Brazil: Serie A: Coritiba- Santa Cruz

Motivation for Coritiba is obvious, they are four points above the drop zone, with four rounds left to play and travel to the team in 3rd on Sunday, they probably need 4-6 points to confirm safety and this look perfect to claim three.



Santa Cruz are12 from safety and with a terrible goal difference, so are effectively relegated.



America are in good form and have taken eight points from an unbeaten run of four games, but they do remain 12 points behind Coritiba and safety. Obviously they could close that gap to nine tonight and will surely have to look for the win now that we are about to enter the final quarter of the campaign, especially as next up they have Palmeiras, Atletico MG and Corinthians, the leaders at home and the other two on the road, which is about as tough a trio of games as you could face.



Coritiba are in trouble themselves, but are strong at home (6-5-2) and seasoned relegation battlers, who are in a 5th straight relegation campaign and always seem to come on strong at this time of year. Last year they were bottom with 4 rounds left to play and survived, in 2014 bottom after 29 rounds, still bottom 4 after 32 and survived by nine points ! In 2013 they were in the drop zone on the final day and in 2012 one spot above after 28 rounds and survived by 7 points........you get the picture ! They will not panic, are confident they will get the job done and will have been greedily eyeing up this three points for many weeks. Coritiba are also in the last 8 of the Copa Sudamericana and could really give that a go and if they got a good points tally from their next four league games.



Coritiba beat 4th placed AMG 2-0 here ten days ago and on a going day, at home, are very tough to beat and we have spoken of them before as proven relegation battlers and they have the potential to "cut loose" against almost anyone as host, ahead of a visit from the America MG last month I wrote ...........

Weather here in Curitiba was a bit of a shock for America, with the windchill it was about 15 degrees cooler than balmy Belo Horizonte and they described it as "intensely cold" in training yesterday. The visitors are still to win on the road, where they have conceded a shade less than two goals per game and I have to favour Coritiba who received a boost with the return to the squad of midfielder Raphael Veiga and key central defender Luccas Claro. When Claro plays, they have lost just 4 of 19 , which rises to six in eight when he is sidelined, an increase in the loss rate of 54%, with the points per game return dropping by 1.03 per game, massive numbers, especially for a bottom 5 team. Home win and Coritiba can run riot here occasionally............hopefu lly today !

