Brazil vs Japan Match Analysis

I think for this team and possibly for the next four or five years, we have to put the old history of what Brazil have to one side because they play a different brand of football.

It's very pragmatic. They make changes now and we called it a half time and not to give ourselves a pat on the back too much, but it looked like a very simple game plan.

Move from left to right, take your players on 1v1, but most importantly put crosses in the box, make these Japanese defenders defend.

As soon as they did that, the goals came. As soon as they scored the goal, by the way, everyone then wanted the ball.

So you have to start saying, was there a pressure element there as well? Because Vinicius Junior, we never seen him until about the 60th minute.

And as soon as we see him, he's not making his going because he's trying to get the crowd up now because it's 1-1 and he feels he can be the hero.

Ultimately, it ended up being Martinelli, but it was a good game.

I thought Japan held themselves well and they'll be thinking, this will be the World Cup of what if for Japan.

What if our players weren't injured and were fully fit? What if we were able to really have a strong depth squad to take this Brazil to our door?

Because Brazil looked averaged today for a large part of it.

I think, Nigel, Brazil knew that Japan were going to play quite defensive in the second half.

In the end, that proved to be the way.

They were going to try and hold on to a 1-0 win all the way through to the end.

And Brazil, ultimately, especially once they got the first goal,

were able to find those gaps in the second half that they couldn't in the first half.

Yeah, it's just to really add to what Troy said.

He's right. They played with a lot more confidence in the second half.

But from a nation like Brazil,

that same confidence is what they should have started with in the first half.

And you do wonder if there's an element of pressure now starting to build up.

And really, are these players embracing the pressure or starting to really feel the pressure?

Because the confidence they played with in the second half

is what we expect from Brazil in every single game, regardless of the opponents.

But you don't want to take nothing away from Japan.

I think Japan were fantastic in what they did.

I don't question their approach.

I think their approach was great,

because they're playing to the strengths that they have of the players that they have available.

And if this was a Japan side with Matoma available and Endo available,

I would say that I would, just to the performance we saw from Brazil,

I would have favoured Japan to go through if they had those quality players available.

And for Japan now to make that kick to that next step,

they need a few more Matomas, a few more players in the attacking sense

that can take that game to the next level and get that goal and that real super threat.

Because that's all they were lacking.

Brazil grew in confidence, they started to grind them down,

they moved the ball quicker, they were doing a switch of play quicker,

and putting a lot more crosses in the box and creating chaos.

As much as you want to be defensively organized,

you don't want to defend for 90 minutes.

I don't care how good a defender you are,

you do not want to defend for 90 minutes.

There's times in the game where you want to rest with the ball,

you're going to want to be brave on the ball and play and slow it down a bit.

It's not fun to defend for 90 minutes no matter what level you play at.

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