vs. Location: Saint Petersburg Stadium, Saint Petersburg Brazil roster: Goleiros: Alisson (Roma) Cássio (Corinthians) Ederson (Manchester City) Laterais: Danilo (Manchester City) Filipe Luís (Atlético de Madrid) Marcelo (Real Madrid) Fagner (Corinthians) Zagueiros: Marquinhos (PSG) Miranda (Inter de Milão) Thiago Silva (PSG) Geromel (Grêmio) Meio-campistas: Casemiro (Real Madrid) Renato Augusto (Beijing Guoan) Fernandinho (Manchester City) Paulinho (Barcelona) Philippe Coutinho (Barcelona) Willian (Chelsea) Fred (Shakhtar) Atacantes: Neymar (PSG) Gabriel Jesus (Manchester City) Roberto Firmino (Liverpool) Douglas Costa (Juventus) Taison (Shakhtar) With an disappointing 1-1 score against Switzerland in its debut behind, Brazil seeks three points enroute to a berth in the round of 16 against Costa Rica. As a member of CONCACAF, Costa Rica is not a team that faces Brazil often. Most on this board will remember the frenetic pace of their last World Cup encounter - the 3rd game in the group stage of the 2002 World Cup, when Brazil scored 5 goals and allowed 2 in what British magazine FourFourTwo qualified as "attacking Latin American football at its best - from both sides." Although Costa Rica is not a soccer powerhouse, it has good memories of the 2014 World Cup. It scored 3 goals in its debut, granting Uruguay its first-ever World Cup defeat to a team from outside South America and Europe. The Costa Ricans then achieved an impressive result by beating Italy 1-0, and with the 0-0 draw vs. England (which lost two matches and was already out), the Costa Rican team shocked the world by not only reaching the round of 16, but by being the group winner. From there, two draws (1-1 vs. Greece and 0-0 vs. Holland). The Central Americans won on PKs 5-3 and lost on PKs 3-4. Costa Rica's delegation returned home proudly, having being beaten only on penalty kicks by a perennial powerhouse, who went on to finish in third place, and undefeated. 4 years later, Costa Rica returns to the World Cup in its 5th appearance. It participated in 3 cups since 2014 - the 2015 and 2017 Gold Cups and 2016's Copa América Centenário - an extra time 1-0 quarterfinal loss to Mexico in 2015, a 2-0 defeat to the United States in the semifinals in 2017, and a first-round exit in 2016. Costa Rica played a spirited match vs. Serbia, but ultimately lost to the eastern Europeans, and if the Central Americans are going to have a fighting chance to reach the round of 16, they will have to pull the greatest upset in their history – a victory against Brazil in World Cup competition. Brazilian fans were certainly frustrated with the 1-1 result on June 17th, but they know that not all is lost. The 4-5 days between group stage matches grants managers time to train, to rethink ideas, and to test new systems and lineups. Brazil’s defense, save for the grotesque error in the Swiss goal, was mostly solid today, so it’s unlikely the backline will be different. Costa Rica will have the burden to attack as it has no points, but do not be surprised if Costa Rica bunkers and tries to counterattack. Brazil is likely to be set up to go for the attack and the goal early on as occurred today. The following was Costa Rica's starting XI vs. Serbia: Keylor Navas; Johnny Acosta, Giancarlo González e Óscar Duarte; Cristian Gamboa, Bryan Ruiz, Celso Borges, David Guzmán (Daniel Colindres), Johan Venegas (Christian Bolaños) e Francisco Calvo; Marco Ureña (Joel Campbell). Técnico: Óscar Ramírez.
Not sure what change he would make. The team really didn't have a problem on defense and that's as creative a team he can put out there. And after Coutinho's performance he can't take him out. The only change would be Firmino for Jesus.
Looks like RA did make a full recovery. Fred trained normally and should be available on Friday. TS, Paulinho and Neymar did not train normally with the rest of the team and staying in the physio and gym work. Not sure they are hiding something on Neymar. CBF made a formal complained about the VAR process used in the first game. They want to hear the audio conversation between the ref and the VAR center. SMH ...
As I watch most of the media overreact to Brazil's first game, I do think Neymar is hurt more than he let on. I hope I'm wrong... I was surpised that he played the full 90. Brazil will advance but may face Germany in the knock-out stage
I don't think based on one match tite will drop jesus .Even firmino is many a times involved in lackluster performance. I think he may try Jesus and frirmino both if Brazil desperately needs to score.
We definitely need the 3 points and a decent goal margin to take some pressure off the last game and so that our qualification doesn't depend on others.
we were supposed to steamroll our opponents and top the group.....But now we are unsure of our advancement to the next round... How things change fast.
I would like to see him leave the team as is and evaluate after 45 minutes but I think he might drop Paulinho or Jesus.
The thing is that Brazil has never played well in an opener. And honestly, most big teams don't, and that trend seems to be continuing this cup. We were lucky in 2002 and 2014 to get bailed out by the refs -otherwise, those games would have been ties. We will turn it on in the next game.
They have been slaughtering Neymar in the media. The predictable criticisms with respect to rolling around too much, holding the ball, and obviously ... the hair. Some of that is warranted, someu not (although in Brazil it's all or nothing mentality). There were times that he released the ball quickly and others that he held too much specially deep in the midfield. The one play that ticked me off was in the 2nd half on a break through the middle he had Paulinho open running by his side free for a pass but he decided to hold the ball and dribble into trouble in the other direction where everybody was marked. Ended up going backwards and killing the whole play. Before the WC I said that Tite would make sure we'd see Barcelona's Neymar and not PSGs. And I think, maybe due to the opponent or tactics, that we saw mostly PSGs Neymar. Basically we need Neymar to be doing his thing closer to the goal as opposed to the midfield.
I could do without some of the theatrics but Neymar gets hack lot. There are fouls that he goes looking for and IMO that deserve criticism.
Neymar left training limping. I am surprisingly calm about this. I want to see more of Douglas Costa and Roberto Firmino.
I agree. I prefer Douclas Costa than a banged up Neymar. But he has to heal if we have any chance in this WC. Conmebol has been embarrassing so far. This is not good.
Neymar did have a slight inflation in the foot, but he should be fine by Friday. Without Neymar we have ZERO chance to be HEXA. Yesterday, was family day, relaxing day - today it's back to work. AND I CAN GET ANY WORK DONE AT THE OFFICE !
URGENTE! @NeymarJr sai mancando e dando “bico de insatisfação” na bola após sentir o pé. Imagens dos amigos do EI pic.twitter.com/NFTS4ZOwpt— Milton Neves (@Miltonneves) June 19, 2018
Assessoria diz ainda que Neymar não tem nada que preocupe. As imagens foram de um jogador com incômodos frequentes e limitações de movimento. Resposta é que isso é decorrente das dores no tornozelo. #trbrasil— Alexandre Lozetti (@Ale_Lozetti) June 19, 2018
Maybe I'm overrating the team but I disagree with this. No doubt he is our best player but looking at the all of the "big" teams and how they've struggled, I think a Neymar-less Selecao could pull it off. Of course it'll involve several players like Jesus, Firmino, Coutinho, Marcelo, Douglas Costa, etc to really step it up and Tite to bench Paulinho but I can see us going far.