The 2010 Brazilian champions, Fluminense, may be near to being eliminated from this year´s Copa Libertadores, the South American equivalent of the UEFA Champions League. In its third match , Fluminense lost by 1-0 to America at the Aztec Stadium in Mexico City. "Flu" only has 2 points after drawing its first two matches in Rio de Janeiro.
Now the team only has 22% chance of qualifying for the next round of the Libertadores. Fluminense has been without its star striker Fred, and also its midfield general, Dario Conca is in poor form, so it seems that the Rio de Janeiro team will have a hard time to beat Argentinos Juniors or Nacional (Uruguay) in the next two matches that will be played in Buenos Aires and Montevideo respectively. Argentinos Juniors is now leading Group 3 after beating Nacional by 1-0 in Montevideo. America has six points, Fluminense 2 and Nacional only 1 point.
With 299,8 points,from a possible of 300, Beija-Flor Samba School from the town of Nilopolis was the winner of this year´s carnaval. Beija Flor has now won the championship 12 times (including two tri-championships: 1976/1977/1978 and 2003/2004/2005).
Unidos da Tijuca was second with 298,4 points, Mangueira third with 297,2 points, Unidos de Vila Isabel was fourth with 297 points. Salgueiro was fifth with 296,2. Sixth was Imperatriz Leopoldinense (295,5 points). These schools will parade again at the Sambodromo, (Sambodrome) next Saturday 12th of March at the "Parade of Winners" (Desfile das Campeãs).
The Carnaval continues this weekend with several street parades:on Saturday there will be seven parades (blocos da rua) , such as Bafafa, in Ipanema near Posto 9. There will be a big parade on Sunday at Rio Branco Avenue, where Monobloco will dance from Av.Presidente Vargas until Cinelandia., and 350,000 spectators are expected. On the first day of carnaval, 2 million people paraded on Rio Branco, the city´s biggest avenue. 
