I keep telling people - Willian had a fantastic end to the season for us, including with his passing. Maybe it was just an unusual period for him, maybe he's settled, but he looked fantastic, even if the stats don't quite bear it out (though that happens when Drogba was our only available striker for much of the end of the season).
Liked: Willian, Firmino, F. Luis No opinion: Miranda, Jefferson, Fernandinho, Fred Didn't like: DL, Fabinho, Casemiro, Coutinho
William is having a excellent game, Firmino being the killer we need him to be.... VERY positive to see us scoring against a big defensive wall of 8~9 players even without Neymar, I like it. With all the talk of Honduras's violence (and well they earned the reputation), we are playing more violently than them. I hope the guy who was subbed didn't get a serious injury. Dunga tactics
It's the same for me. Though I think Fred has been decent. Willian Brazil best player again. Coutinho does one thing right and fives things wrong. Casemiro is more interested in hacking players.
It seems that whenever the other team has the ball Dunga instructs the midfield and defense to foul them, hacks, little niggling kicks, play physically. It's not pretty but it has worked in just about every game.
Until that shot, I didn't know Douglas Costa was subbed in. I hate when Neymar has the ball, he holds it and starts moving backwards towards midfield.
I was going to take a nap after this game and get up and watch the U-20s at midnight... shouldn't have waited this long.
I'm not ready to make that assessment yet, until I see Neymar, Willian and Firmino together. If these two very meh friendly was played because guys were trying to not get hurt or we actually missing guys like Oscar and Gustavo.
To be honest, as boring as these two games were, they were in some ways much more solid than many games we've had at this stage in previous cycles. There were good runs now and then, there was space and some good shots. There was just not enough of that to make the game fun and the opponents didn't push Brazil. I do think they were useful experiments for Dunga though and better performances than we sometimes see this early.
Meh game again, good to score soon against defensive teams but like vs México the second half was a huge waste of time. Oh well, gotta save our energies for CA! And Dunga tried Marquinhos as a RB... This sounds like bad news regarding Danilo's injury. He will be sorely missed if he doesn't make it.
Dunga playing Fred in Coutinho role in the 2nd half is exactly why I feel Coutinho can't afford to have a bad game like he did tonight. I expect to see at some point a midfield of Fred, Elias and Fernandinho maybe even as the starting midfield.
Boring and weak game but 10 straight wins is impressive. It's a friendly right before a tournament so players wouldn't have tried hard anyway. We also had a clear penalty that wasn't given, could have been 2-0, and that Neymar shot was save by miracle.
Seems like we go with a creative player at the beginning of a winning tournament then go pragmatic onwards!! Guess this will be no different