Brazil’s Confederations Cup Showing Has Installed Them as World Cup Favorites

By
at Internationaled.org

Published: June 22, 2013

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At one point or another, the road to World Cup was always going to pass through Spain, and with their expert navigation of the Confederations Cup so far, it would seem Brazil have positioned themselves as the team to topple the world and European champions at next year’s feature event.

From the confusing days of Mano Menezes and his scattergun approach to squad selection and the early, disappointing results under returning Brazil manager Luiz Felipe Scolari there was often the sense that what the five-time World Cup winners really needed to get out of their funk was competitive matches.

The Confederations Cup has been providing those in quick succession, and in each of the three matches they have contested, and won, so far, Brazil have been met with three very different scenarios.



They have excelled in all of them.

First up it was Asian champions Japan—a pacey, technically gifted side that was always going to pose a threat on the counterattack and challenge Brazil’s deep-lying midfielders.

It wasn’t always pretty, but Scolari’s men got the job done—keeping a clean sheet against the Blue Samurai while celebrating goals from Neymar, Paulinho and Jo. (Paulinho’s performance was especially scrutinized at the final whistle, but it wasn’t until Saturday’s match against Italy that Scolari would, out of necessity, address one of the few problem areas in his first XI.)

Next up was a defensively solid Mexico side that earned more corners and kept more of the ball than Brazil over the 90 minutes.

But again Brazil didn’t break, and the excellent Luiz Gustavo laid down his first-team credentials with a standout performance in which he completed 93 per cent of his passes, didn’t lose a single aerial battle and committed five fouls in a physical match without picking up a yellow card—all statistics courtesy WhoScored...
Article Source: Bleacher Report - International Football

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