Even though Brazil is my second international team, I have to look at their opening two games without putting on rose colored (or should it be yellow tinted?) glasses. Those that read my post on their opener, or watched the game on TV, will know that they were lucky to come away with all 3 points and that poor referring denied Croatia a draw. Early this morning China time they did have to settle for a draw versus Mexico and the host nation are lucky to be sitting on 4 points when it could easily have been just 2!

Sure, the Mexican goal keeper played a blinder (our English for made several great saves) but the Brazil keeper had to be alert too. Brazil are expected to score goals and 0-0 is a rare score for them. The match result was very different from Brazil's 2-0 victory over Mexico in 2013 on the way to winning the Confederation Cup.

The manager will say that it is not how you start that matters but how you finish. This makes perfect sense for teams from other continents that need to acclimatize. Yet Brazil do not need to acclimatize! They also have the advantage of not having to qualify. Big Phil said that he knew his team for the World Cup for some time. Teams having to qualify need to balance the longer term goal of giving experience to promising young players (as England are) and making sure that you get there by playing experienced players a year earlier who may not be energetic enough to compete in the climate of the finals.

So why have Brazil not hit the ground running? There are good examples of teams that have. Acclimatization does not seem to have been a problem for some competitors from far away, such as the Netherlands and Germany who both won by 4 goal margins Since the Netherlands crushed the current holders of the trophy, they must have raised an orange alert for Brazil for the closing stages. Yes the Netherlands do play in orange, though they had to use 2nd colors of blue to avoid a clash with Spain's red. Only fair then that Spain also had to use 2nd colors of white. There is no home team (for kit purposes) in each match at the World Cup!

Fans want Brazil to progress. Fingers crossed!

The explanation of Brazil's worrying performances seems to be the weight of expectation that they must not fail. I am confident that they will get the result that enables them to progress to the round of 16 but they will need to step up a gear. Go Brazil!

By ColinSpeakman

International Educator, Economist, goal of helping to increase understanding of China by the West

 

 

(Opinions of the writer in this blog don't represent those of China Daily.)