WIN on Debut "DE VIRADA" // LetsGoCORINGATION // TheWorldOfSports

massola (61)memberin The World of Sports • yesterday

Greetings, coringation travelers!

Today, on the 16th of January of 2025, the Men's Football Team of Corinthians has played its first official match of the year, away at the Estádio Nabi Abi Chedid against the squad of Red Bull Bragantino, for the São Paulo State's championship of this year, popualrly known as Paulistão 2025. And I am really happy to report that we won our first match by 2x1, with goals of Talles Magno, our first Man of the Match of the year, and Pedro Raul, an unexpected hero that made the goal that got us the win de virada.

Along with starting to award a "Man of the Match" award, I plan on introducing to you, my non-Portuguese-speaking readers, one football-related (or not) phrase or word in Portuguese-Brasil / pt-br per post!

De virada is a commonly employed phrase in sports, particularly football, which means that a tean won a game after initially losing, or from behind; that's where the English phrase come-from-behind win comes from, but another possible single word translation is comeback. "Virada" in pt-br derives from the verb virar, which means "to turn", so a win "de virada" is a win where the squad "turned the scoreboard around", in a free poetic translation.

Unfortunately the Brazilian Football Calendar is not best at all, and yes, I am criticizing the incompetent CBF at my first Coringation Post of the year, but they. TRULY. deserve it. And because of that, the pre-season for Corinthians' players had to be really short. That made it so the staff opted to enter the game with a mix of our reserve squad and the third team.

The game started with a lot of pressure from the home team, our adversary. Eventually, at the seven minute mark, a miracle ball was crossed by Juninho Capixaba, and got our defense a bit unprepared; it was Lucas Evangelista who headed the ball into the back of our net, leaving no chance for our reserve keeper Matheus Donelli to catch anything. 0x1 Bragantino

A few minutes later, around 15 minutes in, Ángel Romero was launched from the midfield line and run to the opposing box, where he was then failted. Penalty for Corinth... OH NO! The VAR spotted that our attacking player's body was ahead of the line already, making it an offside, and nulling the rulling of penalty. And the first half finished in not the best mood at all.

Foto: Marcello Zambrana/AGIF

In the second half, our beloved Timão came back with more will and the team was running from the first second back. But it was the Red Bull's squad who stroke first, in the first minutes back: in another aerial ball, Eduardo Sasha headed the ball a few meters away from the goal. However, this time Matheus Donelli flew to the ball and made an incredible defense, keeping the goal difference to the minimal.

Foto: divulgação oficial do clube.

And a few minutes later, around the fifth minute mark, our attacking players pressured the opponents, and in a strike of strategically managed luck, a ball was launched into the air in Bragantino's smaller area box, and the same Juninho Capixaba who had crossed the ball for the first goal of the game, beautifully assisted another ball, but this time to an adversary. Talles Magno, or Talles Mágico "Magic", did not have anything to do with who assists him, quickly shot the ball into the Red Bull's net and equalized the score: 1x1.

Foto: screenshot taken by me of a WhatsApp group conversation where I states and foresaw, thirty minutes before the start of the match and after having just seen the lineup, that there was going to be a goal by Talles Magic today.

Scoring the first goal of the season really changed how the team behaved itself inside the field. From that point on, it was just Coringation.

Foto: @MeuTimao

Some heros are unexpected. But this hero also foresaw not just him changing the game, but also the young man who would assist him (pun intended!) into it: the classic tall striker Pedro Raul, who had a terrible debut season with us last year, sent the message in the image above to the twenty one years old midfielder formed-in-our-house Ryan Gustavo saying that *they were gonna change the game [against RedBull]", in a free translation.

And that was, exactly, what happened. Both guys entered the field in the second half, and at the 79' mark, with great coordination and timing, Ryan found a great front cross to Pedro Raul. He masterfully turned his body while running to perfectly head it to the corner of the goal, completely killing the keeper in the play. After more than nine months, he had scored again. CORINGATION 2x1

Foto: divulgação oficial do clube. Nowadays, it's already a tradition for the club to post a selfie with the players who scored.

Corinthians applied a lot of pressure in the remaining time, specially with last year's top scorer in Brasil, our number 9 player Yuri Alberto, who had an astounding statistic of four shots in seventeen minutes.

There were more chances to increase the score, one specially comes to my mind when Magic Talles lost a one-on-one chance against the keeper by dribbling one time to much.

The referee was a bit out of his mind and gave an extra minute in added time, which only served to stress every one out a little bit more, but when finished out with a **debut win

Foto: @MeuTimao

Obviously this corinthianowho's writing for you is a big fan of Talles Magno, but to validate my opinion, he was named Man of the Match by the official transmission team and received a special award. I thought it was really special how he stated the importance of the unity of the team, them being together. He also made sure to emphasize how much he likes to play alongside Pedro Raul, and cheered for his teammate. In the last one's post-match interview, he even admitted fearing not being registered in the official roster of Corinthians for the competition; and he also verbalized the importance of the other player's support and the team being together during the difficult period both for the striker and for the entire team as well, who was in risk of relegation last season, but that eventually won nine wins in a row to enter the initial phases of the Copa Libertadores da América.

And a symbol of this team's unity not only with each other, but also with Corinthians' supporters, the *Fiel Torcida, is the ritual they started last year, to always do the PORÓPÓPÓ with the fans at the end of the match. "What is it?", you might be asking. Well, for the complete answer, you'll have to wait for the next game of the year and the next post; the photo below illustrates the moment, and it is the base image for this posts' header. It's a screenshot taken by me from the TNT Sports broadcast.