Bolivia vs. Brazil

Estadio Hernando Siles, La Paz, Bolivia, March 29, 2022

Kickoff: 7:30 PM EDT / 8:30 PM BRT / 11:30 PM GMT

Starting Lineup: Alisson, Daniel Alves, Marquinhos, Éder Militão, Alex Telles; Fabinho, Bruno Guimarães, Lucas Paquetá; Antony, Coutinho, Richarlison.

On The Bench: Everson, Santos, Danilo, Thiago Silva, Felipe, Guilherme Arana, Fred, Arthur, Casemiro, Gabriel Martinelli, Rodrygo.

New Absences: Neymar, Vini Jr. (both suspended), Weverton (hand injury, replaced by Santos).

Notes and Storylines

As was the case four years ago, our penultimate game of World Cup qualifying is maybe the trickiest fixture of them all. Brazil hasn’t beaten Bolivia in La Paz in World Cup qualifying since 1981, but damned if we didn’t get close four years ago. Tite prepared the team very well for the difficulties of playing at altitude, and only some truly impressive goalkeeping (and poor finishing, what’s new) kept the score at 0-0. Now we have a chance to finish the job, but can we? I’m not so sure.

The big problem is simply that we’ll be missing several of our best athletes. Raphinha has COVID, Vini Jr. is suspended (as is Neymar, but he’s not nearly the athlete he was in 2018); in thin air that will demand so much of our players physically, their speed and stamina would have been very useful. Additionally, Tite is changing things up big time for this game, with seven new faces in the starting XI; only Alisson, Marquinhos, Antony, and Paquetá are holdovers from Thursday’s win over Chile. There’s some decent athleticism in there, particularly from the likes of Richarlison and Militão, but I question the stamina of players like Coutinho and Dani Alves, particularly in a game this demanding.

Tite, understandably, is planning to take a different approach than the high-intensity, pressing game we played to great effect against Chile. Saying that playing with that sort of tempo and verticality would be “inhumane” in the thin air, he implied that the team would aim more to keep possession. Certainly, with the passing ability of Dani Alves, Bruno G., Coutinho, Paquetá, and Antony in the starting lineup, there’s quality in abundance to pick apart the Bolivian defense, but it remains to be seen whether that’ll be enough if we can’t transition quickly enough to catch some of their players out of position.

But you know what? I’m going to stay optimistic. We were so close to getting that elusive win in 2018, and with Bolivia recently entering a bad run of form, I’m thinking that this will be the day we finally win again in La Paz. I predict a 2-1 win for Brazil.