Botafogo 1 Sao Paulo 0

There was a strange feeling around Caio Martins tonight. Maybe it was the rain that had fallen for the last three days and managed to keep the crowd down to a minimum. Or maybe it was, inspite of all the hard work over the last month, nothing had really changed. OK, at the start of play they were ahead of Flamengo by one point but still sat second from bottom of the league. They still needed something from tonight’s game just to stay in touch with those around them.

The previous two home games had been classics. Great results against two top teams although the 1-1 with Palmeiras didn’t feel like a good result at the time. Botafogo hadn’t done so well on the road and had just been beaten by the odd goal in five at Cruzeiro the previous weekend.

Already without Ruy, they had lost Luizao before Saturday’s game. Tonight they had lost even more players allowing the debut of Scheidt in the back four. With a name like that he was open to abuse but in fact he didn’t live up to his name. He was actually okay without being spectacular. He fitted into the back four well. No, the only Scheidt on the pitch was the similarly almost rudely named Schwenk. He was in as centre forward replacement for Luizao. And he was a pile of it! Cows arse and banjo spring to mind!
Only 1582 managed to make it to the ground and for a long time it looked as though Sao Paulo had only brought a taxi load of fans with them. At kick off around a hundred more came in and proceeded to bang drums and jump around and generally enjoy themselves.

The VIP section was busy. Obviously as it offered the only cover it was the wise place to be although it didn’t rain at all during the game. This section seemed particularly vocal and got on the players backs right from kick off.

Certainly the fluency from the previous two home game was missing. The whole thing was a stop start affair and some very inconsistent refereeing didn’t help. Sao Paulo disappointed. They seemed content to hold back and spoil play. Fogo were slow to start as seems to be their way but they did create a few openings. Surprisingly the nearest we got to a goal in the first half came from Sao Paulo via a wicked deflection that just missed Jefferson’s right hand upright. Estevez was one of the few that looked as though he could open things up but even he had a subdued look about him. He was a constant thorn in the SP defence but any high balls into the SP box were dealt with by the giants SP have at the back, compared to the front runners from Fogo. Valdo seemed to be having a steady game but he didn’t look as affective as previous games. He made a couple of basic mistakes that surrendered possession to SP too easily. The second best chance of the half also fell to SP. Hesitation in defence plus a good turn by Tardelli gave him a clear shooting opportunity. Unfortunately he seemed to have David Beckham’s boots on and put the ball a mile over the bar. The referee flashed several yellow cards, which in turn lead to a second yellow card for Sao Paulo’s Flavio on 44 minutes. This could be the catalyst Fogo were looking for in the second half.

The news during half time that Flamengo had won 1-0 at Guarani wouldn’t have been welcome. As things stood Botafogo were back at the bottom of the pile.
Valdo was, somewhat surprisingly, replaced at half time by Teti. The move appeared to work as it gave Fogo more pace going forward. They suddenly looked like a team that wanted to score. Unfortunately most of the chances fell to Schwenk and the feeling is if the game lasted 4 hours he wouldn’t score. He was given a great chance when he went one on one with the keeper. The best you can say was the keeper made a great reaction save but in reality Schwenk actually put the ball at a perfect height for the keeper to get his hands to. A good striker would not miss those chances. Schwenk followed it up a few minutes later with a thundering cross-shot that missed the target by a long way. It just wasn’t going to happen. I just hope he wasn’t planning to visit a brothel on the way home as rejection can be painful! Fogo had the ball in the net when Estevez, who was more subdued in the second half, crossed into the box and Teti miss hit it back across the keeper and into the goal. The ref had already blow as Teti had clearly pulled the defender out of the way before he ‘scored’.

The frustration was mounting and it was apparent Galvao doesn’t have the depth of squad to make any big changes. Those that came on as subs replaced like for like and made no tactical difference. Sao Paolo also made a spate of substitutions but this was a case of keeping what they had. The final throw of the dice was when the hapless Schwenk was replaced by Glaucio and put us out of our misery with 10 minutes to go.
9 minutes later, Glaucio rose like a salmon out of the water to meet a great cross by Tulio, and put the ball beyond the stranded keeper and into the corner of the net. It was superb header but perhaps they deserved it, especially as they were cruelly robed of two points last time around. The forth official held aloft the board showing two added minutes. Time enough for Sao Paulo to launch an attack but it came to nothing.
For most of the 90 minutes it looked like a 0-0 but no doubt it will go down as an inspired substitution by Galvao. Maybe Glaucio will get his chance ahead of Schwenk next time out if Luizao is still out. Hopefully Ruy and the rest will be available again soon as Fogo enter a spell of games against teams in the lower regions of the table, including a real six pointer against Flamengo at the Maracana. It’s essential Fogo take points from these games as they are fast approaching the half way point of the season and they have to climb out of the bottom positions before the games run out.

They had done well in the last home games against top teams and this was the last “tough” before a spate of games against lower teams game