Brazil-England Recap

November 16th, 2009 | by: Duvel |

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BRASIL 1 x 0 INGLATERRA

Even though the match was a friendly what we learned was that England is not as good as Brazil, period. As Fabio Capello put it, “Tonight I think we played the best team in the world.”

As I thought before the match, Glen Johnson was a pretty big loss for England coming into this match. I’m not sure he would have neutralized Nilmar, but clearly Wes Brown did not, and in fact that matchup downright embarrassing at times.

Nilmar, who is my man of the match, ran rampant on the English defense and was a creative spark all day. He put a beautiful header into the back of the net right after the break.

Luis Fabiano proved he is human by missing a penalty kick that was awarded after a Nilmar run into the box. Fabiano only misses that shot about once every hundred times so we can cut him some slack.

Later in the second half Lucio was about a half inch from adding a second goal on a strike from outside the box that hit inside the post.

Michel Bastos, who earned his first cap for the team, starting at his unnatural position of left back, was solid. I’ve seen some poor match ratings for him that I really didn’t understand. He was close to scoring, and made several outstanding runs. Defensively he got off to a shaky start, but overall I thought he looked promising.

When all was said and done, the better team won. Brazil was better in every facet of the match. Every English player was extremely limited all night, with James Milner being the exception. There were a lot of good things to take out of Saturday moving forward.

Player Ratings:

Julio Cesar, 6.5, Wasn’t called upon to do much.

Maicon, 6.5, Made a few good runs, was steady as always defensively

Lucio, 7.5, Was outstanding on both ends of the pitch, deserved a goal in the second half

Thiago Silva, 7, Shaky early in the match but grew more confident as time went on, shut down Wayne Rooney

Michel Bastos, 6.5, A good debut. Was very good offensively, and solid on defense.

Felipe Melo, 7, Was very solid. Him and Gilberto Silva disrupted the English attack and were major reasons for the ineffectiveness of their midfield.

Gilberto Silva,7, See above.

Elano, 6, I thought he was below average overall, despite playing a beautiful ball for the Nilmar goal. I wouldn’t be surprised to see Ramires still starting when healthy.

Kaka, 6.5, Not his best match. However, England had no one who could match his pace.

Nilmar, 8, Made outstanding run after outstanding run. Robinho had better play immaculately once he’s healthy again.

Luis Fabiano, 6, Missed a PK that he needs to bury. Did a good job holding the ball up throughout the match.

BRASIL

Julio César, Maicon, Lúcio, Thiago Silva e Michel Bastos; Gilberto Silva, Felipe Melo, Elano (Daniel Alves) e Kaká (Julio Baptista); Nilmar (Carlos Eduardo) e Luis Fabiano (Hulk).

Técnico: Dunga.

INGLATERRA

Foster, Brown, Upson, Lescott e Bridge; Milner (Young), Jenas, Wright Phillips (Crouch) e Barry (Huddlestone); Rooney e Bent (Defoe).

Técnico: Fabio Capello.

Gols: Nilmar, a 1 minuto do segundo tempo.

Estádio: Khalifa International.

Data: 14/11/2009.

Árbitro: Adbulrahman Abdou (Qatar).