FLAMENGO PLAY A BALANCED GAME, BUT LOSE TO FORTALEZA AT MARACANÃ

This Thursday night belonged to Flamengo at Maracanã. Coach Tite's men had the mission of beating Fortaleza and continuing in the isolated leadership of the Brazilian Championship. Therefore, the red and black team ended up defeated in the confrontation. In a balanced match, the Gávea team ended up defeated 2x1 and saw Palmeiras take the lead in the Championship with 33 points.

The match started with a very intense pace, with both teams making good use of the opposing weaknesses to attack. Flamengo faced danger from aerial balls and tried to occupy more of the offensive field, while Tricolor explored the back of the defense a lot, in a reactive proposal. But the first goal of the game ended up coming from a set piece, from a corner kick by Fortaleza, which Flamengo's Wesley deflected into his own goal. Tite's team continued with the strategy of working from foot to foot in the attacking field, but began to be more aggressive, especially when Matheus Gonçalves took command of the attack, distributing balls or risking dribbling to break the strong pressing. The red-black goal resulted in Pedro's shot against the crossbar and was consolidated when the attacker suffered a penalty, which he converted to equalize. Flamengo continued at a strong pace until the end of the first half, while the Fortaleza team had difficulty recovering the momentum of the opening minutes of the game.

However, in the second half, Fortaleza came back better at the beginning of the game. stage. It was more dangerous and Flamengo tried its moves without much effect. With that, in the 17th minute, Lucero takes the ball in defense and passes it deep to Pochettino. The midfielder advances on the left side of the attack and crosses back to Lucero at the edge of the Flamengo area. There, the attacker doesn't forgive and hits the corner to put Tricolor back in front of the scoreboard. The goal made Tite make changes to the team, where he replaced Gabigol in Allan's place, so Fla had two attackers again and the volume of the game increased, including the tricolor goalkeeper making two good saves. The game continued and at 43 minutes, the red and black finally scored the equalizer and with it, Gabigol. However, the number 99's goal was disallowed for offside, after VAR analysis. The match continued and ended up 2-1 for the Cearense team.

With the result, Flamengo has 31 points and drops to third place in the Brasileirão. This is because Botafogo is drawing with Vitória and is taking second place. Palmeiras now leads with 33 points, after beating Atlético-Go 3-1 earlier.

Flamengo's next commitment is again in the Brazilian Championship. In this sense, they face Criciúma, also at Maracanã. The match takes place next Saturday, at 4pm (Brasília time). Rubro-Negro will have the return of Arrascaeta, De La Cruz, Viña and Varela, who were serving their teams in the Copa América.