Good news, everybody.

Following objections from Fluminense, Fernanda's presence in tomorrow's Carioca final had been called into doubt but, thankfully, she has been cleared to participate.

So at last the State Champioships are drawing to a close with the first legs of the finals in most states about to start.

Some interesting match-ups with some surprise finalists. In SP, it's Guaraní who play Santos. In the South, Caxias rather than Grêmio play Inter and in Minas Gerais, América rather than Cruzeiro, meet Atlético.

In Rio, Botafogo meet Fluminense in a Carioca final, strangely, for the first time in 41 years.

The biggest attendance, though, will almost certainly be in Pernambuco for Santa Cruz v Sport.

Fernanda had a very quiet game and could do nothing to prevent Flu romping to a 4-1 first leg lead over Botafogo, the highlight being Fred's bicicleta.

Santos beat Guarani 3-0 with one from Ganso and two more from Neymar who took his total for Santos to 104 - he is now, at the age of 20, their leading scorer in the post-Pelé era.

And two minor first leg surprises as Inter and Atlético were held to draws by Caxias and América-MG respectively.

So after that little warm-up this afternoon, we come to the main business of the day - the second legs of the State Championship finals.

With the Paulista and Carioca finals having been all but decided in the first legs, attention will focus on Rio Grande do Sul and Minas Gerais to see if Caxias and América-MG can follow up their their fine first leg performances and cause an upset.

Here's our Super Sunday line-up with first leg scores in brackets:

Paulista: Santos(3) v Guaraní(0)

Carioca: Fluminense(4) v Botafogo(1)

Gaúcho: Internacional(1) v Caxias(1)

Mineiro: Atlético-MG(1) v América-MG(1)

Paranaense: Coritiba(2) v Atlético-PR(2)

Baiana: Bahia(0) v Vitória(0)

Catarinense: Figueirense(0) v Avaí(3)

Pernambucano: Sport(0) v Santa Cruz(0)

Cearense: Ceará(0) v Fortaleza(0)

Goiano: Goias(2) v Atlético-GO(2)

Paraibano: Campinense(2) v Sousa(1)

I'll be watching the Santos game even though they'll probably be taking it a bit easy. It'll be a big relief when the League starts next week.

Think I chose the right match. Four minutes gone and it's already 1-1. Fabinho equalises Alan Kardec's opener for Santos.

And with all of 7 minutes gone, Neymar puts Santos back in the lead with a penalty. That's his 26th goal in 24 games this season.

Got to hand it to Guaraní. They equalise after another Santos defensive howler and are now taking the game to them. A really gutsy performance.

So it ended 4-2 to Santos. Average day's work for Neymar - 2 goals and 2 assists. Santos tricampeão Paulista for the first time since Pelé's days.

I'll round up the other games tomorrow.

Here's a (partial) list of State Champions:

Paulista: Santos

Carioca: Fluminense

Gaúcho: Internacional

Mineiro: Atlético-MG

Paranaense: Coritiba

Baiano: Bahia

Catarinense: Avaí

Pernambucano: Santa Cruz

Cearense: Ceará

Goiano: Goiás

Paraibano: Campinense

Paraense: Cametá

With a couple of exceptions the big teams and favourites prevailed. However, in Pernambuco sleeping giants from Serie C, Santa Cruz, beat Serie A's Sport and while going through the highlights I found a great story from the northern state of Pará where the minnows from the interior Cametá beat Belem's Remo.

Football in Pará is dominated by Belem's two giants Remo and Paysandú. They have little impact nationally (though Paysandú once qualified for the Libertadores) but between them they have won 86 of the previous 99 Campeonatos Paraenses. The lack of national success means that the State competition assumes an added importance and nearly 33,000 turned up expecting Remo to overturn Cametá's 2-1 first leg lead.

Have a look at the video and check out the wonderful blurry pictures and the way the stadium shakes after Remo's second goal. And enjoy the sheer disbelief of Cametá's players and their couple of hundred fans as they complete their stunning comeback.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=3BxGeW2EgxU

Whereas in many parts of Brazil, the State Championships are regarded as a overlong and somewhat tedious appetiser to the season, in the North and North-East of the country, they really mean something. For Cametá, they win a place in the National Serie D, for Remo there's nothing until the 2013 State Championships.

At last the Brasileiro is underway but it's the usual tame start with many sides fielding weakened teams, preferring to save them for Libertadores and even Copa do Brasil games this week.

Botafogo and São Paulo were both at full strength and produced the most dramatic game with Fogo coming from behind twice to win 4-2 with a hat-trick from Herrera. Such is the level of despair at Botafogo with early exits from the Carioca and the Copa do Brasil (not to mention 16 years without a major trophy) that only 7,000 bothered to turn up. Maybe this result and the possible arrival of Clarence Seedorf might raise spirits.

Flamengo had keeper Paolo Victor and an equaliser from Wagner Love to thank for an undeserved point at newly promoted Sport. Ronaldinho, after turning up drunk to training earlier in the week, lived down to expectations.

Wanderlei Luxemburgo, last seen attacking a ball boy in a State game against Inter, needs to watch his blood pressure. He almost exploded on the touchline as the ref wrongly ruled out a Grêmio equaliser at Vasco.

My two favourite goals of the weekend were Inter's in their 2-0 win over Coritiba. Great power from the excellent Leandro Damião and a really slick passing movement for Dagoberto's second.

Best game of the weekend was at Coritiba where Botafogo came from behind to win 3-2. They are joined at the top by Atlético Mineiro who beat a weakened Corinthians and Vasco who won at Poertuguesa thanks to Alecsandro's brilliant bicicleta.

Things continue to unravel at Flamengo with the players unhappy with Joel Santana after he slagged them off in the press and the crowd unhappy with Ronaldinho. He gave away the ball for the goal which allowed Internacional to win a point after being 3-1 down and was greeted with abuse when he was subbed shortly afterwards.

Regular readers of this thread (both of you) might have discerned that I've been less than impressed with the footballing performances of Ronaldinho at Flamengo, though of course I have the fullest admiration for his contribution to Rio's night-time economy.

Well, something had to give - one or more of either Joel Santana, Patricia Amorim or Ronaldinho would have to go. And it's Ronaldinho who has managed to get a court ruling liberating him from his contract alleging that Flamengo owe him the grand sum of $R40,177,140 (about 13 million quid) in unpaid wages.

So Ronaldinho's brother and his lawyers will be busy on this for the next few years but the whole affair has been an enormous financial blow to Flamengo and must give pause for thought to other clubs following this model of getting legends back to Brazil, paying them a fortune and expecting the bills to paid by marketing income.

Still, Flamengo have a ready-made replacement because a certain Adriano Leite Ribeiro, currently without a club, is back in Rio trying to get himself fit. What could possibly go wrong?

Who markets the Brasileiro in the UK? Other than a few brief highlights on a defunct programme that used to be shown on Channel 4 at about 7am on a Sunday morning, you never see it.

Given the base level of understanding of most English fans (who will have heard of at least half a dozen clubs each and the "star" names), the general fascination with Brazilian football and the fact that so many games seem to end up 3-3 or better, you'd think an hour-long highlights package, in the right place and on the right channel, would get as many viewers as Match of the Day.

And in turn you'd soon get British kids wandering around in Santos or Flamengo shirts, like they do in Real Madrid or Barca ones.

cantaglo, presumably the basis of the ruling was that Ronaldinho was under contract with Flamengo, and not a party to the sponsorship contract the club thought would pay his wages.

What happened to the sponsor? If they still exist, Fla should be able to sue them.

Rogin - ESPN UK have bought the rights and are showing some games but, ridiculously, they're don't seem to be showing them live so you'll have to study the schedule carefully. It's the TV Globo feed so it should have commentary by pitacodogringo but apparently they're messing around with that as well. As you'd expect, I completely agree with you about the potential appeal. I am not an ESPN subscriber so I'll continue to watch games online till I get back next month.

Ursus - I don't really understand the legal issues but, as far as I can tell, this year Flamengo were responsible for the whole of Ronaldinho's remuneration whereas in 2011 Traffic paid 75% of it but they've somehow got out of their contract with Flamengo. The big problem is that, due to Flamengo's marketing incompetence, the commercial income generated by Ronaldinho has been a fraction of what had been anticipated. Of course, Ronaldinho's less than stellar performances haven't helped either.

Interesting - Ronaldinho swaps one dysfunctional club for another. He's going to Atlético Mineiro and he's having to take a 75% reduction in his wages.

Rogin - I've checked the ESPN schedules. They don't seem to be making the most of their new asset. They're completely ignoring next Wednesday's games but are showing Grêmio v Corinthians next Sunday (and that won't be particularly easy on the eye).

The phoney war continues in Brasil as this week the Seleção's Olympics preparation plays havoc with team line-ups.

Vasco are taking full advantage maintaining their 100% record with a comfortable 4-2 win over Naútico but Botafogo, who had come from behind to win their first two games, got a taste of their own medicine as they lost a two goal lead after Cruzeiro scored three times in five minutes. One team with talent to spare is Internacional. Missing Leandro Damião and Oscar, d'Alessandro scored a superb free kick to beat São Paulo but Corinthians are still without a win after a draw with Figueirense.

And so to Flamengo. Joel Santana's job hangs by a thread as another poor performance at Ponte Preta was only rescued by Wagner Love's 95th minute equaliser. All that's keeping Joel in a job is the absence of an obvious replacement and Flamengo's lack of cash to pay him off.

This cartoon sums up the relationship between Wagner Love and the rest of the Flamengo team quite nicely.

Blimey, it's been a couple of weeks since I updated this. Don't worry, you haven't missed much.

At last a proper contest is emerging with only Corinthians still fielding a weakened team and even their reserves managed to beat Palmeiras to lift them off the bottom of the table.

And the top of the table has a surprising look about it as well. At the start of the season, no-one would ahve predicted that the two Mineiro teams, Atlético and Cruzeiro, would fill the top two positions. With the leadership at stake, Cruzeiro had a big win at Vasco courtesy of the excellent Walter Montillo and this golaço from Wellington Paulista. Atlético, with Ronaldinho on board, went second with a big win over Naútico.

A Deco-inspired Fluminense and Internacional had good away wins at Atlético-GO and Sport and Grêmio had a comfortable win over Flamengo but Botafogo continued their maddeningly inconsistent form by losing at home to Ponte Preta.

My tip for the next managerial casualty is Emerson Leão whose São Paulo team followed their cup semi-final defeat to Coritiba with a 1-0 defeat at Portuguesa for whom Dida made a successful debut.

There you go - another accurate prediction, though predicting the demise of Brasileirão managers is a bit like shooting fish in a barrel. Emerson Leão sacked at São Paulo.

Speculation about his successor centres around Flu's Abel Braga and, believe it or not, André Villas Boas.

It's about this time that the Brasileirão starts to get into gear and in a fascinating weekend no fewer than four teams went to the top of the table at some point.

Cruzeiro started off there but their 3-2 defeat to São Paulo enabled Fluminense to replace them following their 2-0 win at Naútico. Fred is out injured again but his replacement Samuel scored twice and there was another fine performance from Deco. Their lead lasted just a few hours as Vasco went top again after coming from behind to beat Ponte Preta.

And so to Sunday and the big game was Atlético Mineiro's visit (and Ronaldinho's return) to Grêmio. Atlético won it with the goal of the weekend from Jô (yes, that Jô) - a fine finish but have a look at the double chapéu from Bernard in the build-up. A big win for Atlético but it was achieved with minimal assistance from Ronaldinho whose contribution was limited to taking corners and free-kicks.

ESPN are showing Brasileiro stuff here this year as well, it seems (I only discovered a couple of days ago that I have ESPN3 - for some reason it doesn't show up in my TV's interactive programme guide), although delayed rather than live, a little frustratingly (though in fact it works out better for me as fairly frequently other South American league games I'd like to watch clash with the Argentine ones I pretty much have to watch, so having them on later that night will be nice).

Cantagalo, I've often marvelled at your dedication carrying these threads on year after year when a lot of the time you're talking to yourself. I tried it at least once with the Argentine league and just got fed up. Anyway, to that end I've asked my mate André, a Brazilian and Flamengo fan who lives in São Paulo, whether he'd like to join in the fun as well, and hopefully he will be doing. I'll also be checking in myself a little more often, now I can actually catch some of the games on the telly this year.