Flamengo's youth team achieved an impressive victory in the Brazilian Under-20 Championship. Their commitment and dedication were key to winning 2-1 against Santos, third place and one of the best away teams in the competition. The three points in the match played on Thursday night (21), at the Luso Brasileiro Stadium, on Ilha do Governador, put Flamengo back in the qualifying zone for the round of 16.

Flamengo had been more present in attack from the start of the match and opened the scoring in the 10th minute. Josmar showed opportunism and took advantage of an error by the opposing defense to head the ball in. There were no further goalscoring opportunities until Santos equalized in the 24th minute. Three minutes later, Alan received a pass from Josmar and narrowly missed scoring Flamengo's second goal. The ball went past the goalkeeper, but the defender cleared it practically on the goal line.

At 34 minutes, the São Paulo team responded with a shot from outside the area, to the left of Léo Nannetti. With no further attacking plays, the referee blew the whistle for halftime, after 1 minute of added time.

Flamengo returned with Joshua replacing Chapecoense and started the second half pressing Santos' build-up play. At 6 minutes, there were two shots on goal in quick succession, with Alan and Pablo. After an attack by the opponent, Flamengo quickly moved out of defense, Daniel Sales went down the right flank and passed to Joshua, who took a shot at 12 minutes. The ball was heading for the goal, but hit the defender's head.

A minute later, Sayago made a beautiful play down the right wing and found Josmar unmarked. The number 9 finished twice to score his second goal and break the tie. At 20 minutes, Santos' attack forced Léo Nannetti to parry the ball out of play. In another Flamengo attack, Pablo came very close to scoring the third goal at 36 minutes. The number 8 received the ball from Joshua and shot low, forcing a great save from the Santos goalkeeper.

Santos tried to apply pressure, while Flamengo defended and sped up their build-up play in search of a winning goal. The situation remained unchanged, and Flamengo secured their sixth victory in the Brazilian U-20 Championship.

In the next round, Flamengo will face América-MG in a direct confrontation, as the Minas Gerais team is in ninth place, with the same 20 points as Flamengo, who have one more victory. The duel will be next Wednesday (27), away from home, at the Castor Cifuentes Stadium, in Nova Lima.