How long has it been?

By: Socratinho | October 25th, 2009

id_41884_jogo3

Due to school, midterms, and life I haven’t been able to keep up with my duties as the Santos FC blogger. In this moment of respite I can finally resume my duties. A recap and a preview of today’s game after the jump.

First of all congratulations must go out the Santos Women’s team who won the inaugural Copa Libertadores Femenino. They beat Universidad Autónoma 9×0 in the final. Throughout the competition the team scored 47 goals in total. Quite an impressive haul. Unfortunately Marta and Cristiane will be leaving the team at the end of year to return to the WPS. However, before they do they seem to be on track to winning the Female Copa do Brasil. Again, parabéns!

On international duty Ganso losses the U20 World Cup final on penalties to Ghana. While he has returned to the team Neymar is now off with the U17’s at the U17 World Cup. He scored yesterday in a 3×2 win. Catch the higlights of his goal. It looks strangely like Péle’s famous fake, except Neymar scored.

Now on to more pressing matters.
So the results since I last posted.

Atlético Mineiro 2×1 Santos
Santos 1×3 Palmeiras
Sport Recife 0×1 Santos
Santos 0×0 Vitória
Gremio Barueri 0×0 Santos

As you can see it hasn’t been very good for the past five games. The good thing is São Paulo have been equally lackluster. They haven’t won in their past five games.

Today we face São Paulo in the derby dubbed San-São. It’s a home game at the Vila Belmiro with huge title ramifications for São Paulo. We need to win this to return to the Copa Sudamericana spots.

Bad news first. One of our best players in George Lucas is injured which means that our weak wingback positions will be looking even more susceptible. Eli Sabiá and Kléber Pereira are suspended. They will be replaced by Adailton and André respectively. Injured players are Fábio Costa Fabão, and Maikon Leite.

The good news is that Madson and Ganso will start. Jean is also in the squad for the first time since he was bought over two months ago. I’m not sure if that news is good or bad.

Here’s the squad for the game:

Goleiros: Felipe, Sérgio

Zagueiros: Adailton, André Astorga, Rafael Caldeira

Laterais: Léo, Luizinho, Pará, Triguinho

Volantes: Germano, Rodrigo Mancha, Rodrigo Souto

Meias: Madson, Paulo Henrique Lima, Robson

Atacantes: André, Felipe Azevedo, Jean, Gil

Likely team and lineup: 4-4-2: Felipe-Pará, Astorga, Adailton, Léo-Azevedo, Souto, Germano, Paulo Henrique Lima-Madson, André

Rafael Caldeira is a call up from the youth team to compensate for our lack of fit defenders.

This is a winnable game for us. Let’s do this.