A second-half brace from centre-forward Richarlison earned Brazil a 2-0 win after protracted struggles with heroic Serbian defense, on Thursday as the two teams entered the World Cup in Doha. Seleçao thus take the lead in group G on goal difference, level on points with Switzerland, who beat Cameroon 1-0 earlier in the afternoon. The Brazilians and the Swiss will face each other on Monday (17:00) during the second day. In the Lusail stadium where the final will be played on December 18, Brazil immediately took the match on their own, with a very active Neymar and not even sparing his defensive runs, until his substitute in the 80th minute, apparently shot in the foot . For an hour, however, the Serbian defense and its large bounties, excellently placed in front of the excellent goalkeeper Vanja Milinkovic-Savic, thwarted the many attempts by the opponents.
Because Brazil clearly dominated this match (24 out of 4 shots in the entire match according to Fifa statistics) and fully deserved the victory. In the first period, Tite’s team had three great scoring chances. The first in the 27th minute, but the giant Milinkovic-Savic came out victorious on the feet of Vinicius Jr, ideally launched by Thiago Silva, captain of Auriverde. Then Raphinha in turn found himself alone against the Serbian goal after a one-two with Paqueta, but his too soft shot from the left was intercepted by the Turin goalkeeper (35′). Six minutes later it’s Vinicius, alerted by Casemiro, who seems very close to taking advantage of a mistake by Nikola Milenkovic, but the latter redeems himself by returning to counter the Real Madrid striker’s shot (41′). One wondered then how much longer the Serbian defense would have resisted these waves of yellow-green attacks. An outrageous domination, to the point that Dragan Stojkovic’s men failed to get a single shot on target in the first 45 minutes!
Gorgeous goal by Richarlison
The scenario repeats itself from the beginning of the second period and Raphinha, after stealing the ball from Nemanja Gudelj, is beaten again by Milinkovic-Savic (46′). Neymar was offered a great chance with a free kick called from the ideal distance for a foul on himself, but his shot was deflected by the Serbian block (49′). After a shot by Alex Sandro into the back of the right post of the opponent’s goal, Brazil ended up finding an opening and the release of their own centre-forward Richarlison, who sent a ball into goal that was cleared on his feet by Milinkovic-Savic from a Vinicius Jr (63rd) launched by Neymar. Forced to reveal themselves from then on, the Serbs managed to make themselves dangerous, especially when cornering, but exposed themselves to Brazilian counter-attacks.
And on one of these, the Tottenham striker delivered a double and released his own from a sequence of left control spinning right jabs (73rd). Beautiful ! The score remained there despite a new shot by Gabriel Jesus on the crossbar (81st). Brazil can be reassured by this introduction, facing an opponent who was already in their group at the 2918 World Cup in Russia. Serbia will need to show a more offensive course if they are to finally cross the chicken route, after their failures in 2010 and 2018.
