Santos regains third place

Santos crushed Corinthians 3-0 on Thursday, regaining third place in the standings of the Brazilian Serie A. The team benefitted from Internacional's 2-1 loss to Cruzeiro in Belo Horizonte. In the other match closing round 27 of the league, Botafogo had no mercy in giving last place Santa Cruz a 3-0 pounding in Rio de Janeiro.

After an entertaining first half in which both teams created good chances early on, Sanots had to play without captain and goalkeeper Fabio Costa since the 4th minute, when he had to leave the field injured. The team was still able to open the score in the 41st minute, on a free kick by Kleber. Corinthians' coach Emerson Leao was sent off for complaining that the free kick had been awarded unjustly. Corinthians took a more offensive approach in the second half, trying to tie the game, but was unable to solve young Felipe, who replaced Costa. Santos managed to hold on to the early lead and actually found two late goals to put the game away, with Leandro making it 2-0 in the 79th minute and Ze Roberto netting another two minutes later. The veteran player was sent off after receiving a second yellow card during his celebration of the goal.

Internacional was not able to keep pace with Sao Paulo and Gremio, and fell to fourth place in the standings after going to Belo Horizonte and losing to Cruzeiro 2-1 at the Mineirao Stadium. The locals opened the score in the 34th minute, with Wagner receiving a pass inside the box and putting the ball past Inter's goalkeeper. Ceara tied the game for the visitors in the last minute of the first half, but Ferreira pulled Cruzeiro back ahead in the 63rd minute.

Finally, Botafogo took advantage of an early goal to control Santa Cruz, finally scoring twice more in the final minutes to build a 3-0 win at the Maracana Stadium, in Rio de Janeiro. Reinaldo scored the first goal after just 8 minutes of play, with Juca (83') and Ze Roberto (89') scoring the other goals for the locals, now seven points clear of the relegation zone.