2018 FIFA WORLD CUP PREVIEW – BRAZIL NATIONAL TEAM
Team Summary:
The Brazilians have massive expectations this year at the world cup. After a disastrous world cup 4 years on their home soil conceding 7 in the semi final, Brazilians will be looking for redemption and nobody other than Neymar will be wanting to help and lead Brazil to the glory after having to miss out the semis to a back injury the last time round. Brazil have a much improved squad, with the emergence of young players such as Marquinhos, Casemiro, Coutinho, Jesus, Firmino. These guys will be looking to provide Brazil something they haven’t had 4 years ago, the stability in defense and midfield, while their strikers issues have been sorted which was their main problem 4 years ago as Fred was just horrific. Brazil love to play attacking football, everybody tends to go forward even their defenders which normally leaves gaps in the back sometimes and that means whenever Brazil play we can expect fun entertaining games and for betting people you should always try and look for bets that have over 2.5 or 3.5 goals totals before every Brazil game. Brazil are one of the top 2 favorites at this world cup and with the nation having high expectations, they will surely be put under immense pressure, the question is how will they deal with it? Will they crumble like in 2014, or will they bounce back?
Road to the Finals
Brazil have had a relatively easy way to the finals. They dominated their competition in the south American qualifiers winning the group by 10 points over Uruguay and finishing 15 points clear of 6th placed Chile who didn’t make it. Brazil picked up 12 Wins 5 Draws and 1 Loss which was in the opener and finished with 41 points scoring 41 goals in 18 games. However after the first 6 games there was a little worry with Brazil as they’ve started the campaign below 5th place, but their national team have grew up as the campaign went on and after those 6 games, they went on a 9 game winning run, dismantling everybody in their way including Argentina, Uruguay, Colombia, Ecuador.. Their dominant football would prove to be too much for other teams and that pretty much got everyone thinking that this team is capable of winning it all now, because the teams they were beating and in the fashion that they were beating them was very impressive plus they smashed some fantastic teams on their way. During the qualifiers Brazil’s top scorer was Jesus with 7, Neymar and Paulinho scored 6, Coutinho and Willian added 4 more and a few others scored between 1-3 which shows that Brazil have a balanced out attack and anyone can provide with a goal.
Key Players:
Neymar – Neymar is undoubtably the main star on the Brazilian team and will be their biggest key in succeeding. Neymar is one of the best players in the world, some would say the best after Ronaldo and Messi and he’s coming off of a great season until he got injured with PSG. Now the injury that Neymar suffered was definitely at bad timing because he’s coming into this world cup without any match fitness, however he can try and gain as much as possible during the friendly matches and the group stage games because you’d still expect Brazil to make it out of it even if Neymar isn’t 100% so he will definitely have time to get back to 100% before the knockouts. Neymar will provide Brazil with incredible creativity and goal scoring, he had a fantastic world cup 4 years ago as a 22 year old until he got hurt, so the world cup pressure isn’t really a thing for him as he’s already played at home and performed at a high level as a young star including scoring that penalty in a game where they could’ve been knocked out. So yeah, Neymar is definitely not shy of big game pressure, if he’s 100% he will carry Brazil very far.
Gabriel Jesus – The 21 year old wonder boy Gabriel Jesus will be participating in the first world cup of his career and he’s going to be very important for Brazil. One of Brazil’s biggest problems 4 years ago is that their strikers were Jo and Fred. They were both absolutely horrible at that world cup, however with the emergence of Gabriel Jesus, Brazil will not have that problem anymore as he’s a much better striker who brings lots of pace, creativity and finishing which is something Brazil have lacked up front for about 10 years now. Gabriel Jesus will have to fight Firmino for that starting job, but he’s going to most likely be the first choice due to his performances for Brazil, I mean he was the top scorer for them during the qualifiers with 7 goals even above Neymar. Jesus will be eager to put everyone on notice and to make his country proud at his young age of 21.
Thiago Silva – The veteran defender is another key player for Brazil. As an experienced player Thiago Silva will be one of the voices for his team, and at the same time he will still be their most important defender at the CB position. Because Brazilian full backs love to bomb forward and leave space at the back, Thiago Silva will be one of the two Centre backs that will have to stop the counter attacks from other teams, we saw that already at the 2014 world cup, when brazil would leave lots of space at the back for Silva to clean the mess and we pretty much expect the same this year, although his partner Marquinhos will help him out with that unlike David Luiz who used to bomb forward too. A prime example of Silva’s importance would be the semi final of the 2014 world cup when he got suspended and Brazil let in 7 goals because until that they were relatively decent at the back because of Silva.
Predictions and Expectations
Brazil have been drawn into a group with Switzerland, Serbia and Costa Rica. It’s not an easy group, especially if Brazil switch they could get punished and each team have the type of players that could hit Brazil on the counter attack and punish them. However Brazil are superior to every single one of these nations and if they are switched on and play their game, there really shouldn’t be much trouble for them to overcome these nations. The toughest challenge for Brazil would be Switzerland who have a solid all around team, but Serbia and Costa Rica are no pushovers especially Costa Rica, we’ve seen them reach the quarters the last time round, but if everything goes right and Brazil clicks during this world cup, they should be able to take care of each of these nations picking up all 3 wins.
If Brazil got past the group stages they’d have to face either Germany Sweden Mexico or South Korea. This is where it becomes important that Brazil finishes 1st in their group because if they don’t take care of business they could run into Germany and well, meeting the Germans in round of 16 isn’t really ideal, you’d prefer to play them later in the competition. However I don’t believe we’ll see that match up that early because both nations are far superior than their opposition and I’d expect them both to pick up wins in every game. My personal prediction would be Brazil meeting up with Mexico or Sweden in R16. Both teams are very decent, however they’re pretty much at the same level as Brazil’s opposition in the group stages, so if they avoid any stupid suspensions or injuries to star players, then Brazil would surely get by either of these nations.
If Brazil do advance into the quarters, then it really is unpredictable who they run into, I personally believe Brazil have the team this year to go all the way into the Final and win it because they’re full of depth and yes I am predicting Brazil to get past the quarters and then semis and win the Final this year due to the amount of talent they have on the team, from defense to attack they’re loaded and with full of depth. As for bets, then if you want to look at a long term bet then I’d recommend Brazil winning the world cup at the decimal odds of 5.00, and also Brazil to pick up over 7.5 points at 2.37 and Brazil to reach the final at 3.25. All of these odds are based on WilliamHill.
FULL BRAZIL SQUAD FOR THE WORLD CUP
Alisson, Ederson, Cassio; Marcelo, Danilo, Filipe Luis, Fagner, Marquinhos, Thiago Silva, Miranda, Pedro Geromel; Willian, Fernandinho, Paulinho, Casemiro, Philippe Coutinho, Renato Augusto, Fred; Neymar, Gabriel Jesus, Roberto Firmino, Douglas Costa, Taison.
Predicted Starting Lineup
Ederson
Danilo Marquinhos Silva Marcelo
Fernandinho Casemiro Coutinho
Costa/Willian Jesus Neymar
Game Schedule (UK TIME)
17/06/2018 vs Switzerland – 7 PM
22/06/2018 vs Costa Rica – 1 PM
27/06/2018 vs Serbia – 7 PM
.png?v=1.014689135)
