Our last game before the World Cup is our second ever against Tunisia.

Brazil vs Tunisia

Parc Des Princes, Paris, France, September 27, 2022

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

US TV/Streaming: FuboTV, BeinSports Connect 4

Starting Lineup: Alisson, Danilo, Marquinhos, Thiago Silva, Alex Telles; Casemiro, Fred, Lucas Paquetá; Neymar, Richarlison, Raphinha.

On The Bench: Ederson, Weverton, Éder Militão, Ibañez, Bremer, Renan Lodi, Fabinho, Éverton Ribeiro, Bruno Guimarães, Antony, Firmino, Rodrygo, Vini Jr., Pedro, Matheus Cunha.

Notes and Storylines

After a bold experiment with stuffing as many of our talented attackers as possible into one starting lineup against Ghana, Tite is reverting to something more like what we’re probably going to see when we start our World Cup campaign against Serbia. The Casemiro-Fred-Paquetá midfield three has been a fixture for Brazil over the past year and a half or so, and while we’re all hoping that Bruno Guimarães might soon replace Fred in that trio, it won’t happen tomorrow: he wasn’t able to recover from the injury that kept him out against Ghana and has already departed for Newcastle. This highlights our concerning lack of depth in midfield; while we just about have a starter and a backup for each of the three positions in this setup (Casemiro, Fabinho, Fred, Bruno, Paquetá, Coutinho), once any of those are unavailable (or not called up, as Coutinho was this time), the lack of quality candidates beyond them is a concern. (I certainly do not count Éverton Ribeiro as a worthy alternative to even this diminished version of Coutinho.)

But that’s a topic to be explored more in depth on another day. For now, suffice it to say that we probably won’t learn anything new about our midfield options tomorrow unless Danilo is asked to deputize there or something. But at least we got some reassurance on a couple of our other problem positions against Ghana! Éder Militão did a solid job at right-back, though he was a bit more cautious going forward than someone with more recent experience playing the position probably would be. Danilo is back at RB for this game, and I am curious to see how the two compare when it comes to interacting with Raphinha. In previous games, I’d noticed that Raphinha seemed to play better with Emerson Royal or Dani Alves backing him up than Danilo, I think because the former two got forward and overlapped more often. A more defensive RB might leave the team as a whole more inclined to play through Neymar on the left and leave Raphinha isolated and more tightly marked, which I think he struggled with a bit against Ghana.

The other place where we got some reassurance was striker, where Richarlison is surely on track to start against Serbia. He’s up to six goals in his last five games for Brazil, and his stellar first goal against Ghana in particular reminds us that while he isn’t always consistent (I’m convinced that he’s better the less he has to think while on the pitch), he can produce the decisive, something-out-of-nothing moments we’ve been desperately needing from our number 9. But that still leaves the question of what other striker gets a ticket to Qatar? Matheus Cunha got a look against Ghana and was immensely disappointing. Surely someone else gets the opportunity to be subbed in tomorrow. My money would be on Pedro.

What else would I like to see tomorrow? Well, Tite seems pretty set on Alex Telles and Alex Sandro as his left-backs, but I hope Renan Lodi gets a bit of playing time and at least the chance to show up Telles. After Bremer got some time against Ghana, I hope Ibañez gets some too, if only because we shouldn’t pass up any chance we get to strengthen his loyalty to Brazil. And it’d be nice to see Rodrygo get some playing time on the left wing or through the middle.

As for a prediction… historical results don’t mean too much here; our one and only prior game against Tunisia was a 4-1 win in 1973. Tunisia’s recent record is certainly better than Ghana’s, and includes recent wins over Chile and Japan. In the group stage of the last World Cup they pushed England pretty close before getting walloped by Belgium. Ultimately, I don’t know enough about them to make a very informed prediction, but I’m going to guess that they test us more than Ghana did, but ultimately push us to a more comprehensive attacking performance as a result, one where we keep pressing the issue into the second half. I think the result is a 3-1 win for Brazil.