In the end, if Brazil’s 3-0 win over Scotland on Wednesday wasn’t spectacular, it was certainly the most comfortable a Brazil win has felt in a while. We pounced on a few catastrophic Scottish mistakes, controlled the game well enough that Scotland had barely had a chance by the time we put the game to bed, and held off their belated revival well enough to secure a second consecutive clean sheet. Neymar even got to make his long-awaited return and didn’t totally look like a husk of his former self! What more could we really have asked for besides some slightly better finishing, or maybe some slightly more favorable refereeing?

Thus ends our group stage, and we now enter the second of what, with this expanded tournament format, feels more than ever like three distinct phases. We had our three group games, in which we only had to do well enough; now come three knockout games which we must all win if we want the final two-game phase that comes guaranteed with reaching the semifinal. This is the most perilous part of the tournament, for the obvious reason of there being no second chances, no third-place game to fall back on, and also because, even if we can take a sober look at this team and say that it has some profound flaws that will make winning this World Cup extremely unlikely, Brazil losing before the quarterfinals under any circumstance will feel like a disaster, and losing in the quarterfinals might still feel like we’ve barely made any progress despite the very expensive hire of Carlo Ancelotti.

Still, things do feel like they’re starting to come together. The team looks more confident with every game. Vini Júnior has been flying slightly under the radar compared to the Messis and Mbappés of the world, but he’s having a stellar tournament, with four goals already and a hand in two others. He joins Ronaldo, Rivaldo (both 2002), Romário (1994) and Jairzinho (1970) as the only Brazilians to score in all three group stage games, and if you believe in these sorts of portents, well, every other time it’s happened we went on to win the whole tournament. Alongside him, Matheus Cunha has already quadrupled his pre-World Cup goal total for Brazil—easy enough to do when you only had one, but he’s certainly picked a fine time to find his scoring boots. Post-2002, every Brazil number 9 has either scored zero (Fred 2014, Gabriel Jesus 2018) or three (Ronaldo 2006, Luís Fabiano 2010, Richarlison 2022) goals. Cunha has allayed my fears that he’d be stuck on the former number; let’s see if he can now surpass the latter number too.

Beyond them, Bruno Guimarães has quietly had a stellar tournament too, with three assists and some invaluable contributions while pressing. Lucas Paquetá has been a bit more mixed, but when he’s on it he’s played some gorgeous passes forward that should have resulted in more than his singular assist. (He had a hand in at least two more goals by my count.) Rayan has more than a little bit of newly-birthed-foal clumsiness to him, but his size and strength have already been an impressive asset and Raphinha may find it hard to return to the starting XI once he’s recovered from his injury. While I have concerns about Casemiro and whoever we play at right-back, the defensive side of the team has generally been very capable and played like it, and as the team’s game plan becomes ever more coherent it seems like they’re starting to figure out how to minimize the vulnerability of those weak sectors.

That said, now we face a team that should give us some unique challenges.

Brazil vs. Japan

NRG Stadium (AKA Houston Stadium), Houston, Texas, June 29, 2026

Kickoff: 1:00 PM EDT / 2:00 PM BRT / 5:00 PM GMT

US TV: FOX, Telemundo

US Streaming: FOX One, Peacock

Likely Starting XI: Alisson; Danilo, Marquinhos, Gabriel Magalhães, Douglas Santos; Casemiro, Bruno Guimarães, Lucas Paquetá; Rayan, Matheus Cunha, Vini Jr.

On The Bench: Ederson, Weverton; Ibañez, Bremer, Léo Pereira, Alex Sandro; Fabinho, Éderson, Danilo; Neymar, Igor Thiago, Gabriel Martinelli, Luiz Henrique, Endrick.

Whither Brazil?

I wouldn’t expect any changes from the team that started against Scotland, and Globo tends to agree. (I do wonder if maybe it would have made sense to sub off Vini to make sure he’s rested; our potential round-of-16 opponents Norway benched Erling Haaland altogether for their last group stage game, although they got destroyed by France for their troubles.)

Raphinha is injured, but the party line remains that he’ll recover in time for the round of 16. Neymar, of course, is finally back.

Danilo (the defender), Ibañez, Douglas Santos, Fabinho, and Casemiro all have yellow cards and another would get them a suspension. Never mind, I completely missed that FIFA changed the rules so that yellow cards are now cleared after the group stage as well as the quarterfinals. If nothing else, this reinforces what I said above about this tournament now having distinct phases for the group stage, knockout rounds through the quarterfinals, and then semifinals and final.

The Opposition

I was kinda hoping Sweden could beat Japan in their last group-stage game. Not just because I thought Sweden would be easier to beat, but because this Japan team is good and really fun and, if they were facing anybody but Brazil, I would be rooting for them to finally break their curse and win their first knockout game. (Would their chances have been any better had they lost to Sweden and thus been matched with France? Probably not, but I would have cheered for them.) But they’re playing us, and so their run must once again end here. Now my stance is that they already had their chances—in 2010 when they went undefeated in the group stage but couldn’t score against Paraguay and lost on penalties; in 2018 when they went 2-0 up on Belgium but lost without even sending the game to overtime, which could have at least helped us against Belgium in the next round; in 2022 when they beat Spain and Germany in the group stage, but lost to Croatia, once again on penalties.

But if we’re not careful, this could be Japan’s year to finally break their streak. They’re a really watchable team with the technical ability and understanding to construct some absolutely beautiful moves. I mean, just look at this goal! They can pick apart teams with intricate moves in small spaces like that one, or just slice through them with a couple of vertical passes, like they did a few times against Tunisia. They were well worth their opening-game draw against the Netherlands, and their midfield-heavy approach might line up particularly well against our three-man-midfield-if-we’re-feeling-like-it tactics. Plus, they beat us the last time we played them.

But I still expect we should beat them comfortably. We still clearly have the more talented team, and it’s a team that, even if it might match up unfavorably to theirs in terms of tactics, is nevertheless coming into its own in a way that will only make it tougher to beat. And while we did lose to them last October, there are a few things to keep in mind: one, that game was in Tokyo, not on neutral ground. Two, we still went up 2-0. Three, while we melted down to lose 2-3, none of the back five—not Fabrício Bruno, who completely shat the bed to gift Japan their first goal; not Paulo Henrique, who failed to track his man for the second goal; not Lucas Beraldo, who failed to track his man for both the second and third goals; not Hugo Souza, who spilled the shot that led to the third goal; not Carlos Augusto, who didn’t really bear such direct blame for any of the goals but was maybe tainted by association—is even in the squad now.

And there’s one more ace up our sleeve: Neymar is back, and if we really need to throw him on in an emergency, Japan is far and away his favorite prey in a yellow jersey. His nine goals against Japan are three more than he’s scored against any other team. I just hope he’s not weighed down on the pitch by the million-dollar watch he just bought.

As for a prediction, I think Japan will give us a tough time, but we’ll emerge with a 2-1 win, maybe one that doesn’t feel quite as close as the scoreline suggests.