Abel saw the problem before the table did: what the Inter draw reveals about Palmeiras' lead
A goalless home draw, possession without penetration, and a coach who did not hide his frustration. The numbers behind the night that shrank the leaders' cushion.
Palmeiras still lead the Brasileirão on 48 points. They are also the team that, in round 22, created less than they needed against opponents who came to defend.
The goalless draw with Internacional at the Allianz Parque, in front of 38,778 paying fans, was not merely a dropped point — it was the kind of match that exposes a structural question. And, curiously, the person who described the problem best was their own coach.
"In technical terms, we were well below what any player in this team can do," said Abel Ferreira. The Portuguese went into the mechanics: in the first half Internacional dropped Alan Patrick in as a false nine, effectively turning him into a fourth midfielder, and the Palmeiras holding players hesitated between stepping up and dropping off. The result: theoretically weaker opponents saw more of the ball than they should have.
This is where data analysis says something uncomfortable for a Palmeiras supporter: possession without clear chances is the pattern that most deceives the table. A team can dominate territorially and still register a low volume of quality shots — and it is that indicator, not possession, that the Golmetria Index uses to measure strength. It is on exactly that criterion that the model, since late July, had been rating Flamengo the highest-performing side in the league despite trailing on points.
The other side of the ledger matters too: Palmeiras have built a real lead, with points nobody can take away. Top spot is not under threat this round, the squad has depth, and Abel himself did something coaches in denial do not do — he named the problem publicly, in tactical detail, two days after the match. Teams that identify the flaw tend to fix it.
What round 22 changed was not the leadership. It was the margin: from eight points to six, with Flamengo still holding a game in hand. For Palmeiras, the question this season now asks is not whether the team is good enough to lead — it is whether they can turn dominance back into goals before the math gets tight.
The Index is a starting point for analysis, not a prediction of the outcome.
Probabilities, the model and the full Index table at GOLMETRIA →