Apparently, Bruno Fernandes is having one of the best seasons of passing in the history of the Premier League. The stat guys say his numbers are the best in the league, he just broke David Beckham’s club record for most assists in a season, and he’s only four assists off the all-time Premier League record with seven games remaining.

I would not have believed this, because every time I see Bruno in a highlight, it seems to be him throwing away a promising break by shooting from 30 yards out rather than passing to an open teammate.

I wrote those paragraphs right after watching Brazil’s loss to France on Thursday, and only just came back to them this Monday evening, finding myself wondering just what exactly I was going on about. Something about, at least Bruno is posting good stats behind the scenes even if he’s taking these moronic low-percentage shots every time I glance up at him, and it’d be nice if Brazil could at least back up their own moronic low-percentage shooting like that?

But then I actually looked at the stats (Brazil is on the left in the screenshot below), and, well, I’ll be damned:

So what’s the lesson here? Is it that Brazil were secretly better than the eye test showed against France? Is it that statistics are a mixed bag that can color and sometimes even change the narrative built around the game? Or is it that fancy metrics are bullshit, the eye test is all that really matters, and Bruno Fernandes is in fact an infuriating ball hog?

Right now, I lean towards the latter, and not just because it lets me keep hating on Bruno Fernandes.

Brazil’s performance against France was… not good. I wrote in my big 2026 preview that Carlo Ancelotti’s coaching tenure was already showing some worrying signs, and they were all very much on display on Thursday. He continues to insist blindly on the same 4-2-4 as his predecessors, cramming all our star attackers into the lineup with no thought to how they’ll combine with each other. The intensity and quality of play is extremely inconsistent at best. The defense still makes at least one catastrophic error per game. He’s already picked favorites, and made some troubling picks; he revealed today that he appears to have bet his entire life savings on Danilo Will Come Good Island rising from the waves and becoming a prime resort destination.1

All of this would be at least somewhat excusable if the team were playing well, or at least winning games like these, but that’s not happening! France went down to ten men and then nonchalantly tore through Brazil like it was nothing. If not for Les Bleus’ own tendency, I’m sure very annoying to their fans, of only playing up to their incredible talent level for what feels like five total minutes a game and then walking around in second gear for the rest, we could have had a much more embarrassing scoreline. We only really stepped up in the final few minutes, with Bremer scoring a nice goal (the other Danilo, now officially christened Good Danilo, created that chance and was one of the few bright spots for Brazil) and nearly assisting a would-be last-second Vini equalizer, and even then the team was listless, disorganized, incoherent, its star players lacking any understanding with or confidence with each other or anything except their own ability to charge into the teeth of the defense and lose the ball (mainly talking about you here, Vini) and its lesser lights getting completely obliterated by Kylian Mbappé. (Seriously, how is Léo Pereira that slow? Bremer isn’t exactly fast, and yet Pereira ended up at least twice as far away from Mbappé as he did.2)

The question is: will anything change against Croatia?

Brazil vs. Croatia

Camping World Stadium, Orlando, Florida, USA, March 31, 2026

Kickoff: 8:00 PM EST / 9:00 PM BRT / 12:00 AM GMT

US TV/Streaming: ESPN Deportes

Starting XI: Bento, Ibañez, Marquinhos, Léo Pereira, Douglas Santos; Casemiro, Good Danilo; Luiz Henrique, Matheus Cunha, João Pedro, Vini Jr.

On The Bench: Ederson, Hugo Souza; Bad Danilo, Kaiki, Bremer, Vitor Reis (called up Friday); Andrey Santos, Gabriel Sara, Fabinho; Endrick, Igor Thiago, Gabriel Martinelli, Rayan. (Raphinha and Wesley out injured.)

Notes and Storylines

Unfortunately, right off the bat we have a bunch of bad news. Raphinha, it turns off, came off at halftime against France because he was hurt; he’ll miss this game and another crucial chance to try and establish himself in this team and build his rapport with Vini. Wesley, who did a passable job against France, I thought, despite a few moments that made me wonder if the American football concept of pursuit angle is alien to the association version, is also out hurt; worse, he’ll be replaced by Roger Ibañez, a once-promising defender whose move to Saudi Arabia should probably have put paid to his Seleção ambitions, on the evidence of his substitute appearance Thursday in which he gave the ball away with his first touch, unsuccessfully stepped up before France’s second goal and then showed absolutely no hustle as they sprinted past him, forced Bremer into a tactical foul and yellow after another sloppy giveaway, and got a yellow for a pretty nasty hack on Théo Hernandez. Suffice it to say, he doesn’t fill me with confidence. Léo Pereira is also still in the lineup for some reason, while Bremer is the one who makes way for Marquinhos. I assume the culprit is footedness—Brazil coaches have spoken repeatedly about wanting the left-side center back to be left-footed—but it’s another example of an unnerving rigidity that feels like it’s creeping into Brazilian football thinking, maybe on an institutional level.3

Speaking of that rigidity, Ancelotti remains wedded to the 4-2-4. No, Brazil’s results haven’t really been any better on the brief occasions when he’s gone for a three-man midfield, but surely the evidence is mounting that maybe we need to try three in the middle again? At least to be able to count on it as a contingency? Maybe we should see if it works better with something approaching the first-choice team? At least Good Danilo, the one playing for Botafogo, is starting this time, but it’s not like Andrey Santos was the problem in the last game, at least not in any way that can’t be summed up by his having been given an unenviable job.

One other area for hope might be the front four, which might have a clearer structure with more obvious roles for the players. Against France, Ancelotti started Vini, Raphinha, and Gabriel Martinelli, three wingers for two wing spots, and it was never terribly clear who, if anybody, was meant to be playing up top. This time, with Raphinha out, Luiz Henrique gets the start he has earned for so consistently being the only bright spot in dour performances whenever he comes off the bench, and Martinelli makes way for João Pedro, who will presumably join Cunha through the middle. Those two can both play up top or in the hole, and my hope is that there’ll be some sort of actual structure between them—Cunha as a 10, Pedro as something closer to the striker—with Vini and Luiz Henrique as well-defined wingers either side of them. That could, in theory, make the team play as a more recognizable 4-2-3-1, with a bit more balance across the park and clearer roles for each of the attackers unlocking their hitherto-stifled potential. But at this rate, they’ll probably just play badly in the same ways as always, won’t they?

In any case, we won’t have to wait long to find out. Croatia are a perennially strong team these days, though built more on the strength of an excellent midfield than France’s glut of terrifyingly fast forwards. Thus, much like the last time we faced them, I wouldn’t be surprised if they outplay us in many respects that don’t necessarily reflect on the scoreline or the highlight reel. I’ll be optimistic, though, and say that this time we take a few of the chances we create, for once, and move on to the World Cup with the encouragement of a 2-1 win.

  1. Look, I don’t think he’s completely worthless, but we can’t forget that it was his turnover that led to Croatia’s equalizer in Qatar, and it’s hard to imagine another three and a half years of aging have made him any better. At least he’s four years younger than Dani Alves was when Tite took him to the last World Cup, but I can’t help but get that same sense that he’ll just end up wasting a roster space because he’s too old to make an effective contribution. ↩︎
  2. The actual answer here might be that Mbappé was angling towards Bremer while Pereira was chasing him from the other direction, so he had a longer distance to try and cover, but that’s not as fun. ↩︎
  3. Juan-Lúcio, Thiago Silva-David Luiz, Silva-Miranda, and Silva-Marquinhos were our starting center-back pairings at the last four World Cups, and every single one of them was right-footed. Gabriel Magalhães is the best left-footed CB we’ve had in maybe decades, and more often than not we’ve gone with right-footers when he’s not available, so maybe I’m overreacting, but after watching Pereira get destroyed on Thursday, why is he the one who remains in the lineup? ↩︎