Brazil Wins Group

Images by El Universo

Since Brazil wins the group with no problems with a draw against classic rival Portugal of a score of 0 - 0, it gave some inconveniences for the team leaded by Dunga. Brazil's coach seemed very angry at his team while they had full control of the game but never managed to score a single goal that would have led the victory over Portugal. with this result, the Brazilian national team has been unbeaten with 7 points and advance to the next round of 16 and will face Chile, the other South American team. While Portugal managed to stay in the second spot facing the favorite Spain in the next round. The other teams in the group, Ivory Coast and North Korea were eliminated for the tournament. At the beginning of the match, the Brazilian national team was met with a powerful and offensive Portugal that gave it all in the game with the man of the match being Cristiano Ronaldo putting the Jabulani everywhere in the field.

Portugal was very closed during the match was determined to counterattack from over the field, giving the Brazil's national team a hard time to penetrate the solid defense led by Ricardo Carvalho. Brazil had fresh new faces in the starting lineup with Nilmar, Grafite and Ramires, which they never had the vocational offense expected from Dunga. Julio Baptista, player from Italy's A.S. Roma, substituted Kaká, which he was suspended one game due to accumulation of yellow cards in this tournament. Dani Alves was also another substitute for Elano, recuperating from an injury and Nilmar for Robinho, due to physical fatigue, so the coach gave him a day of rest. Nilmar seemed lost in game but the only attack that he had was he aimed for the goal but that was it, Baptista is not in his best feature but he didn't have any glory, lacking ambition and Alves seemed very incisive in his game, creating much opportunities for score for the strikers but it wasn't the same as Elano's game.

Dunga seemed very nervous throughout the match and looked at the errors committed by his players that almost ceded the victory for Portugal. The Brazilian national team missed Kaká's and Robinho's abilities, but Luis Fabiano did not appear as a striker seemed very uneffective in this match. The advantage is that Brazil will have Kaká and Robinho for the next match in the round of 16 against the one and only Chile. While Brazil also awaits the return of Elano, suffering from a bad injury.