Corinthians will try to extend their unbeaten run to double-digits in the Campeonato Brasileiro Serie A when they host Bahia on Tuesday at Corinthians Arena.
Timao avoided defeat for a ninth time on Saturday, scoring twice in the final few minutes to draw Bragantino 2-2, while Bahia are now winless in seven straight road contests, dropping a 2-0 decision to Internacional at the end of September.
Match preview
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A match is never over until the final whistle blows, and never has that statement been more accurate than when watching Corinthians play.
The club based in the Tatuape district of Sao Paulo have made it a habit of scoring late goals, with their most recent miracle coming this past weekend where they scored twice after 90 minutes, exactly one week after beating Palmeiras at home with a strike in the 84th minute.
In their last six league fixtures, they have either scored or conceded a goal with less than 15 minutes remaining in five of those encounters.
They have not finished a campaign this high in the table (currently in sixth) since capturing their seventh domestic league championship in 2017.
Sylvinho has to be impressed with how resilient this group have been all year, losing only two of their seven league contests in which they had conceded the opening goal.
We have seen a mixture of good and poor results at home throughout their campaign, with three wins, four defeats and four draws, while they are unbeaten in their previous four matches played at Corinthians Arena.
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They began the season the way they wanted, with points in four of their opening five league fixtures, but Bahia have struggled to maintain that early season momentum.
Those struggles over the summer cost Dado Cavalcanti his job with the club sacking him in the middle of August after Bahiaco had gone winless in six consecutive league fixtures while being outscored 13-2 over that stretch.
The club have not fared much better under Diego Dabove, however, winning only once in his five games in charge, although they are at least keeping their results more respectable, with a pair of draws, while also trailing Internacional and Fluminense by just a single goal until late in those matches, each of which resulted in a defeat.
As the visitors, they have struggled to maintain possession and thus have not scored a lot. In fact, in their last four matches away from home, they have collected over 50% possession in only one of those games, while failing to score in each of those encounters.
In their previous meeting with Corinthians this year, they struggled to get into dangerous areas, with only two shots on target in a match that ended in a 0-0 draw.
As it stands right now, Bahia would be heading down into Serie B, but a victory on Tuesday could change their fortunes, as they are only a point behind Santos and two back of Juventude, both of whom are ahead of the relegation line at the moment.
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Team News
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Renato Augusto and Gustavo Silva both scored their first of the domestic league campaign to help Corinthians pocket a point on Saturday, while Roger Guedes had a brace in their last home fixture in a victory over Palestra.
Their captain and goalkeeper Cassio has been stuck on seven clean sheets for a while now, with his last shutout coming in a 1-0 over Gremio, which was also the last time that their leading goalscorer Jo found the back of the net.
Vitinho, who is tied for the team lead in assists with Silva at three, has started the last 12 matches on the bench, sitting out for the full 90 minutes this past weekend.
When Rossi is on top of his game, Bahia are at their best, with the Brazilian striker leading them with five assists to go along with one goal.
Veteran striker Hugo Rodallega has found his scoring touch recently, with five goals in his last four games, four of which came in a 4-2 win over Fortaleza at the beginning of September.
Bahia made two changes to their starting 11 versus Internacional from the squad who began the match against Bragantino, with Edson and Rodriguinho replacing Lucas Araujo and Lucas Mugni.
Corinthians possible starting lineup:
Cassio; Fabio Santos, Gil, Joao Victor, Fagner; Adson; Araos, Augusto, Giuliano, Xavier; Guedes
Bahia possible starting lineup:
Claus; Capixaba, Otavio, Henrique, Nino; Patrick, Mugni, Edson, Ruiz; Gilberto, Rodallega
We say: Corinthians 1-0 Bahia
Corinthians do not score a lot of goals at home, with only three multiple-goal games thus far, but they should not have a problem putting at least one past a Bahia side who have rarely been able to keep the ball on the road while conceding in all but one of their last seven league fixtures away from home.
Data Analysis
Our analysis of all available data, including recent performances and player stats up until an hour before kickoff, suggested the most likely outcome of this match was a Corinthians win with a probability of 45.38%. A draw had a probability of 27.4% and a win for Bahia had a probability of 27.19%.
The most likely scoreline for a Corinthians win was 1-0 with a probability of 13.02%. The next most likely scorelines for that outcome were 2-0 (8.85%) and 2-1 (8.73%). The likeliest drawn scoreline was 1-1 (12.84%), while for a Bahia win it was 0-1 (9.44%). The actual scoreline of 3-1 was predicted with a 4% likelihood. Our data analysis correctly predicted that Corinthians would win this match.
