I know I should write a match preview, but I want to talk a bit about Brazil’s first game under Dorival Júnior. I may write something more cohesive once we see how the game against Spain goes, but I wanted to commit to getting these thoughts out into the open.

So! Dorival’s debut exceeded expectations, as Brazil beat England for the first time in the “new” Wembley Stadium. Considering the quality on paper of the opposition, it might well have been the most impressive debut result for a Seleção coach this century. Dorival has passed a very tough first test, and though England went a little flat as the game went on, there was a lot to like in Brazil’s performance, as well as a few things I took issue with. So, have a list of pros and cons:

Pro: Brazil went direct, and did so effectively. Recent Seleção coaches have struggled to find the right balance between being aggressive, whether that means raising the tempo, looking to play direct and vertical football, or just launching forward on counters. One of Tite’s biggest shortcomings was his reluctance to move the ball forward quickly; his teams often kept the tempo low and countered only sparingly. He tried a more aggressive high press in the games before the 2022 World Cup, but abandoned it in Qatar, possibly a result of the larger collapse in Brazil’s fitness levels at the tournament. Fernando Diniz, on the other hand, was all about moving the ball forward as quickly as possible, but he was so intent on doing so that he abandoned any semblance of structure or midfield in the process, which left the team both vulnerable defensively and struggling to actually find players in good positions to receive those forward passes.

The early indications are that Dorival has struck a much better balance. Brazil were able to keep possession when needed (though at times they struggled to get out of England’s pressure), but they also picked their moments to rush the ball from back to front with just a couple of passes, burst forward on the counter, and, notably, play the ball over the top to runners in behind. Exploiting England’s high line with those quick balls to Vini Jr. twice put him 1v1 against Jordan Pickford, and though he missed both chances, the second rebounded to Endrick for the winning goal. Brazil could easily have scored three or four goals with better finishing, but on a day when the football gods in their whimsy apparently decided to replace everybody’s shooting boots with bundled newspaper and wooden clogs—England, for their part, sent a whole bunch of passes and shots well up into the grandstands—we clearly had by far the better of the scoring chances and deserved the win.

Pro: Dorival picked an actual midfield! This was surely a big part of the team’s success going forward. In starting three proper midfielders, instead of a double pivot with Neymar or Rodrygo being used as the ostensible third man in midfield, Dorival gave the team the tools to not get overwhelmed by England’s press, shield an inexperienced back line, and play the ball forward quickly rather than having to pass back to the goalie for a lack of options going forward.

Con: The midfield had to get rough to stop England. This was especially true in the first half, when we committed 12 fouls to England’s five. Paquetá in particular, as good as he was going forward, was something of a dart without feathers on the defensive side. He deservedly got a yellow card after about the fourth foul he committed where he got nowhere near the ball, and in a competitive game he might well have been at risk of a second yellow.

Pro: Dorival didn’t let injuries drag the team down. Injuries absolutely ravaged Brazil in the leadup to this game (England too, in fairness), to the point where Dorival handed Seleção debuts four of our starting back five (in the process opting for Beraldo and Fabrício Bruno, debutants he coached at São Paulo and Flamengo, over Bremer’s World Cup experience). Despite this, and another new face in João Gomes sitting right in front of them, Brazil’s defense held together pretty well. None of the newcomers seemed overawed by the occasion (though Beraldo in particular had a couple nervy moments, but that’s not unheard of for a 20-year-old), nor did they seem out of place. Fabrício Bruno was the most questionable choice before the game, but he gave a good account of himself; Wendell, also pretty questionable, was perhaps the most positive surprise, making an important block in the six-yard box in the first half and getting forward decently later on. Even in front of them, the midfield three of Gomes, Paquetá, and Bruno Guimarães also had never played together as a unit, and though the latter two played together for a while at Lyon, Brazil’s previous coaches almost never thought to take advantage of that understanding. As with Beraldo and Fabrício, Dorival maximized the available chemistry players had with him and with each other, and supplemented that with a well-organized tactical setup that held things together.

Con: At what point do we worry about Vinícius? Vini Jr. has been one of the world’s best players for his last three seasons at Real Madrid, but in that time he really hasn’t ever looked like his Real Madrid self when playing for Brazil. While he did some good things against England, and his runs in behind were crucial to Brazil’s success going forward, he missed two 1v1 chances. He has just three goals (one a penalty) in 27 international appearances, which is unequivocally not what you want or expect from a star forward like him. But should we expect more? After all, he spent most of that time in Neymar’s shadow, and Tite never seemed to have a good idea for how to incorporate them both into the starting lineup. Post-Tite, he’s had to labor under the subpar coaching of Ramon Menezes and Fernando Diniz. Neymar was a far more prolific scorer for Brazil by his 27th appearance, but he’d also been made the fulcrum of the team in a way Vini hasn’t. On the other hand, Neymar made all those appearances under a certified nincompoop of a coach in Mano Menezes, and he was a lot younger (20 years old at his 27th cap) than Vini (23), and he was still playing at Santos and thus had precious little experience playing at the very highest level of the club game, whereas Vini has scored in El Clásicos and Champions League finals.

We should probably first worry about Vini for a different reason. He’s regularly been the target of racist abuse from opposition fans in LaLiga, and that’s only what we see on TV or read about afterwards. Even his well-meaning teammates still don’t seem to fully get it: “I don’t think Spain is a racist country”, said Dani Carvajal today of the land whose people lynched Vini in effigy. The footballing authorities in Spain are still reluctant to properly crack down on any of this behavior: Valencia’s 45,000-Euro fine and closure of maybe one-third of the stadium for a few games last year doesn’t seem to have been much of a deterrent, but LaLiga has yet to force a team to play behind closed doors, let alone threaten automatic losses or points deductions. (This isn’t just a Spanish thing; I just watched Mexican fans do their “puto” chant against the US again last night, the harshest crackdown for which so far hasn’t been much more than blowing the whistle early on games Mexico doesn’t have a prayer of winning.)

So it’s sad, but not surprising, that in his press conference today, Vini broke down in tears when asked about the subject. “I’m sorry,” he said when he gathered himself, “I just wanted to play football.”

Pro: Substitutions didn’t hurt the team’s quality. Endrick will get the plaudits for his historic goal, and Savinho played a vital part in the last-second chance Endrick missed, but I particularly want to shout out Andreas Pereira, who replaced Lucas Paquetá with no real drop in attacking quality. He produced an almost carbon copy of Paquetá’s earlier ball over the top for Vini Jr. and added in a beautifully taken first-time cross on Endrick’s miss at the end. One of the constant problems during the Neymar years was that the team didn’t have anyone who could remotely replace him during his frequent injury absences, and while there are certainly players in the talent pool whose quality can’t be easily replaced, it was refreshing to see someone come on as a substitute and contribute positively in exactly the same way as the guy he’d replaced, especially in midfield. Having lived through far too many years of Raphael Veiga or Everton Ribeiro coming on as a late substitute and doing absolutely nothing of note, this is a development I welcome with open arms.

Now, as for tomorrow’s game: the last time we played Spain was the 2013 Confederations Cup final, when we decisively ended their tenure as the gold standard of international football. Spain have seemingly only gotten more Spain since then: equally capable of tearing an opponent apart or putting themselves to sleep with their passing and getting burned on the counterattack. They just lost 1-0 to Colombia, who scored on, guess what? A quick counter. Given what we saw against England, I think we can hurt them in the same way, but Spain may push Paquetá and the midfield in ways England couldn’t. Still, I’ll be more optimistic this time around and predict a 1-0 win, hopefully more if we can find our shooting boots.

Brazil vs. Spain

Estadio Santiago Bernabéu, Madrid, Spain, March 26, 2024

Kickoff: 4:30 EDT / 5:30PM BRT / 8:30PM GMT

US Streaming: FuboTV

Likely Starting Lineup: Bento; Danilo, Fabrício Bruno, Beraldo, Wendell; João Gomes, Bruno Guimarães, Lucas Paquetá; Raphinha, Rodrygo, Vini Jr.

On The Bench: Léo Jardim, Rafael; Yan Couto, Ayrton Lucas, Bremer, Murilo; André, Andreas Pereira, Douglas Luiz, Pablo Maia; Endrick, Pepê, Galeno, Richarlison, Savinho.