Opinion – Walter Casagrande Jr.: Calmness against South Korea is the merit of the Brazilian team

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Perhaps the game between Brazil and South Korea was the easiest in a round of 16 of all the Cups I’ve ever played. This is the seventh.

In the field of football, when you have such facility, you say “there was no game”.

But the great merit of all this tranquility was the Brazilian team, which in 35 minutes already had a guaranteed classification.

She didn’t waste any chance while she was focused on the game and, apart from the penalty, all the other goals were beautiful, with close approach, counters, safe and conscious hits on goal. First time for anyone to complain.

Without needing to speed up or force the team physically, the goals came naturally. It could have ended more than 4-0.

The ease helped Neymar’s return, which went well, and the game didn’t demand more from him than he did. He was calm on the penalty spot, but there was a play in which he was hungry, because Vinicius Junior entered free on the left side in a counterattack and, instead of touching, he wanted to do everything alone and ended up not happening.

In the end, it was Richarlison’s turn, who scored his third goal in the Cup after a beautiful table with Thiago Silva, preferring to hit the goal and not pass the ball to Neymar, who was completely alone.

This is a problem when the game becomes too easy, sometimes it paints a vanity of each one wanting to make the goal forget the collective.

I want to highlight that, in this match, even with all the ease, Alisson worked well when required. Against Serbia and Switzerland, he had only watched the game from the pitch.

The game was over for Brazil when the first half ended, because in the second half nothing happened.

As for Korea, the second half was interesting, because it was more aggressive, creating difficulties for the Brazilian defense. Even before scoring, he had already been in danger, something that had not happened in the entire first half.

The pace of the Brazilian team dropped a lot, leaving the game very ugly.

There was also no need for Neymar to be forcing almost the entire game. By halftime, he could have left for a longer rest. He ran the risk of having taken a hit in the same place as the injury and aggravated the problem, but everything worked out. That’s a matter of opinion. The coach is Tite and he preferred to take the risk.

Brazil x Croatia, next Friday (9), will be a more difficult game, against the last runner-up and with a much more technical and dangerous team. But I think Brazil is the favorite.

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