champion light

Chapter 133 The end of the regular season

The format of the Brazilian National Championship this season is the regular season plus playoffs.

After 26 rounds of single rounds, 25 teams from all continents of Brazil will decide the final regular season rankings.

Regular season standings don't determine anything, except playoff matches.

The bottom four of the regular season will be relegated directly, while the top eight will enter the playoffs and compete against each other.

The eight teams participating in the playoffs will play against each other according to their rankings in the regular season, No.1 against No.8, No.2 against No.7, and so on for other matches.

Because the final ranking has a lot to do with the opponents in the playoffs, although Sao Paulo and San Caetano are basically sure that they can get the top four, or even the top two.But Sao Paulo still has to compete with San Caetano for No.1.

Just to meet the weaker No.8 after the first round of the playoffs.Currently ranked eighth is Coritiba.

This team, Sao Paulo, can be easily defeated 3:1 even without glory. If they meet them again in the playoffs, wouldn't that be like delivering food to your door?
As long as Sao Paulo gets No.1 in the regular season, it is equivalent to advancing to the semi-finals in advance.

San Caetano is also planning this.

So the two teams desperately wanted the first place in the whole, but fortunately they ran into a belly in the first round of the playoffs.

※※※

In the second round of No.20, Sao Paulo had a bye, and they did not rest, but continued to train.It has reached the fierce stage of the competition, and they have just taken advantage of the opportunity of three consecutive victories to put San Caetano under them. At this time, it is natural to go all out and completely shake off their opponents.

So when other teams were playing, the Sao Paulo team did not take a break, but continued to train on the Brafunda training ground.

In the second round of No.20, San Caetano was tied 1:1 by another traditional strong team Cruzeiro at home, and the points gap with Sao Paulo was widened to four points.

In the No.20 three rounds, Sao Paulo challenged the Portuguese away.

Rongguang was still active in the game, and finally completed an assist, helping the team beat the Portuguese 3:1.

Three days later, Sao Paulo beat Ponte Preta 5:2 at home. Although Rongguang did not score or assist, it still performed well and positively.

And Kaka finally completed the first hat-trick of his career in this game.

It's just that compared to Rong Guang, he is already too late...

After two games, Sao Paulo's lead has expanded to seven points.

Their advantage is growing.

The media have said that it is impossible for someone to prevent Sao Paulo from getting the first place in the regular season.

Kaka, Rongguang and Fabiano's trident coordination became more and more proficient, and the effect was getting better and better.

Fabiano is currently the top scorer with 21 goals, and Kaka is also in the top five with [-] goals.Glorious ten goals are also amazing for a rookie participating in the Brazilian National Championship for the first time.

You must know that the Sao Paulo team only scored 52 goals, and the three players of the Trident added up to 37 goals, accounting for more than two-thirds of the team's total goals.

In the fifth round of the No.20 match, Sao Paulo had another bye.

This time there was no training, and Osvaldo gave the team a day off. With the lead getting bigger and bigger, there was no need to push the team too tense. The proper relaxation was to prepare for the playoffs—he had already begun to think about the playoffs.

The vast majority of players take advantage of this rare day off.

There are only two exceptions.

In the lakeside park, Rong Guang was training under the guidance of Sun Fengyang.

Kaka also continued to build his strength and conditioning in the gym.

Sixteen goals in a single season is already Kaka's best result since his debut.

If it was normal, he might find such a performance unbelievable, thank God and praise the Lord.

But now, he is not satisfied.

Because behind him, there is a perverted rookie staring at him...

His pursuit made him dare not relax even for a minute.He must constantly improve himself, otherwise he will be caught up by the rookie and become another victim of his journey against the sky.

In this competition, both sides have been greatly improved.If Kaka hadn't been the goal, it might not have been possible for Rongguang to achieve such a result in eight months.When others are amazed at his rapid progress, how many people can think that Kaka is one of the driving forces for him to work so hard?
And if it wasn't for the glory of catching up, Kaka would definitely not be able to develop a body of muscles and enough physical fitness to cope with the intensity of European competitions before going to Europe.It was even more impossible to perform so well in the National Championships. Because of Rongguang, he didn't have the heart to think about transferring to Europe. He just wanted to prevent Rongguang from surpassing himself.

This is the "healthy competition" that Osvaldo wants to see.

※※※

After the bye, Sao Paulo ushered in another strong team Vasco da Gama at home.

But this game is no longer a battle of focus.With Sao Paulo's current lead in the regular season rankings, even if they lose to Vasco da Gama, it will not affect their ranking.

Therefore, even the reporters present in this game were much less than that kind of focus battle.

Vasco da Gama's performance is good. They were the champions of the Brazilian National Championship last season, and there are many outstanding players in the team.

But this team's performance this year is not very good.

So far, they rank No.13 in the league. If they want to compete for the top eight playoff qualifications in the league, they have to do their best in the next few rounds.

But they were defeated by Sao Paulo 5:2 away.

Such failures may explain why Vasco da Gama has had such a poor season.

Rongguang contributed an assist in this game, but it still didn't score.

Kaka scored twice and was in a hot state!
In terms of statistics, Kaka surpassed Rongguang in an all-round way. He had [-] goals and [-] assists, while Rongguang had only [-] goals and [-] assists.

But this is compared with Kaka. Compared with Kaka, Rongguang's data is not good.

But compared with other teammates, his statistics are already very good, and compared with a rookie who has only learned football for eight months, it is even more unbelievable.Not to mention that he is an attacking midfielder, not a striker, scoring goals should not have been his bounden duty.

So although Rongguang has not scored a goal, there is no criticism in public opinion.

How much better can you ask of a player who has only been in football for eight months?

But Rongguang himself can't tolerate not scoring goals all the time.

When he didn't score a goal in these few games, he seemed to see colorful banknotes flying away one by one, away from him.

There's nothing worse than seeing money fly away.

After the game against Vasco da Gama, Sao Paulo had a bye again, and Rong Guang gave up practicing "fried meatballs" and practiced shooting desperately.

He wants to improve his shooting skills.

Finally, in the next round of the home game against Victoria BA, Rongguang made a draw.

He scored a goal in the game, breaking his six-game scoring drought.

After scoring the goal, Rong Guang was very excited. He yelled at the camera: "This is a goal worth 1000 yuan!"

Of course, he shouted in his native language, Chinese, so no one could understand...

※※※

In the final round of the regular season after this game, Sao Paulo leads San Caetano by ten.

It's a sure bet.

Therefore, in the last round of the game, the main players of the first team, including Rong Guang, Kaka and others, did not participate in the game.

They get a rare two-day vacation - the day of the game and the day after the game combined.

Before the start of the playoffs, Osvaldo hopes to let these players get enough rest.

The next game is not as good as the regular season.

In the regular season, Sao Paulo can lead No.2 San Caetano by as much as ten.One reason is also very important and cannot be ignored, that is, many teams did not try their best in the regular season, as long as they can get the top eight.

Then recharge your batteries and make a full blow in the playoffs to hit the championship.

Almost every team that has qualified for the playoffs is thinking about it.

If it weren't for Sao Paulo's running-in new tactics, Osvaldo would have deliberately suppressed the team's state.Show a better state in the playoffs.

However, because of the need to adapt to the new tactics and formation, and to make the players familiar with the tactics as soon as possible, Osvaldo also let the team play-he also wanted to see how far the team could go when they played at their best.

The result made him very satisfied. As long as the team can maintain this state, Osvaldo believes that they really have great hopes of winning the national championship.It's really bad, even if you can't win the championship, you can still qualify for the Copa Libertadores.

But first of all, these players cannot be injured and should rest well.Sao Paulo's current problem is that there is a big gap in strength between the substitute and the main players. If a main player is injured, there are too few substitute players who are capable of replacing.

In order to avoid their injuries, they all sat on the sidelines in the last round of the game.

In the end, Sao Paulo, who played as a substitute, defeated Paysandu 1-0 away.

With 57 wins, 1 draws and [-] losses, with [-] points, [-] points ahead of the second-ranked San Caetano, they won No.[-] in the regular season.

They will play against the No.8 team in the first round of the playoffs.

But their opponent is not Coritiba before.

Santos and Coritiba were competing for eighth in the regular season before.

As a result, in the last round of the regular season, Santos lost 2:3 to San Caetano. The original No.8 position was lost, but their competitor Coritiba also unexpectedly lost 0:4 to Gama.In the end, Santos entered the playoffs in eighth place.

So the underdog that Sao Paulo was looking forward to was gone, replaced by Santos, a young guard who is both energetic and powerful, and is playing better this season.

(End of this chapter)