Peru vs. Brazil

Estadio Nacional del Perú, Lima, Peru, September 12, 2023

Kickoff: 10:00 PM EDT / 11:00 PM BRT / 2:00 AM GMT

US TV/Streaming: Fanatiz (pay-per-view)

Likely Starting Lineup: Ederson, Danilo, Marquinhos, Gabriel Magalhães, Renan Lodi; Casemiro, Bruno Guimarães, Neymar; Raphinha, Rodrygo, Richarlison.

Bench: Alisson, Lucas Perri, Vanderson, Roger Ibañez, Nino, Caio Henrique, André, Joelinton, Raphael Veiga, Gabriel Martinelli, Gabriel Jesus, Matheus Cunha.

Notes and Storylines:

Well, I said in my preview of Friday’s game against Bolivia that I hoped new coach Fernando Diniz would serve up some higher-tempo football than Tite routinely did, and I got my wish, along with a rollicking 5-1 win and Neymar finally breaking Pelé’s Seleção goals record. Sure, Tite’s Brazil also scored five goals in both of their home qualifiers against Bolivia, but Neymar missed a penalty in this one, so to paraphrase Jon Bois, it’s really more like six goals Fahrenheit.

Tomorrow’s game in Peru promises more of the same. Diniz is repeating the same starting lineup—Gabriel Magalhães has been declared fit despite limping off on Friday—and while I might have liked to see Caio Henrique or Vanderson given a try at the full-back positions, it makes plenty of sense. Why change what worked so well the first time around, especially while you’re still getting your bearings in the role and the team is still getting to grips with your ideas?

There were a few concerning signs on Friday, mainly defensively. The goal we conceded came about thanks to a pretty sloppy defensive line (what was Marquinhos doing?); Diniz made his first substitutions in the 71st minute (aka Tite Time) despite the win having long since been guaranteed. The biggest worry for me, however, comes up front. Per SofaScore, we had eight big chances and only scored on two of them. To be clear, this is hardly a new problem. In our five World Cup games last year, SofaScore counted a total of 19 big chances, of which we scored… four. It’s not like any single profligate player inflated that total: Neymar led the team with three big misses, though among them were two that would have kept the Croatia game from even going to extra time.

Big chances are meant to be missed (I don’t know the threshold SofaScore uses, but I’m quite sure it’s well under 0.5 xG, i.e. a 50% chance of an average player scoring from that position), and very few players are capable of reliably scoring more of theirs than they miss. (Just look at how evenly distributed our World Cup misses were.) The problem is that I’m not sure we have anyone with that capability. This has been the story of the Seleção in recent years, and arguably international football as a whole: gifted wingers and all-purpose “forwards” score plenty of goals for their clubs, but in crucial moments, aren’t going to pull out that little bit extra that a truly capable goalscorer can. If your striker isn’t scoring, or isn’t really a striker at all, it leaves a void nobody else can fill.

Richarlison was filling that void last year. For all his struggles at Tottenham, he found spectacular form for the national team in the second half of 2022, scoring several brilliant, instinctive, and—crucially—difficult goals. But he got hurt against Croatia and ever since he’s been a shadow for club and country. It’s a lack of form that is clearly as frustrating for him as it is for the rest of us; look at his tears after being substituted off on Friday having sent a golden chance “straight to London”, as the Univision commentators put it. Hopefully he can start turning his luck around against Peru, but if not, who can we turn to? I doubt that anybody in the squad for these games can do the trick: Matheus Cunha scored just two goals in all competitions last season, while Gabriel Jesus has just one goal for Brazil in the last four years. They’re both gifted players, but goalscorers they are not, at least until they prove otherwise. And if they can’t deliver in front of goal, what then? Endrick continues life in limbo at Palmeiras, too valuable to ever be allowed to prove himself with Brazil’s youth squads, too raw to ever get any decent playing time under Abel Ferreira. Vitor Roque is very promising, but perhaps we want to let him focus on the U-23s and qualifying for next summer’s Olympics. And regardless, he’s still much more promise than he is reality.

Look at me rambling. This isn’t even really a coaching issue, other than picking the right guys for the team; the problem is more that Brazilian football hasn’t been producing quality strikers for the past decade and change. What Fernando Diniz can make better with his coaching is the other side of this equation: create more big chances—more scoring chances in general, really—and even if you miss most of them, you’ll still score a few. About that, at least, I feel optimistic.

That said, my prediction for tomorrow is perhaps an even narrow win than the last time we played in Lima, when we won 4-2 on the back of a second-half comeback and a few late red cards. I’m going to throw out a 2-1 win as my prediction.