A win is a win, and Brazil really needed the win they secured on Friday night against Ecuador. But ugh, what a tepid game, and one that only deepens the concerns surrounding coach Dorival Júnior. But more on that after the jump.

Brazil vs. Paraguay

Estadio Defensores del Chaco, Asunción, Paraguay, September 10, 2024

Kickoff: 8:30 PM EDT / 9:30 PM BRT / 12:30 AM GMT

US Streaming: Fanatiz

Possible Starting XI: Alisson, Danilo, Marquinhos, Gabriel Magalhães, Wendell; André, Bruno Guimarães, Lucas Paquetá; Luiz Henrique, Rodrygo, Vini Júnior.

On The Bench: Ederson, Bento; William, Fabrício Bruno, Lucas Beraldo, Guilherme Arana; João Gomes, Gerson; Lucas Moura, Luiz Henrique, Estêvão, João Pedro, Endrick.

In lieu of a match preview looking ahead to Tuesday’s game, I will instead be providing a breakdown of Dorival’s second-half substitutions against Ecuador. This should allow you to understand my feelings towards both him and this team’s chances against Paraguay.

Brazil came out of the locker room 1-0 up, after a first half in which they moved the ball around decently well but created precious little in the way of true chances, going ahead off a deflected long-range effort from Rodrygo. Indeed, Ecuador had the best chance of the half (and, ultimately, the game) right at its end, after a defensive calamity forced Alisson and Gabriel Magalhães to come to the rescue. Nothing much changed in the 15 minutes that followed, at which point Dorival made his first substitutions.

Minute 62

Out: Bruno Guimarães, In: Gerson. The stats justify this one decently well. Bruno hadn’t had his best game, and Gerson came in and achieved a higher pass completion rate while committing further turnovers. But look a little deeper and you’ll find that even though Gerson isn’t a smaller player than Bruno (a factor we’ll discuss more in a bit), he was nowhere near as combative: he didn’t make a single tackle or interception, went in for only a single duel, which he lost (Bruno, by comparison, was 3-for-6), and in fact never touched the ball other than when attempting a pass. You can make the case that while Gerson was fine at what he did, his inclusion at Bruno’s expense weakened the midfield by reducing its ability to contest for the ball.

Out: Luiz Henrique, In: Estêvão. I don’t think there was anybody who didn’t want to see this happen, except maybe for Luiz Henrique himself. Luiz had been pretty much anonymous in his Seleção debut, unable to use his size, his speed, or his technical skill to do anything of note besides a single run to the endline and cross, so why not let the hottest young talent in Brazil right now have his Seleção debut? Still, I worried in the moment that, sitting on a 1-0 lead, we didn’t have a lot of margin for error if the 17-year-old struggled when thrown into the biggest test of his footballing life so far. Estêvão indeed had a pretty nondescript debut, but though he coughed up the ball a few times when trying to dribble, it didn’t really cost us. Still might have been a better idea to bring on Endrick or João Pedro and move Rodrygo to the right.

Minute 74

Out: Guilherme Arana, In: Wendell. Arana’s injury forced this substitution and it’s not yet clear whether he’ll be fit for Tuesday’s game. I could leave it there, but this is a chance to talk about something I’ve noticed from Arana and some other mediocre fullbacks we’ve fielded over the years: they’ll provide the illusion of good fullback play. That is, they’ll get forward, make themselves open, make decent-looking runs on the overlap, but when it comes time to make an accurate cross, or try and carve out some space with a little burst of speed, or take a ball in behind the defense and test the goalkeeper, they just won’t execute it.

Out: Lucas Paquetá, In: Lucas Moura. This was the substitution that really got my goat. Paquetá has drawn criticism for his lack of discipline as a midfielder, but he is still a midfielder. That is where he has played for most of his career, and despite his bad habits, that means there is still plenty of force of habit compelling him to treat his role on the pitch as one. Moura has spent his entire career playing as a forward, and even now that he’s back in Brazil he plays mostly as part of the 3 in a 4-2-3-1. Not only that, but he’s shorter than Paquetá and now far removed from the monster athlete he was in his youth. Whether or not Dorival meant it this way (I’m not sure if it’s worse if he did or not), this substitution effectively reduced Brazil to a two-man midfield with four forwards. (And this is where removing Bruno Guimarães for the less defensively-minded Gerson becomes a stranger decision.)

Seleção coaches have made a weird habit of playing like this recently: Tite started taking up the 4-2-4 around 2021; Fernando Diniz only ever used a 4-2-4 (or a 4-2-2-2 if you’re being very generous); Dorival has done it a couple times when chasing games. But this is the first time I can ever recall one taking this approach, which of course makes the midfield and defense more vulnerable in exchange for having an extra attacker on the field, while holding on to a 1-0 lead.

It didn’t end up costing Brazil the win, but the team had noticeably more difficulty winning and retaining the ball, let alone getting it to the forwards, after this change. Relatedly—feel free to argue whether he was responsible or just a victim of a senseless tactical change—Lucas Moura fucking sucked in his brief time on the field.

Minute 85

Out: André, In: João Gomes. André was the surprise bright spot in this otherwise poor performance, with a strong, levelheaded display on both sides of the ball suggesting that he’s a clear upgrade from the man who replaced him in the 85th minute. This was another change that may have been necessitated by injury, as it looked like André picked up a knock, but it still highlighted the lack of depth Dorival called up in midfield. Éderson or Joelinton or Douglas Luiz would surely have been a more reassuring replacement, but Dorival left out all three. Gomes lived up to his propensity for being a dart without feathers by committing a silly foul on the edge of the box, much as he did against the USA in June, in the last minute of the game. Luckily, this one didn’t result in a goal, but Gomes still makes too many of these senseless challenges in risky positions. Hopefully André’s performance means Gomes at least won’t be a starter any longer, but who knows how bad that knock could be. It’ll be fun to watch the two of them play together at Wolverhampton, at least, and hopefully Gomes can learn to be a little more disciplined.

Despite all this reason for pessimism, Paraguay remains the one team that Dorival’s Brazil has beaten comfortably, and that was on one of those smaller American football fields everyone complained so much about at the Copa América. Even playing in Asunción, I’d like to think we can at least get a 2-1 win. But honestly, who the fuck knows.