Brazil’s penultimate game before the World Cup, and still so many questions to be answered.

Brazil vs Ghana

Stade Océane, Le Havre, France, September 23, 2022

Kickoff: 2:30 PM EDT / 3:30 PM BRT / 6:30 PM GMT

US TV/Streaming: FuboTV, BeinSports Connect 4

Starting Lineup: Alisson, Éder Militão, Marquinhos, Thiago Silva, Alex Telles; Casemiro, Lucas Paquetá; Neymar, Vini Jr., Richarlison, Raphinha.

On The Bench: Ederson, Weverton, Danilo, Ibañez, Bremer, Renan Lodi, Fabinho, Éverton Ribeiro, Bruno Guimarães, Fred, Antony, Firmino, Rodrygo, Pedro, Matheus Cunha.

Notes and Storylines

With no friendlies directly before the World Cup starts, this game and next Tuesday’s against Tunisia represent Brazil’s last chance to answer some unanswered questions before the games really start mattering. So what’s left to answer, and how is Tite trying to answer them?

Well, first there’s the fullback problem, for which Tite is making quite the swing for the fences. The reported lineup for this game has Éder Militão on the right instead of a dedicated right-back, but more interesting is what the team seems to be doing with the ball in training. Globo reports that the top-heavy 4-2-4 or on paper ends up looking more like a 3-2-…4-1? With Militão forming a back three (something Tite has repeatedly said he doesn’t want to do) and Alex Telles coming inside to join Casemiro so that Paquetá can push forward.

In theory, I like it, and in fact we’ve seen little glimmers of this approach in the past. Militão’s been given a try at RB before, Danilo has effectively operated as a third CB when in possession, and Dani Alves just straight-up joined the midfield on a few occasions. My concern is that we don’t actually have the right players to make this work. If Militão plays as an RB/CB, then it’s the left-back who needs to come inside and bolster the midfield, and do we really have any LBs with the technical ability to make that work? Alex Telles is, at best, fine at what he does, and gun to my head I’d rather settle for him than for someone like Fagner like we had to do in 2018, but does anyone know of any evidence that he can actually play in midfield? And if we think about the mirror image of this approach , is he, or (the currently injured) Alex Sandro, or even Renan Lodi in his current form a good enough LB to come forward regularly in the attack, or even just be that third CB while Danilo or Dani Alves supplements the midfield on the right? Sandro, maybe, can be that CB, but do you really trust him there?

It is worth noting that this formation might solve an age-old conundrum for Brazil: we always had fabulous attacking fullbacks, but they regularly left us vulnerable in big games (coughMarcelocough). But now, we really don’t have any fullbacks who are so good going forward that it would be foolish to not let them do so (indeed, at times it seems like we barely have any fullbacks at all), but we do have a glut of extremely athletic and talented wingers. As important as width and overlapping runs are to the modern game, perhaps we’re better off if we play to our strengths, leave our fullbacks to more defensive roles, and provide a more solid base for the attackers.

The other thing with this wacky formation is the kinda nonexistent midfield. Paquetá has proven to be better in a deeper role than some on here give him credit for, but leaving him and Casemiro alone in midfield, and maybe even supplementing them with Telles, could be a recipe for the sector being completely overrun. Sadly, it sounds like Bruno Guimarães is dealing with a slight knock (he sat out training on Wednesday) and may not be available if things go south on Friday. Which pretty much just leaves Fred, Ribeiro, and Fabinho as natural midfield options if it turns out we need to bolster the sector. With those options, hey, why not give Telles a try in a hybrid role? But the whole “put our five best attacking players on the pitch at once” thing Tite is trying in this game, with Paquetá, Neymar, Vini Jr., Richarlison, and Raphinha all starting, has uncomfortable echoes of the quadrado mágico that so backfired for us back in 2006. Not to mention they echo a tactical shortcoming Tite has demonstrated in the recent past: not having any ideas for how to get the team firing besides throwing on more attackers and hoping. It was a real problem at last year’s Copa América, but one that Tite seemed to be moving past in impressive performances against Chile, Paraguay, and Bolivia. Maybe that means we have nothing to worry about; maybe it means we’re about to see it rear its ugly head again.

Then there’s the striker question. Richarlison seems to have won the early battle here, but with Firmino, Pedro, Matheus Cunha, and even Rodrygo, Tite has called up so many options that he’s bound to test out several different players up top. Richarlison starts, presumably, because he’s the established option, especially with Gabriel Jesus and all the other Arsenal players given a break in what definitely wasn’t a favor to Tite’s old buddy Edu, and the one who’s recently scored a bunch in the role (four goals and one assist in his last four games for Brazil). But he’s had a somewhat choppy time of it since moving to Tottenham, and meanwhile Pedro has been racking up the goals in Flamengo’s Copa Libertadores campaign while Rodrygo is impressing as a center-forward for Real Madrid in Karim Benzema’s absence. And while Richarlison can be an excellent goalscorer on his day, he kind of seems like the odd man out in this five-pronged attack of extremely technically gifted players. I wouldn’t be surprised if he doesn’t last much more than 60 minutes.

Prediction time! Despite all these concerns, I expect a routine win for Brazil. Ghana’s record since securing their World Cup berth hasn’t been particularly good, and I think even if we underperform, a 2-1 Brazil win is at the absolute minimum of what we should expect. It could easily be much larger.