Brazil-Italy

Hello all,

I am the new writer here at Brazil Offside. I hope to provide you with news and analysis on the Seleção, especially with the next qualifying fixtures approaching. Despite my French name, I am actually half Brazilian, so don’t think you’re getting some carpetbagger taking over the blog. A lot has gone on with the national team in the past couple of months, including the performance of the Under 20 team at the South American Sub 20 in Venezuela which I will write about later this week. For now let’s talk about the Italy match.

A good, but unspectacular performance for the team with a 2-0 win at the Emirates Stadium, with goals from Elano and Robinho. Leading up to this game there had been a few distractions with injuries to Luis Fabiano, the Amauri saga, and Robinho off the pitch issues. Brazil had a 62-38 advantage in possession. This match could have easily been closer on the score sheet if not for Julio Cesar’s brilliance.

Brazil (4-3-2-1)

Player Ratings:

Julio Cesar, 9, Solid as always, made impressive saves of a Daniele De Rossi strike in the first half, Luca Toni touch, and Fabio Grosso free kick in the second. He has a firm grasp on this position over Doni for the indefinite future.

Marcelo, 7.5, He is by far the most talented left back Brazil has to offer right now. He plays with the pace and quality to own this spot. He had one bad moment where Giuseppe Rossi steamrolled him in the second half, however I was more than satisfied with his play overall. The fact that Dunga has been reluctant to turn over this position to him is absurd. Please, Dunga, no more Kleber!

Juan, 7.5, Coming off a great performance against Genoa on Sunday, continued that solid play on Tuesday

Lucio, 7, He let Luca Toni slip behind him a couple of times, however Toni was unable to convert. I thought he looked very shaky in the second half, I’ll give him 7 for a good first half.

Maicon, 8, Made a good contribution in the attack. Dani Alves had probably been in slightly better form going into this match, however Maicon got the job done and has progressively become more comfortable coming up in the attack.

Felipe Melo, 7.5, This was a solid performance for someone stepping on the big stage for the first time. I feel that defensive midfield has been the weak link of the team during the Dunga era so it was nice to see someone play well here, and who was not Josue.

Gilberto Silva, 7, Did not do too much, was not called upon to do much. Generally, Gilberto Silva makes me nervous as he and Josue have been less than spectacular the past year, to say the least. However, for one night, no complaints from me.

Elano, 9, The man of the match. was all over the pitch. He had the first goal, and nearly scored another. A performance like this makes you wonder why Mark Hughes doesn’t play him regularly.

Robinho, 8.5, Scored a beautiful second goal embarrassing Andrea Pirlo and Gianluca Zambrotta. He had much to prove tonight with some of the off the pitch issues going on in his life. He was active the entire night, without showing any signs of fatigue.

Ronaldinho, 8, He was tidy in the midfield, assisted on the Elano goal.

Adriano, 6.5, I don’t believe he should be playing alone up top. There’s not much to say here. He never really got too involved in the match.

Subs:

Dani Alves, 7, He played in the midfield upon entering the game. He’ll have to get used to play this role of the bench until Maicon has a slip in form. However he was extremely active when he came on.
Pato N/A
Josue N/A
Thiago Silva N/A
Julio Baptista N/A

Dunga made four of the five substitutions in the last 12 minutes of the match, with the match essentially over. Therefore I am not rating anyone but Alves.

Overall this was a second consecutive quality performance from the team. I could not understand why Dunga waited so long to use his subs, but I will just be content for now with the win. Perhaps he was so nervous that Luis Felipe Scolari is looking for work that he felt compelled to not touch a winning lineup. Hopefully they can keep this up going into the next set of qualifying matches where the only consistency has been underachieving and boring football. This Josue and Kleber-less lineup played with better pace and efficiency than the normal Dunga side. Hopefully he will take a lot from this match moving forward. Later this week I will have a summary of the under 20 team’s successful conquering of the Sub 20 tournament.