Chapecoense are back in the Brazilian Championship on Wednesday, and the restart could hardly be tougher. Flamengo visit Arena Conda in round 19 at 9:30pm local time, with the league returning after a month-long World Cup break and the hosts trying to steady a season that has already slipped into survival mode.
That search is being driven by the table as much as the fixture. Chapecoense return with nine points from 18 rounds and come off a 2-0 loss to Bahia at the Fonte Nova in their first match back from the pause. Flamengo arrive second with 34 points from 17 games, seven behind Palmeiras, and the gap in form and depth is obvious before a ball is kicked.
For Chapecoense, the problem is not one absence but a series of them. Rafael Lacerda is already the club's third coach of the season after Fabio Matias was dismissed in May, and the side have also lost Walter Clar, Jean Carlos and Leo Vieira in the mid-season window. Max Alves arrived on loan from Cuiaba, Franco Rossi came in from Toluca, and that is the scale of the repair job now facing a squad that has been cut apart and is still trying to find a structure that lasts more than a few weeks.
The biggest blow is Rafael Carvalheira. He ruptured his anterior cruciate ligament and is out for the rest of the season, even though he has been Chapecoense's top scorer with seven goals in 28 appearances. He joins first-choice goalkeeper Anderson on the injury list, alongside Max Alves, Robert, Garcez, João Paulo and Victor Caetano, which leaves Lacerda short of both certainty and continuity against a Flamengo side that has won 11 of the last 16 meetings between the clubs.
Flamengo, by contrast, have used the break to keep their momentum alive. Leonardo Jardim took over in March, and his team has already advanced to the last 16 of the Copa Libertadores and the Copa do Brasil, while Pedro remains their main source of goals. They also won the Algarve Trophy in Portugal after drawing with River Plate and beating Lausanne and Benfica, then beat Olimpia 4-2 at Mane Garrincha before pre-season ended, a run that underlines why they start as the stronger side on paper.
That is why Wednesday matters beyond the usual round 19 points. Chapecoense need a home response to avoid the restart becoming a deeper slide, but the squad they will field is thinner than the one that opened the season and the opponent is already built for the top end of the table. If Flamengo handle the occasion as expected, the pressure on Chapecoense will only sharpen, and the question will move from whether they can compete to how quickly they can stop the season from running away.
