Brazil goalkeeper Julio Cesar on winning the hard way In their group-phase wins over Japan, Mexico and Italy, the Brazilians began each game by hemming their opponents back in their own half, with the front three of Neymar, Hulk and Fred setting the tone by closing down rival defenders fast. Against the Uruguayans, however, there was little pressing high up the pitch by the men in yellow. “The Brazilians play an attacking game and they always try to overpower opposing sides. You could see that against Italy especially,” said Uruguay coach Oscar Tabarez in his post-match press conference. “They didn’t let the Italians get out of their own half and they pushed a lot of people up, including the two full-backs, who were even further forward than the midfielders. I don’t think today was a case of Brazil not wanting to do that. It was more that they weren’t able to because we were determined to close them down up front. “You can see that Brazil are taking shape,” he continued. “They came through a very stiff test today, but they’ll have more tough games in the future because other teams will get to know them better.” Bearing the pain With their committed performance, the Uruguayans forced the hosts to get to know themselves better as well, pushing them every inch of the way, causing them several scares and only succumbing to Paulinho’s 86th-minute header. “We’re still new at this,” Luiz Felipe Scolari told the assembled press after the game. “I think the important thing was to see that we’ve still got things to learn.” The question is, what exactly is the lesson? Speaking separately to FIFA, Neymar and Marcelo both described the manner of Brazil’s hard-fought victory in the same terms. “It was tough, a typical semi-final and the first one for this team,” said the No10, who failed to find the back of the net for the first time at Brazil 2013. “We suffered, but you also find out a lot of things when you suffer. We’ll be going into the final feeling even more confident now.” #Venom
Posted on: Fri, 28 Jun 2013 11:42:28 +0000
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