Internacional and Corinthians meet on Sunday at 19h30 at Beira-Rio in Porto Alegre, opening their Copa do Brasil round of 16 tie with a first leg that can shape the pressure for both sides before the return match. Amazon Prime Video will show the game and ge will follow it in real time.
The matchup arrives at a sharp moment for Corinthians, which comes in unbeaten in five matches and riding six straight Copa do Brasil wins across the 2025 and 2026 editions, but will have to manage without Yuri Alberto. The forward is out with a muscle injury in the back of his right thigh, a notable absence for a team that had enough momentum to turn this into a cleaner test.
That makes the likely return of Matheus Bidu and Rodrigo Garro even more relevant. Both recovered from injury and were listed for Corinthians, while Internacional is expected to keep Matheus Cunha in goal and use Vitinho to complete the line of five defenders and join the attack. Alan Patrick is also expected to help Carbonero and Bernabei forward, giving the home side a shape that can switch quickly between caution and pressure.
Internacional, though, does not arrive in ideal form either. It has gone five matches without a win and lost four of them, which means the opening leg is as much about stopping the slide as it is about taking an advantage. The teams already know each other well in this tournament: they have met six times in the Copa do Brasil, and each side has won one of those meetings, including Internacional's 4-0 first-leg win in 1992 and Corinthians' 2-0 victory in the first match of the 2009 final.
They also meet again only three months after Internacional beat Corinthians 1-0 in Itaquera on 5 April in the 10th round of the Brasileirão, when Bernabei scored the only goal. That result gives the home side a recent reminder that it can control this pairing, but the absence of Yuri Alberto leaves Corinthians with a different kind of problem: how to keep its Copa do Brasil run intact while reshaping the attack for a first leg that could decide who carries the greater burden into Porto Alegre and who walks into the return match at Neo Química Arena with the edge.
