Recontesting the Copa América final, again.

Brazil vs. Peru

Estadio Nacional del Perú, Lima, October 13, 2020

Kickoff: 8:00 PM EDT / 9:00 PM BRT / 12:00 AM GMT

US TV / Streaming: Pay-per-view only

Likely Starting Lineup: Weverton; Danilo, Thiago Silva, Marquinhos, Renan Lodi; Casemiro, Douglas Luiz, Coutinho; Neymar, Roberto Firmino, Everton Cebolinha (Richarlison).

Bench: Ederson, Santos, Gabriel Menino, Felipe, Rodrigo Caio, Alex Telles, Fabinho, Bruno Guimarães, Éverton Ribeiro, Matheus Cunha, Richarlison (Everton Cebolinha), Rodrygo.

Notes and Storylines

Tite has been coy about his starting lineup, not wanting to give anything away to Peruvian coach Ricardo Gareca ahead of Brazil’s first away game of World Cup qualifying. After a 5-0 win over Bolivia on Friday, though, all signs point to a very similar lineup to that game; Globo has posited that Richarlison might replace Cebolinha on the right as the only change. I certainly can’t fault Tite if he ends up staying the course after a very good performance; the main thing I’d want changed, dropping Firmino, seems kind of ridiculous after he scored two goals on Friday. I do hope we see one or two changes, whether that’s Richarlison and Firmino being tried together (which I don’t think has happened before) or someone like Bruno Guimarães or Gabriel Menino given a try.

Let me gripe for just a moment about Firmino, though. The two goals he scored on Friday were tap-ins of the sort any striker would be expected to score. And outside of that, he didn’t really do anything you’d expect of a number 9: he was a nonentity with his back to goal, of little utility either passing or shooting from any sort of distance, and his lack of pace kept him from converting two very presentable chances to beat the keeper one-on-one. Yes, his pressing and movement is valuable, but it’s not enough to overcome those deficiencies in his game. Perhaps he’s a better fit in a strike partnership, like I wrote about the other day, which we might get a taste of if Richarlison starts tomorrow, but I don’t think we can have a number 9 who just converts straightforward chances and does little else. We need to find someone who can turn slight openings into goals, and while it’s not clear who that someone might be, it certainly doesn’t seem to be Firmino.

Anyway. Tite’s keeping his lineup under wraps reflects his thoughts on the increased difficulty of this game. Because of COVID-19, the team trained in Brazil and only flew to Lima today, meaning they might be more tired than usual and have less familiarity with the playing surface. Beyond that, Peru is notable for Tite in that it’s the team that earned him the Brazil job in the first place (by knocking his predecessor Dunga out of the 2016 Copa América) and is one of only three national teams to defeat Brazil while he’s been in charge.

Even so, we should be the clear favorites. Those two losses are the only two we’ve suffered to Peru this century, and both were fluky; the 2016 defeat was due to an atrocious refereeing decision, while the 2019 one was in a very off-color friendly performance shortly after we comfortably beat them twice in the Copa América. It probably won’t be anywhere near as comprehensive a win as we enjoyed against Bolivia, but after Friday’s performance matched our 5-0 win over Bolivia at home in the previous World Cup qualifying cycle, I think we can match the 2-0 win from the last qualifier we played away to Peru.