will slightly bridge that gap.
AVANTI PALESTRA!
ANYTHING PALMEIRAS 