Sport Today

  Otofinals, 2nd legs (away goals count):

 Santos FC (BRA) 8-0 Bolvar (La Paz-BOL)
  [Elano 7', 50', Neymar 22' (PK), 37', PH Ganso 28', 53' (FK), Alan Kardec
   30', Borges 61'; agg.: Santos 9-2]
  Elano's swerving shot from distance fooled Argello and put Santos ahead
  on away goals. Neymar added a second from the spot after Argello pushed
  Edu Dracena against a fellow defender. Ganso made it three with a cheeky
  backheel, Alan Kardec competently completed a counterattack and Neymar had
  his low slip past the 'keeper helped in by an unlucky defender, all this
  before the break. The second half started with another goal by Elano,
  assisted by Neymar, then Ganso embarrassing Argello with the placing of
  his free kick and Borges coming out of a goal drought. Nice and clean
  payback for the disgraceful crowd behaviour in Bolivia.

 Fluminense (Rio de Janeiro-BRA) 2-1 Internacional (Porto Alegre-BRA)
  [Leandro Euzbio 16', Fred 45+1' - Leandro Dami?o 14'; agg.: Flu 2-1]
  Inter started brightly, with returning Oscar receiving from Dami?o and
  returning the pass for the stiker, who surprised Cavalieri with a low shot
  from outside the box. It took very little time, though for Flu to get back
  into the game, a marginally offside Leandro Euzbio heading in a Thiago
  Neves free kick. An almost repeat play put Flu ahead, but this time Fred
  was free to head in the winner. Thiago Neves' hit of a post on a free kick
  notwithstanding, it was all Inter in the second half, but all the chances
  were missed and for the first time in seven seasons we won't win an
  international trophy.

 Universidad de Chile (Santiago-CHL) 6-0 Deportivo Quito (ECU)
  [Junior Fernandes 21', 28', Marcelo Daz 36', Eugenio Mena 57', ngelo
   Iturra 71', 74'; agg.: U de Chile 7-4]
  I didn't get to watch this one. But it's a clear illustration of how the
  altitude effects teams' performance.

  Quarterfinals:

 Boca Juniors (ARG) - Fluminense (BRA)
 Libertad (PAR) - Univ. de Chile

 Vasco da Gama (BRA) - Corinthians (BRA)
 Vlez Sarsfield (ARG) - Santos FC (BRA)

 Tchau!
 Jesus "futebol sucks" Petry

 Dates were set:

Em sexta-feira, 11 de maio de 2012 12h25min49s UTC-3, Jesus Petry  escreveu:

    [May 17 and 23]
    [May 16 and 24]
    [May 16 and 23]
    [May 17 and 24]

 Tchau!
 Jesus Petry

"Jesus Petry" escreveu:

Utter and thorough massacre. It was 8-0 with roughly 30 minutes left in the
game. The reason why Santos didn't post a record double-digit score was
simply that they didn't want to.

I'm sorry to see you fall at this stage. Still, a six-year international
success run is really impressive. No reason why you shouldn't be back really
soon.

The following day joke was that Bolvar and Deportivo were seriously hosed
by the "lowitude", particularly by Santos' "sealevelitude".

Abra?o,

Luiz Mello

"Jesus Petry" escreveu:

The quarterfinal feels about right for Vasco, considering the current squad
(on paper and performance), and the club recovery stage.

Obviously, I don't think we should act happy to be here. We can beat
Corinthians, even acknowledging our opponent is favored by a sizeable
margin. What I mean is that, IMO, we are arguably among the top-8 teams in
the field. Anything further would be somewhat of an overachievement.

And, of course, the big reward for ousting Corinthians could be a date with
Santos. So yeah, no walk in the park from here on (as it should be).

Regardless of when we fall, we need to make sure we are back next year. With
a fairly long Libertadores run under the belt, more TV money and (you'd
expect) better sponsorship deals, we should be capable of posing a stronger
challenge in 2013.

Abra?o,

Luiz Mello