All five brazilian clubs made to the eightfinals of the 2008 Copa Libertadores. Cruzeiro had some bad luck, for the team will face the holders Boca Jrs from Argentina, while São Paulo shall have a difficult task against Nacional from Uruguay.

Santos will meet the colombians from Cúcuta once more, after two difficult battles during the group stage. Flamengo is going to fly half the continent to meet América from México. With the best campaign during the group stage, Fluminense will play against Nacional in Medellín for the first leg of this knock-out round.

Fluminense: the best so far.

Romário, the historic 42-year-old player, announced his retirement. One of the greatest strikers ever, his last game was in november 2007. During his 23-year career, he won the 1994 World Cup title, some “player of the year” awards and scored more than one thousand goals, by his own count. Rumours say he was waiting for the next Guns and Roses´ album “Chinese Democracy” to be released – but couldn´t make it.

Romário: the specialist leaving for good

Despite all the protesting, Flamengo will have to play against Cienciano in the city of Cuzco, 3.400 meters above the sea level. The fans of the peruvian club, known as “burro” (donkey), are making fun of the brazilian club. During their arrival, a man dressed as a donkey taught Flamengo players that “height doesn´t kill”.

Donkey in Cuzco: defending the habitat.

Despite undefeated during the whole group stage, Grêmio lost the second leg of the quarterfinals against Juventude, and was eliminated from the state championship. Grêmio´s coach Celso Roth, also know as SEXY HOT, is the man to blame. Only when the team had three sent-off and was 3 goals behind, the players began to ignore everything the coach said, and managed to reach an useless 2-3.

Reserves couldn´t stand Juventude´s third goal.

Corinthians is painting everything purple, for that´s the “color of passion”. Although some fans reacted and sprayed “Black + White = Tradition” in the club´s purple wall, the new purple shirt is selling like water. Last weekend, over 3.000 of those were sold in the club´s store.

Deep in Purple: Corinthians guys look happy.

Flamengo awaits an official statement from Conmebol to decide wheter or not the team will depart to Cuzco, a city with altitude above 3.300 meters (over 10 thousand feet), located in Peru. Flamengo would play against Cienciano for the group stage of the Copa Libertadores. Fifa already suggested Conmebol not to schedule matches in cities with altitude above 2.750 meters – measure which, so far, is being ignored.

Cuzco may leave Flamengo breathless.

In the most boring friendly match ever, Brazil beat Sweden by 1-0 this wednesday in London. Altough many of the players didn´t know, the game was supposed to celebrate the 50th anniversary of Brazil’s first World Cup final triumph. Alexandre “Pato/the Duck” took advantage from a nonsense mistake of the swedish goalkeeper called RAMI SHAABAN, and scored the only goal of the game.

Shabaan X Pato: don´t look back in anger.

Despite the 2-1 defeat against Fluminense on the Sunday classic, Vasco´s president Eurico Miranda told the press his team won´t lose any more games. Also, he´s absolutely sure Vasco is going to win the second stage of the state championship, and later conquer the championship itself.

Eurico: everything under control.

After 245 days banned from official matches for nude posing in Playboy magazine, the referee Ana Paula Oliveira is back to the fields for the enjoyment of the fanatic football fans all over Brazil. “You have no idea how happy I am. It’s like being at the World Cup final” celebrates the beautiful ref when coming back to work at the 1-1 draw between São José and Taquaritinga.

Right after being mentioned below, Denilson was hired by Palmeiras for the 2008 season. The 30-year-old professional dribbler played for FC Dallas in the Major League Soccer last year, but his contract with the American club was not renewed after he scored only one goal and had no assists in eight games. Nevertheless, it’s always worth mentioning Denilson’s biggest contribution to Football, back in the 2002 World Cup, running from four angry Turkish players at the end of the semifinal game.