Vasco and Red Bull Bragantino face each other on the night of this Wednesday, December 6, 2023, starting at 9:30 pm Brasília in a game valid for the 38th and final round of Series A of the Brazilian Championship. The match will be played at the São Januário stadium, in Rio de Janeiro.
Vasco
The Vasco team spent the entire season fighting against the relegation zone and even though they showed remarkable progress at a certain point, they were unable to sustain their high competitive level and once again showed a drastic drop in performance until they had four consecutive rounds without winning again.
Their most recent duel took place last Sunday, when Gigante da Colina went to Porto Alegre to face Grêmio and ended up getting the worst of it by losing by the minimum score of 1-0 to the Gauchos, keeping the Rio team in a very delicate situation in search of the permanence on the national elite.
This is because only victory interests them in this decisive round, since any other result will make them dependent on Bahia stumbling in the other game of the round.
Trying to avoid another stain on the club’s history, which has already been relegated four times, the team led by Ramon Díaz will have the mission of finding its way back to winning ways in the championship even when facing a tactically better organized opponent.
However, Vasco appears as the favorite as they are most interested in a victory in this round, but their last duel at home was a 4-2 defeat to Corinthians, wasting precious points.
Only 1 win, 2 draws and 2 defeats were recorded in the last 5 times they entered the field officially during the season, beating América-MG, drawing with Cruzeiro and Athletico-PR, in addition to losing to Corinthians and also for Grêmio.
Currently, the club is in 16th place on the Brazilian Championship Series A table, with only 42 points achieved so far, one above Bahia, which opens the relegation zone to the second national division.
Playing as home team, the Vasco team recorded a campaign with 8 wins, 2 draws and 8 defeats in the 18 matches played in the Brasileirão, totaling 22 goals scored and 22 goals conceded.
RB Bragantino
Red Bull Bragantino, on the other hand, enters the field just to fulfill the schedule, considering that the São Paulo team no longer has a chance of overtaking Grêmio in the fight for the G-4 of the competition and cannot even be overtaken by Athletico-PR in the zone access to the next edition of Libertadores.
Massa Bruta had a commendable performance throughout most of the time and in the last round managed to interrupt a series of three defeats by facing Coritiba and winning at home with the minimum score of 1-0, when they still had some hope of reaching the front platoon.
Currently, the club is in sixth place on the Brasileirão classification table, with 62 points achieved so far, three less than Grêmio, who opens the G-4 of the competition, but has three victories and more and, therefore, also would have an advantage in the tiebreaker criteria if the team from the interior of São Paulo managed to equal their score.
In the 5 previous duels, only 1 victory, 1 draw and 3 defeats were recorded, beating Coritiba and drawing with Botafogo, in addition to losing to Flamengo, Internacional and also Fortaleza.
Acting as a visitor, the Red Bull Bragantino team has a record of 6 wins, 6 draws and 6 defeats in the 18 times they entered the field for the Brasileirão in this condition, totaling 20 goals scored and 19 conceded.
Conclusion:
As much as it depends only on its own strength to escape relegation, it is possible that Vasco will encounter many difficulties in this round, considering that its players have already shown themselves to be psychologically unstable on other occasions and the pressure on them in this decisive round will be enormous.
On the other hand, a Red Bull Bragantino without so much commitment to the result can act with the interesting lightness of someone who has total technical conditions to achieve at least a draw in São Januário.