This is Flamengo's second start since returning from the FIFA CWC where they played well enough, including a 3-1 defeat of eventual champions Chelsea (see below) and immediately hit the ground running in their homecoming game at the weekend, beating Sao Paulo 2-0 (winning TIPA's 40-10). After playing the Blues and Bayern Munich the drop off in quality of opposition must feel quite stark and they can continue to use that to their advantage and as I have long said, the really big Brazilian teams have a huge advantage in these domestic three game weeks, given the size and quality of their squads. Santos are coming off a 3-2 win at Fortaleza, but they had scored just once in six starts previously and nothing is going right for the hosts ,it also involved a 5,000km round trip up to the hot and sticky NorthEast of the country. Flamengo have won the last four h2h meetings in this stadium, scoring 10 goals and those trends can continue.

 

 

 

These two might have dodged a bullet as the temperature and humidity is expected to dip just a little in Philadelphia today for this 14:00 local time kick off. Having said that they will have been training and preparing in gruelling conditions and energy levels might not be 100%. My gut feeling is that Chelsea are too short in the betting, they should have conceded at least once to LAFC and Flamengo are much better than that, also won their opener and as I said yesterday, Brazilian teams are very well suited to a quick turnaround and playing a lot of football. Others might say the same is true of EPL teams but there are very few midweek games in the English top flight, they play in Europe too of course, but in Brazil it is relentless and often after long travel and in very different and frequently testing conditions. Flamengo also play a lot of international club football and have won two Copa Libertadores and one Copa Sudamericana titles in the last six years. We have two teams who both won their opener and face weaker teams in their final game, so a point each today would not be terrible. The six CONMEBOL are unbeaten in eight games so far, with Serie A teams a highly impressive 4-2-0 and I will go with............