Brazil Cruise Past Haiti, but Raphinha Injury Clouds Win; Neymar Nears Return
Brazil made light work of Haiti in their second match at this World Cup, as two goals from Matheus Cunha and another from Vinicius Junior handed them a 3-0 win at Lincoln Financial Field.
The victory puts Carlo Ancelotti’s team top of Group C with four points from two matches, after they drew 1-1 in their opening match with Morocco. Earlier on Friday, Morocco had beaten Scotland 1-0. A second defeat for Haiti, meanwhile, means they are the first team to be eliminated from the World Cup, with one game left to play.
Brazil were much-improved from their game with Morocco but Ancelotti and the squad will be concerned by an injury to Raphinha in the first half. The Barcelona forward was withdrawn in Philadelphia with what looked like a hamstring injury after 40 minutes.
But Ancelotti was much more optimistic about Neymar’s potential involvement in Brazil’s final group game against Scotland on June 24, saying after the game: “Yes, Neymar will be training tomorrow (Sunday) individually and then on Monday he will be training with the rest of the team. He will be available for the match against Scotland.”
Neymar, 34, has sat out Brazil’s first two matches as he recovers from a calf injury.
Jack Lang, Matt Slater and Emily Olsen analyse the key talking points…
Did Brazil look more like Brazil?
One of the difficulties of evaluating any Brazil performance is knowing how much weight to assign to all of the hoary old cliches. Jogo bonito, ‘samba football’ (a completely meaningless phrase)… people pin all of their aesthetic hopes on this side. That despite (a) the fact that they haven’t played heart-stopping football for quite some time — maybe since the early 1980s, depending on your standards — and (b) Brazil’s own knotty relationship with notions of sporting beauty.
Brazilians love attractive football, sure, but they love winning even more.
So did Ancelotti’s side play ‘like Brazil’ here? What we can say is this: they were much, much better than they had been against Morocco in their opening match. They also looked a great deal more like the side that Ancelotti had appeared to be moulding in the lead-up to this competition.
Against Morocco, Ancelotti picked a fixed No 9, Igor Thiago. There was no movement, no structure to Brazil’s play. Their best player, Vinicius, was marooned on the flank.
In Philadelphia, Ancelotti returned to Cunha, the man most people had expected to lead the line for Brazil all along. It worked on multiple levels. His movement allowed Vinicius to drift, finding little pockets of space. He dropped deep to combine with the midfield, allowing the team to move up the pitch more easily. Cunha also got involved with the defensive side of the game: witness his tackle in the run-up to his first goal.
More than anything, Brazil just had combinations. Lucas Paqueta, Cunha and Vinicius are on each others’ wavelengths; they swapped positions, swapped passes, swapped ideas. We shouldn’t go overboard about a win over a fairly limited Haiti side, but for Brazil this was certainly something to build on.
Jack Lang
No Hollywood ending for Haiti but they leave celebrated and vindicated
In Thursday’s pre-match media conference, the Haiti manager Sebastien Migne was asked if he could take inspiration from Philadelphia’s most famous sporting son, Rocky Balboa, and lead his team to a shock victory over Brazil.
OK, hands down everyone, we know Rocky did not win the big fight.
But did Rocky really lose? Was not the whole point of the film (I am ignoring the sequels) that the Italian Stallion defied everyone’s low expectations, overcame various disadvantages and gave the superstar the fight of his life?
If that was your takeaway from the film, too, then the Haiti/Rocky comparison works perfectly.
This is Haiti’s second appearance at a World Cup, the last coming 52 years ago. The intervening years have not been kind to the Caribbean island, which has ravaged by political unrest and violence for nearly a decade. The situation is currently so bad that Migne cannot visit — it is just too dangerous.
Yet they qualified for this tournament by topping a Concacaf group that included Costa Rica and Honduras, teams with far more recent World Cup pedigrees. And they did so with a team cobbled together from unheralded teams in smaller leagues. One of their best players, Jean-Ricner Bellegarde, has just been relegated from England’s top flight with Wolves. He has scored five goals in three seasons.
Having narrowly lost their opener to Scotland, they needed something spectacular this evening, something along the lines of Rocky IV. But that went out of the window the minute Cunha bundled Brazil’s first goal over the line a minute before the water break.
Goals two and three came soon after and I feared the worst for Haiti at half time. But they did not throw in the towel and they even landed a few punches in the second half.
But there was no miracle punch and now they are down and out, the first team to be knocked out at this tournament, as even a win over Morocco would put them behind Scotland on the head-to-head.
So, no, there was no Hollywood ending for Haiti. But Philadelphia is marking Rocky’s 50th anniversary this year because it was a much better film than most Hollywood efforts, and Haiti leave here celebrated and vindicated. Who knows, maybe they will win in their sequels, too.
Matt Slater
How much would Brazil miss Raphinha?
There were 38 minutes on the clock when Raphinha sank to the turf. He looked over at the Brazil bench, signalled that he would need to come off. His team-mates came over to check on him. His facial expression — blank, vacant — suggested that it was not just a precautionary measure.
Any absence in the next matches would be a blow to Brazil. Sure, he has struggled with injuries recently, missing 18 games across three different spells for Barcelona last season. He has also flattered to deceive at World Cups: this was his seventh tournament appearance and he has yet to score or set up a goal. His quality, though, is beyond debate, as is his ability to set the tone with his running.
If Raphinha isn’t fit, Ancelotti has a couple of options. One is the one he went for here: Rayan, the Bournemouth winger. The teenager has made a positive impression since his Brazil debut in March but did not, in truth, have much of an impact on the night. That may open space for Luiz Henrique, a player of a similar profile but one who has been a member of Ancelotti’s squad since the get-go.
Both players are wriggly, elusive dribblers. Raphinha’s intensity and work-rate would be sorely missed, however.
Jack Lang
Does Matheus Cunha have to start now?
The simple answer is yes.
Ancelotti made two changes to his lineup from Brazil’s opening game against Morocco: right-back Danilo replaced Roger Ibanez and Cunha was picked upfront in place of Igor Thiago.
Cunha has been a regular in Ancelotti’s line-ups and the win over Haiti on Friday showed why.
Against Morocco, Ancelotti wanted a classic No 9, someone who added a strong presence in the box and would win duels. That is Thiago. It made sense on paper pre-match. However, with 62 minutes in that 1-1 draw, the Brentford striker had an xG of 0.66, one shot on target (two total) and no chances created.
Conversely, Cunha spent 64 minutes on the pitch in Philadelphia, producing two goals and showing why Brazil might need a more vertical option alongside Vinicius and Raphinha, if the Barcelona winger recovers from the issue that led to his withdrawal in the first half.
Brazil’s weakness is in their central midfield and finding ways to break lines. Unlike Thiago, who often sat up top waiting for the ball, Cunha both dropped back to win the ball in midfield and got forward to finish chances — as he did twice against Haiti.
Tournaments need versatile players and Cunha showed how and why he should be relied on going forward in the group stage and beyond.
Emily Olsen
What comes next?
The final matches in Group C take place on June 24, both kicking off at 6pm ET (11pm BST).
- Scotland vs Brazil, Miami
- Morocco vs Haiti, Atlanta
The team that finishes first will play the Group F runner-up in their first knockout game in Houston on June 29.
The team that finishes second will play the Group F winner in Monterrey on June 29.
If one advances as a third-place team, they’ll play a group winner from Group A, E or I in Boston, Mexico City or New York.