Very quick turnaround for Sport who won 3-0 at Coritiba on Monday evening, ahead of which I wrote .............

My notes in Brazil often focus heavily on how strong traditionally home form is (almost always running at 52-56%) and how very gruelling the schedule can be and when we are playing midweek games, the need for the lesser teams to pick their battles and opt for which games to focus on and others where they can perhaps allow focus to slide a little if things do not go their way through the early exchanges.

Today, I feel that we will see a Coritiba side who are unbeaten at home (3-3-0) looking to return to early season form (see notes below) after losing their way in recent starts, including three draws here in Curitiba, which is a long way South, some 3,000km, of Recife. The hosts play three of four on the road after this, including away to a bouyant Avai, who are in tremendous form, on Thursday. Coritiba have draw three straight home games, one was against leaders Corinthians (10-2-0) for the season, so that has to be seen as a good result, in the last they were 2-1 up against Vasco da Gama before conceding in injury time and had played pretty well in that game. Their road form has been about what you would expect, losing some very tough fixtures.

Sport are usually amongst the stronger home teams and for them it will be mostly about the visit from Chapecoense in midweek, they have "overachieved" in recent road starts taking four points from trips to AMG and Santos, but still have just a 14% win rate on the road in the last three years. They have been far more attack minded under Vanderlei Luxemburgo who took charge six weeks ago and that should give Coritiba a little more space than they are used to at home. The hosts can call upon top scorer Kleber, who is awaiting/contesting a suspension and have named an attacking squad for today, their hand might have been forced there as they are a little short handed defensively, with central defender Werley (played every minute this year) and holding duo Alan Santos and Jonas all missing. Coritiba have conceded in 6 of the last 7 home games that Werley has missed, giving up two goals in three and with him out and lacking quality protection in front of the backline, they look vulnerable defensively. Sport have scored eight goals in their last six trips to Curitiba and I favour them to keep that trend going, but to most likely lose, either way, best value for me is the "over". 

All three Serie A meetings between these two in Recife have gone "over", with Sport winning each (5-1 last season).

Atletico Goianiense have already lost four times at home and bottom of the table and seven points from safety will have to gamble and that will allow AMG more space than they are used to. I felt that AMG were very unfortunate not to defeat Santos (both teams missed penalties), some of their build up play, especially in the first half was at a very high level, quick and imaginative and something similar today can surely only end with three points. Away win.