Palmeiras 1-0 Athlético Paranaense – hard nut cracked

athletico2
credits: Cesar Greco / Ag. Palmeiras

When you look back at every title campaign, there is that 1-0 victory obtained through plenty of effort in a hard-fought battle. If Palmeiras bags the 2019 Brasileirão, the game against Athlético Paranaense will be remembered as one of those games.

Athlético came to the Allianz Parque not wanting the game to flow, trying to find a winner in an isolated opportunity. However, two former Athlético players decided the game in favor of Palmeiras: Raphael Veiga, who scored the sole goal, and Weverton, who saved Palmeiras three times.

Line-up
Weverton; Marcos Rocha, Antônio Carlos, Edu Dracena, Diogo Barbosa; Felipe Melo (Thiago Santos), Bruno Henrique (Moisés) and Lucas Lima (Raphael Veiga); Zé Rafael, Dudu and Deyverson.

Felipe Melo and Zé Rafael received yellow cards.

Green light
Felipão is making history, game after game. The team he has shaped is extremely solid. Yesterday we witnessed Palmeiras’ 31st consecutive game without losing in the Brazilian Championship and the ninth consecutive victory. The 15th consecutive home victory in the Brasileirão. 

Yellow light
Aim was a little off yesterday. According to SofaScore’s stats, Palmeiras fired away 21 shots, but only three were on target, sixteen off target and two blocked by defenders. The goal came through a penalty.

Red light
Refereeing once more questionable, to put it mildly. The VAR chose to ignore the review of a handball of Paulo André that could have resulted in a penalty for Palmeiras. Also, Athletico committed 29 fouls and many tackles that could/should have rendered yellow cards were overlooked by the trio on the pitch.

Next challenge
Avaí, at the Allianz Parque, on Thursday 13 June, for the ninth round of the Brazilian Championship, the last before the Copa América break. Avaí is at the very bottom of the tables, not having yet won a single game. Anything but the three point would be a major surprise. And that’s where the peril lies, of course.

Scoppia che la vittoria è nostra!

– – – ooo – – –
by Augusto Anteghini Oazi

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