On September 15, Estadio Urbano Caldeira (Santos) will host the match of the 23rd round of the Brazilian Serie A, in which Santos will compete with Cruzeiro. The battle will start at 00:00 CET.
Santos
The club has reached the point where it is facing the question of survival in the Serie A. It goes without saying that the popular team had got some troubles before, for instance, it took only the 12th place in the previous season. Still, the team can only dream about something like that now. Nowadays, “the Peixe” has got only 21 points in 22 matches – as a result, they eventually slid to the 17th place, that is, into the relegation zone. Understanding the threat, the team tried to improve its performance, and it even won the confrontation with a strong opponent, Gremio, in August. Still, there were no new reasons for optimism, the state of things is controversial. Both previous rounds brought the defeats: moreover, they were made not only by Atletico Mineiro, which is confidently in the top 10, but the 0-2 score was also repeated in the struggle with America Mineiro, which left the last position only after that success.
Cruzeiro
The team was the national champion four times and won the previous Copa do Brasil (the sixth cup for the club) in 2018. Still, the relegation from the Brasileiro happened already in the next season, which became the first in its history! Moreover, it turned out that the former grandee was stuck in the Serie B. Only the appearance of a former trainee, Ronaldo, in the project gave an opportunity to improve the state of things. As for the previous season, “the Foxes” won that division. Moreover, they took 4 victories in the first 6 rounds of the Serie A in the spring... Nevertheless, they won only twice after that, the previous success was in early July and was followed by an unsuccessful streak, which has already reached 8 matches in a row (3 defeats and 8 draws, including a 0-0 one in the battle against with Red Bull Bragantino in the previous round). The relegation zone is quite far away – 5 points from Santos. On the other hand, if the team loses, the distance will be reduced by more than half.
The statistics of head-to-head matches
Cruzeiro won 3 times in 4 previous matches. For instance, “the Foxes”, having returned after relegation from the Serie A in 2019, achieved a successful 2-1 score in May.
Predictions
Bookmakers give a slight advantage to the hosts. Still, they, like the guests, are not impressive. Thus, we are waiting for “total: under 2.0” (odd: 1.95).
