FIFA World Cup: Of Brazilian ballet and Asian heartbreak

Joga bonito, the Portuguese for ’the beautiful football’, is the most overused expression in world football. But cliched as it may be on the paper, on the field, when Brazilians play their joga bonito brand of football, it’s like poetry in motion. FIFA World Cup:  Fixtures  |  Results  |  Squads  |  Records In football, there are tactics and surpassing that is the Brazilian way of carefree football, which no manual, no coach can teach. It’s part of the culture, part of the DNA. It comes to life when some world-class individual skills are married with lighting-quick movement, one-touch passing, brilliant pitch positioning and clinical finishing. And on Monday night, Brazil unleashed all of this for the first time in Qatar. South Korea entered the game pumped up after securing a round of 16 berth in a dramatic fashion against Portugal, but they hit a Samba storm. Even before the South Korea game, the Brazil team was among the favourites. And after the thumping 4-1 win , they certainly are the favourite.Everything seemed to fall in place for them as Neymar was back for the five-time world champions with coach Tite returning to his core team with 10 changes from the Cameroon game. But for how the game panned out, only making changes up front should have been enough. To start the game with, it only took seven minutes for Vinicius Junior to get onto the scoresheet. Raphinha darted on the right flank and managed to find Vinicius despite all the traffic jams in the box. The Real Madrid winger calmly slotted the ball into the back of the net. The pressure on Korea’s defence went a notch up after this. In the 13th minute, Richarlison was fouled in the box by Jung Woo-young as Neymar converted from the spot for his first goal of this World Cup. He is now up to 76 goals for Brazil, only one behind the legendary Pele’s record. The goal of the night, or should we say of the tournament, came in the 29th minute. Richarlison showed some great balance with his heading skills to control an aerial ball before passing it to Marquinhos who crossed it across the face of the goal at the edge of the box to Thiago Silva. Richarlison was quick to get into the box as Silva laid it off for him to score his third goal of the tournament. The whole process, the quick one-touch movements, splitting the defence like a hot knife through the butter was the perfect microcosm of Brazil’s joga bonito.

Another quick attack in the 36th minute allowed Lucas Paqueta to score the fourth goal. In all fairness, Brazil could have scored more. More goals would have only meant more dance. Such was the environment at Stadium 974 that the Brazilians made the ball waltz across the pitch and when they scored, they celebrated it with elaborate dancing.

In the stands, watching the masterclass was the class of 2002. Ronaldo, Roberto Carlos and Cafu, the magicians who led Brazil to their last World Cup win. Coincidentally, the football from Neymar and Co was reminiscent of what we saw two decades ago. Seems like the World Cup trophy is set to return to its spiritual home. Asian hopes end As much as we may have enjoyed the Brazilian brilliance, it’s impossible not to feel for South Korea and Japan, who lost to Croatia earlier on the night. Despite the defeats, there was so much to learn for the last remaining Asian teams in Qatar 2022. Brazil’s highline defending and pressing combined with Raphinha and Vinicius stretching the game on the flanks resulted in a highly porous South Korean defence. Maybe the need was to be more compact and to give Brazil the respect they deserved. Brazil had more goals in them but after an intense first half, they decided to shift gears and slow down things in the last 45 minutes. Paik Seung-ho scored one for Korea in the 76th minute but by then they had lost the game as a result of a tactical blunder. Things were different for Japan against Croatia. After beating Germany and Spain, a nippy Japanese team started the game in the all-out attack fashion and scored the opening goal in the first half. But the 2018 finalists Croatia had more experience and it showed.

After Ivan Perisic equalised, Croatia managed the game professionally to take it to penalties. And as it so often happens, another penalty shootout win sealed the deal for them. Read all the  Latest News ****,  Trending News ****,  Cricket News ****,  Bollywood News ****,  India News  and  Entertainment News  here. Follow us on  Facebook ****,  Twitter  and  Instagram ****.