Brazil’s shootout loss towards Uruguay was two issues — boring and morbid. With out star participant Vinicius, out by way of yellow card suspension, and Neymar, who injured his knee in March, Brazil seemed totally misplaced as they battled to a stale 0-0 draw with Uruguay.
With out the 2, Brazil seemed predictable and rancid. The workforce couldn’t use their teenage phenom Endrick, who was stranded between a bodily backline and solely accomplished two passes. The workforce’s double pivot in Joao Gomes and Bruno Guimaraes seemed unconfident when passing the ball ahead.
Lucas Paquetá seemed like the one inventive participant on the sector, the one one who seemed upfield and generated possibilities. It made for a boring recreation of Brazil swinging the ball to the wing and crossing it into the field or just taking lengthy photographs from 30 yards out. Brazil was tentative and boring.
And it appeared morbid to observe Uruguay, almost half-hour faraway from shedding a defender by way of a purple card, confidently stroll previous Brazil in penalties. It felt just like the risk-taking, samba-style Brazil squad we noticed just lately on the World Cup was lifeless. Brazil centered on controlling the ball and drawing possibilities by way of set-piece conditions, not conventional squads’ winding dribbles and aptitude. Manuel Ugarte’s assured penalty not solely put Uruguay by way of to the semifinals however shattered Brazil’s identification.
Loss evokes reminiscences of Mineirazo
There’ll by no means be a extra brutal loss for Brazil in latest reminiscence than that Saturday in 2014. Brazil’s 7-1 loss towards Germany is without doubt one of the most tragic, embarrassing losses within the historical past of soccer. It was their largest defeat ever and a nationwide embarrassment. They had been essentially picked aside within the World Cup semi-finals in entrance of 58,000 rabid followers.
Though Brazil was lacking captain Thiago Silva and star participant Neymar, they began the match effectively with a interval of back-and-forth play. Nonetheless, they misplaced management after Thomas Muller scored throughout the first 20 minutes. Brazil failed to regulate the ball and fell aside beneath the stress of their dwelling crowd, conceding 4 objectives inside six minutes. Andre Schürlle would later rating two second-half objectives to make it 7-0.
Oscar lastly bought a aim for the Selecao after latching on to an extended ball on the fringe of the field, chopping previous Jerome Boateng, and taking pictures previous Manuel Neuer with one of many final kicks of the sport. Solely seconds after, the referee would blow his full-time whistle, and Brazil would collapse in tears. Brazil’s David Luiz sobbing and wiping his tears after the full-time whistle grew to become emblematic of the match — a tragic Brazil left to select up the items of one in all their worst moments of their 108-year profession.
On the tenth anniversary of Mineirazo, you’ll be able to solely look again at a shattered legacy. Murky reminiscences emerge when discussing the loss. To some, it’s a blur, with the match taking place so quick they couldn’t realize it. To others, it was like slow-motion, watching Germany so effectively and calculated homicide Brazil appeared traumatic. However, the one objectively true factor is supervisor Luis Scolari didn’t set this workforce as much as succeed.
The principle reason behind this disaster is the truth that Brazil, regardless of all of its technically gifted gamers, couldn’t hold the ball. Scolari began Fernandinho and Luis Gustavo within the double pivot, whereas opting to start out attacking midfielder Oscar in his absence. Oscar was pressured out of place by the sturdy German protection, leaving the duo to cope with Germany’s elite midfield by themselves. That, and a backline that made uncharacteristic errors, led to Germany each controlling possession and simply exploiting the holes in Brazil’s protection.
Brazil reaches a crossroads with Uruguay loss
We noticed related tactical errors as Brazil seemed outclassed in all phases of the match.
With Vinicius’ suspension, supervisor Dorival switched beginning striker Rodrygo to his most well-liked spot on the left. He then known as up teenage star Endrick from the bench to start out as a striker. Endrick, who can play as a secondary striker, an attacking midfielder, and extra, performed the position of a penalty-box poacher towards Brazil, tasked with successful headers over Ronald Araujo and Cristian Romero.
He’s finest dropping deep and linking play, however with the way in which Dorival used him, Brazil would possibly as effectively have performed with ten males.
Brazil’s backline, though untested beneath stress, gave means in transition. They confronted lapses of focus, permitting the Uruguayan gamers to make particularly piercing runs onto lengthy balls. One of the best probability of the sport, Nández’s first-half cross to Darwin Nunez, got here partly as a result of Eder Militao misplaced monitor of Nunez, who sneakily ran behind him to latch on to the cross.
However, the midfield is the most important problem for Brazil. Paquetá was the one inventive participant on the pitch. The opposite two members of the midfield — Bruno Guimarāes and Joao Gomes — not often accomplished any ahead passes.
With a three-man midfield, you ordinarily have a inventive participant (suppose Paquetá), an anchor who primarily defends (Casemiro), and a box-to-box midfielder with stamina who can put in an affordable quantity of effort on each ends (Guimaraes). Nonetheless, it appeared the double pivot of Guimaraes and Gomes sank again into their defensive methods. They not often bought as much as be a part of the assault, as an alternative minimizing the danger of a counter-attack.
“The midfield is garbage, do they even know easy methods to play soccer? Paquetá is aware of, however he needs to struggle,” World Cup-winning midfielder Gérson mentioned. “João Gomes doesn’t know easy methods to play soccer & Bruno Guimarães solely needs to foul. That is ugly. Every little thing should change.”
Brazil will set their eyes on World Cup qualifying, with a Twenty third-straight berth on the horizon. Nonetheless, they relaxation at sixth, simply two factors from a possible intra-confederation play-off. They are going to want optimistic outcomes towards Ecuador and Paraguay through the September worldwide window.
PHOTOS: IMAGO
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