APR 1 BOTAFOGO 1

Courtesy of Vasco's shock win over APR the week before, the probable champions had seen the title snatched from them by a hungry Santos side; now APR's only chance was to beat relegation-threatened Fogo and hope for a Santos slip aginst their own recent conquerors Vasco. The challenge for Fogo was even more demanding for a team that had gone through the trauma of relegation in 2002.

Fogo's personnel were largely the same as the Corinthians game - the returnees were Ruy and Fernando who had incurred untimely suspensions - but the team was largely unrecognisable in the way it played. In front of a capacity Arebna da Baixada crowd Fogo looked the more confident outfit from the start.

As Valdo observed in the intense weeklong build-up to the game, this would be the game of their lives for many of Fogo's players and all of them were determined not to have their names etched ingloriously in the club's annals for taking the team back to Serie B. The 40 year-old midfielder himself was unable to rate the game so highly, having played for may of Brazil's top clubs as well as having sparkling career at Benfica and PSG that helped him gain 45 caps, including starting place in all of Brazil's 1990 World Cup games. But he did maintain all season that Fogo would not go down and stuck to the same line when unbelievably shifted to the subs bench under Mauro Galvao.

In a curious role reversal APR looked more nervous and less dangerous - on an afternoon when a complementary activity was following the elsewhere scores on the radio the Furacao seemed to lose heart when news filtered through that Santos had opened the scoring in Rio Preto - a second for the santistas helped to erode the self-belief of the 2001 champions.

Fogo were managing to snaffle out most of APR's attacks and the marking meant that Brazil's leading scorer Washington was often reduiced to individual runs - on the occasions that they did break through midfield Fogo's defensive cover averted the danger.

If things were going to plan in Curitiba elsewhere results were complicating things for Fogo - Criciuma's lead over Coritiba would mean Fogo being relegated. Amazingly Fogo took the lead after 24 minutes of the second half when Ricardinho evaded a tackle and crossed from the by-line for an ecstatic Schenck to score. A figure of fun in his first few games, the ever-willing centre-forward finished the season with some crucial goals to his credit.

This result would leave Fogo safe whatever the permutation of results elsewhere, but ironically APR chose this stage of the game to start playing, buoyed by the news that Vasco had pulled a goal back to make it 2-1 to Santos. In a hectic last 15 minutes Washington headed a APR equaliser to the delight of the red-and-black faithful, but as Coritiba finished on level terms with Criciuma a draw was good enough for Fogo. Unlike some previous games this season - Palmeiras in Sao Paulo and Vitoria in Juiz da Fora - Fogo managed to close the game down, knocking the ball around and running the clock down.

After a 46 game marathon Fogo 's players made the most of this moment; utter relief at last-day redemption. No surprise either that Valdo, who had an outstanding game controlling the pace of Fogo's passing game, was carried on the shoulders of the celebrating Fogo players. Not a bad way to end an exemplary career.

The Magnificent Eleven - (14 including subs) who saved Fogo: Jefferson, Ruy, Gustavo, Scheidt, Jorginho Paulista, Fernando, Tulio, Valdo, Caio(Ricardinho), Schwenck (Thiago Xavier), Alex Alves (Almir)