The Copa nobody wants to actually play kicks off.

Brazil vs. Venezuela

Estádio Nacional Mané Garrincha, Brasília, June 13, 2021

Kickoff: 5:00 PM EDT / 6:00 PM BRT / 9:00 PM GMT

US TV / Streaming: FOX, TUDN, Univision

Likely Starting Lineup: Alisson; Danilo, Éder Militão, Marquinhos, Renan Lodi; Casemiro, Fred, Lucas Paquetá; Richarlison, Neymar, Gabriel Jesus.

On The Bench: Ederson, Weverton; Emerson Royal, Thiago Silva, Felipe, Alex Sandro; Douglas Luiz, Fabinho, Everton Ribeiro; Everton Cebolinha, Gabigol, Roberto Firmino, Vinícius Júnior.

Notes And Storylines

I have a lot of different points I want to make, but some can safely be saved for later match previews. For today, I want to talk about something that struck me in our World Cup qualifiers this past week. In both weeks, Tite went at some point for something of a 4-2-4 or 4-2-1-3 formation, in which Neymar operated as a 10 behind a front three made up entirely of nominal strikers. Both when Tite implemented it late against Ecuador and when he started with it against Paraguay, it seemed to me like a very unwise move, only for the team to look very bright going forward and score almost immediately. But both times, after a strong 15 minutes of attacking play or so, the luster faded and the team didn’t look nearly as good. An indication that such a formation (especially since it involves aggressive pressing from the forwards) is hard to sustain? Perhaps. But perhaps it also indicates that Brazil can turn it on almost at will, but rarely chooses to. Under Tite, we’ve often looked more content than we should with one-goal leads, frequently stepping things up for five or ten minutes at a time at the beginning or end of a half. That’s fine for a good 95% of the games we play, but in that last 5%, where the opposition can hurt us during the long stretches where we’re not threatening much at the other end, we need a little more.

Our opponent is Venezuela, a team that we have recently had immense problems breaking down. At the last Copa América, we could only manage one shot on target in a scoreless draw; last November, we won 1-0 after a truly dreadful performance (but at least we improved to a whole three shots on target!)

But—knock on fucking wood—we have an ace up our sleeve this time. See, through a combination of suspensions and injuries, Neymar has managed to miss Brazil’s last five encounters with Venezuela, last facing them at the Copa América. The 2011 Copa América. It was Brazil’s opening match at that tournament, we drew 0-0 then too. Um. Well, I think having Neymar in the lineup for once should make our lives easier, if only in that Signature Tite Way™ where it feels like we could have done way more. I predict we kick off the Copa with a 2-0 win.

Oh, also, half the Venezuelan team is out with COVID. (Tournament rules give teams free rein to call up new players to replace those stricken with COVID, so they at least won’t be shorthanded.)