Fluminense put in a flat display, lose to Ceará at Castelão | OneFootball

Fluminense was defeated by Ceará 2-0 on Sunday afternoon (2), at Castelão, in the 31st round of the Brazilian Championship. Galeano and Pedro Raul scored the goals that secured the victory for the black-and-white team.

Fluminense did not have a good first half. With important absences, Zubeldía’s team especially felt the absence of midfielder Lucho Acosta and produced almost nothing, going into halftime without a single shot on goal. In their best opportunity, after an intricate exchange of passes in the box, John Kennedy was brought down. VAR called the referee to review the play. The penalty was not awarded because, at the start of the move, Serna had committed a foul on the opposing player. In the 37th minute, Ceará scored. Fernando Sobral sent in a low cross, the ball deflected off Freytes and landed perfectly for Galeano to head it into the back of the net.

Photo: Marcelo Gonçalves/FFC

After the break, Zubeldía made three substitutions: Fuentes, Nonato, and Keno. The changes improved Fluminense, who started to pose more of a threat to Ceará and finally managed to get some shots off. In their best chance, Canobbio couldn’t get a clean strike and goalkeeper Bruno made the save. Just as Fluminense was finding their rhythm, they had a player sent off: defender Ignácio committed a foul to prevent Pedro Raul from going through on goal alone. As he was the “last man” in defense, the defender was shown a straight red card.

From then on, Ceará, with a man advantage, regained control of the game. Even at a moderate pace, the black-and-white team scored a second goal with a casual shot from Pedro Raul from outside the box. The ball deflected (again) off Freytes and “died” in the top corner, leaving Fábio with no chance. In stoppage time, Fluminense almost conceded another goal from Pedro Raul. Luckily, the ball touched Lucas Mugni’s hand and the referee disallowed it.

With this result, Fluminense was overtaken by Botafogo, who drew with Mirassol yesterday, and dropped back to seventh place, with 47 points. Flu’s next match is against Mirassol, on Thursday (6), at 7:30 p.m., at Maracanã.

This article was translated into English by Artificial Intelligence. You can read the original version in 🇧🇷 here.