Carioca Championship 2024 - Final - First Leg

After waiting some time, last Saturday we had the first leg of the Campeonato Carioca 2024 final. The favorite Flamengo completely dominated the championship’s big surprise, Nova Iguaçu, winning 3x0 on the weekend. With this result, the team from Gávea is even closer to being the champions of Rio. Let’s analyze the data of those games and talk about what they can tell us of the game.

Match Analysis

Flamengo reached the amazing mark of 12 games without suffering a goal, the biggest sequence in the club’s history. Rubro-Negro’s great defense is shown in data by the low number of Nova Iguaçu’s shots from inside the zone (only 5) and by the even lower number of Expected Goals from the club from Baixada (0.59), which shows that only a small amount of shots meant danger to Agustín Rossi. While having a great defense, Flamengo also demonstrated great offensive plays, with 3.35 Expected Goals and 3 scored (2 for Pedro, and 1 own goal).

If on one side Nova Iguaçu’s attack wasn’t efficient, lots of shots were made, being comparable to both teams’ shots/minutes with the ball. But the Gigante da Baixada offered a small amount of risks and couldn’t impose their game style against Flamengo’s defense. The ball possession is one more thing that shows how the game was played, with 60% to the Rubro-Negro and 40% to the Gigante da Baixada.

In addition to the already good numbers, Flamengo made more than 75% of its shots from inside the opponent’s box. But it was evident that the goal difference could’ve been bigger, which makes it important to say that Flamengo has less goals than Expected Goals in the last two matches. On the second leg of the semifinal, Rubro-Negro’s attack didn’t reach expectations, and against Nova Iguaçu it wasn’t different. Considering the match’s one own goal, Flamengo just scored two times, with at least 3 being expected.

Highlights

Scoring two goals, we have to mention Pedro when talking about this match. In addition to his goals, he also had two key passes and four shots. In general, Flamengo’s left side played very well, Everton Cebolinha also did well, hitting 91% of his passes and 90% completed dribbles. While in defense goalkeeper Rossi had another great match, making 6 saves -2 from inside the zone- and having 100% accuracy on passes (23 passes and 4 long balls).

Besides having few opportunities, Nova Iguaçu’s attack can be highlighted through Bill. The attacker contributed alone to almost 40% of the team’s Expected Goals, plus 5 successful dribbles and 3 key passes. Another player that we should praise is Fabricio, the goalkeeper, making 6 saves and 4 from inside the zone.

The first game of the Cariocão Final is gone. Flamengo has a big advantage, and it’s very hard, or even impossible for Nova Iguaçu to score 3 goals on the team that only suffered 1 in the entire Championship. But football is full of impossible events.