Goias vs Cruzeiro (Serie A, Brazil)

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Goias finally gets back to their home site, but despite them annually having been a strong home team (in part because of them having the largest home pitch and the climate up North, esp. during summer, taking a toll on visiting teams late in the game) and their decent home recored of 6-4-5 this season, I doubt that it will really change anything: Goias is just a mess right now and has been for weeks, their last 3 home games ended with them winning one and losing twice, incl. a 2-3 loss vs bottom team Figueirense despite Goias being awarded a penalty, being up 1-0 at halftime and Figueira playing a man down after Carlos Alberto had been sent off. And still they lost that game...
Overall they lost their last 4 and 6 out of their last 7. Looking at the results, their last 3 opponents each scored three times and in all their 6 losses their opponents scored at least 2. Only exception was the 3-0 home win vs Joinville, who are dead last in Serie A right now. Offensively, they went scoreless 2 out of their last 4, scored once in their loss at Santos and scored twice at home vs Figueirense. In that game vs Figueira they needed a penalty to score their first goal and the 2nd one was an own goal by Figueirense. All this playing 11vs10 for the whole 2nd half.
Watching these games, you could only come away shaking your head: No movement, very static & no ideas offensively, lots of space for their opponents, seemingly no real effort, after turning the ball over, very slow transitioning back to defense, especially once they were trailing....
They will have a new headcoach and some people believe that coaching changes have positive effects, but I doubt that this will be the case here: This will already be the 6th(!) coach sitting on their bench this season (it's just the 32nd game for gods sake....), so I doubt that this will spark anybody. Plus they tried hiring somebody from the outside, but all three coaches they wanted to hire, rejected their offer. So they ended up promoting their strengthening coach to headcoach. While I don't doubt that this guy is good at physically preparing his players, he has no experience whatsoever as a headcoach and with the tactical side of the game, gameplanning and such....so why should he manage to solve those tactical shortcomings of Goias players and improve their spacing/movement...
That new coach already announced that he will use a system with three forwards/strikers, a very offensive strategy. With the current state of Goias, conceding 9 goals in the last 3 games, that seems like the worst possible idea. Even more so since Cruzeiro has been on a roll lately and technically is one of the better teams in Serie A. Their chemistry is great, they have used more or less the same formation for several games and their quick shortpassing game is clicking: Last 6 games, they scored twice 5times. Last 10 games they are 5-4-1, only losing once. Give them some room and they will take advantage and make you pay for it.
Last but not least, teams have changed and Cruzeiro is far from being the great team that won the last two championships in Brazil, but Cruzeiro won both games vs Goias in 2013, 2014 and the 1st leg this season and Goias is far inferior this year too....
 

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S/12..........nicely done, went with you on this (should have on Sat).........continued success.........indy
 

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