Group E Predicted Order of Finish: Brazil, Switzerland, Costa Rica, Serbia
It took Brazil two years and a manager change to begin to completely recover from Germany’s 7-1 Destruktion in the 2014 World Cup Semifinal in Belo Horizonte.
The proud country that sees beautiful, winning soccer as part of their national identity turned, reluctantly but hopefully to Dunga, who had captained the side to World Cup victory in 1994, albeit without the attacking magic associated with the greatest incarnations of Seleção’s past glories.
Dunga promptly cut ties with large portions of the squad that lost 7-1, employed constant defensive squad rotations, and tried to get Brazil to play with a deep-lying midfielder and without a classic number nine. The latter idea wasn’t horrific- after years of rolling out misfits and underachievers for the role (Jo, Robinho, Pato, Hulk, Fred, Jonas, etc), it made sense to try something different.
There were some promising early returns, but in two Copa Americas, the bottom fell out, with Brazil bowing out in the 2015 quarterfinals in Chile to an average Paraguay side and then failing to survive group stages for the first time since 1987 at the Copa America Centenario in the United States in 2016. Tired of being embarrassed internationally and with the side sitting sixth in CONMEBOL qualifying, one place out of a playoff spot, the CBF fired Dunga, replacing him with Corinthians manager Tite.
A patient man and devout believer in privileging personnel over system in tactical decisions, Tite has liberated Neymar from his role as captain and primary creator, settled on a central pairing of Thiago Silva and the Inter defender Miranda, and replaced the steady but limited Renato Augusto with a reinvigorated by Zidane version of Casemiro, who can help win the ball in the scrum and build possession from deep while allowing Neymar the freedom to wander by filling the gaps he leaves behind on the left. The back four is the team’s weakness, by some measure, but even if Tite decides on Marquinhos centrally, the central back two will be aided immensely by Casemiro.
The midfield also has great tactical discipline, thanks in large part to the rapport between Casemiro and Fernadinho, but one has to wonder how that will be affected by dropping Paulinho deeper and playing Coutinho centrally.
Tite doesn’t really have natural wingers, but he doesn’t need them, with the timeless Marcelo pushing the envelope up the field on the left and Danilo a more than capable deputy for the injured Dani Alves on the right.
The real revelation, and what makes this Brazilian team a legitimate favorite, is the front three of Gabriel Jesus, Neymar and Willian/Coutinho.
In Gabriel Jesus, the Brazilians have the number nine that’s been missing since Ronaldo, a player who can help press high up the pitch, force defenders to punt the ball back to the Brazilian midfield swarm, and finish at a clinical rate (10 goals in 17 internationals is a compelling stat-line, especially in CONMEBOL).
After a decade of failures, expect this World Cup to be where we see the dominant Brazilian number nine is back.
Whether it is Coutinho or Willian that plays on the right of the triumvirate, the idea is nearly the same, with either player drifting into the channels and making menacing off ball runs and interplays with the central midfield. In the Brazilians final World Cup tune-up, it was Coutinho inside, playing as the left central midfielder with the freedom to work off Marcelo and do what he does best in the final third, run into the ball in the channel, cut in left and shoot. What he’ll offer defensively is a fair question, but Brazil have Fernandinho off the bench to answer such concerns. Should Jesus falter, there are options, including Roberto Firmino, who underperforms for country but is a glorious talent, and Douglas Costa, who can provide width.
Brazil aren’t without questions: how does Coutinho function in the center of the field for an entire tournament? Can Miranda, no spring chicken, hold-up? And of course, the million-dollar “Will teams be able to exploit the space behind Marcelo and Neymar?”
But they shouldn’t have to answer those questions until the knockout stages.
It’s a tough call for second place between three teams I view as relatively equal.
Switzerland were seeded in 2014 and played dismally, largely due to a lack of clinical finishing. Not much has changed. The Swiss rely entirely too much on a relegated Premier League player, Shaqiri, for creativity, and while he tends to answer the bell in international tournaments with magic like the video below, they have little in terms of complementary pieces.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YJX0an_d3wo
In truth, their best attacking forays come from overlapping runs by their brilliant fullbacks, Arsenal’s Stephan Lichtsteiner and Milan’s Ricardo Rodriguez. Lichsteiner is charged with charging into space and occupying defenders for Shaqiri, and when that happens, the Swiss can be menacing, albeit predictably so.
There is little that intimidates beyond those three- the midfield is two holders- Valon Behrami, 33 and a veteran, but hardly a scoring threat with 2 goals in 79 caps, and Granit Xhaka, who has a thunderous howitzer from distance but isn’t beating too many high-quality defenders one v one. They calmly usher away attacking traffic and look to feed the fullbacks, or fire over the top route one to Harris Seferovic , usually the option up top. The 21-year-old Breel Embolo is a better finisher than Seferovic, and will be needed if the Swiss are to advance.
Keylor Navas led Costa Rica to a group of death win in 2014 and the quarterfinals. What’s next?
Costa Rica were surprise quarterfinalists to most the world in 2014 behind the magnificent goalkeeping of Real Madrid’s Keylor Navas and the dynamic playmaking of Bryan Ruiz and Celso Borges. That group weathered the tournament’s toughest group, dominating Uruguay and upending Italy en route to a group win (they drew England). Those who saw them often in CONCACAF frequently were less surprised, but that side was four years younger and there haven’t been too many personnel changes. Plus, they’ve lost the element of surprise, having earned the world’s respect as a footballing nation four years ago.
The architect of that run, Jorge Luis Pinto, is gone after a contract dispute with the federation, but Oscar Ramirez hasn’t changed a great deal, sticking with the 3-4-3/3-5-2 hybrid formation that the Ticos play from the youth internationals up to the senior side.
It makes the team brutal to play against, and is why they remain very much better than the sum of their collective parts.
The attack is largely reliant on the precise passing of Ruiz and Borges, a solid club player at Deportivo La Coruna who plays deeper for country than club, and the speed of Joel Campbell, the Real Betis by way of Arsenal forward who shined in Brazil 2014. NYCFC’s Rodney Wallace provides width, and Yeltsin Tejada, a bulldog a midfielder who plays in Switzerland, gives the midfield bite.
There’s a notion this side can’t replicate what occurred in 2014, and perhaps that’s true. But that was no fluke. They were better than Uruguay and Italy and deserved both results, with only the draw vs. England being fortunate. Further, the defense, with Navas as the anchor, has genuine quality, from Celtic’s Cristian Gamboa to Vancouver’s Kendall Waston to Oscar Duarte and Bryan Oviedo.
In the end, the opener for them, against Serbia, will go a long way in deciding proceedings, as will avoiding a lopsided loss, such as the one that knocked them out of the huge loss to the United States that saw them out of the 2016 Copa America in the group stages, albeit without Navas.
Serbia enter in a bit of disarray, having managers, defensive setups (3 in the back to 4) and captains, all since last autumn. Aleksander Mitrovic of Newcastle is a talented international forward though, with a strike rate of 16 goals in 37 matches, and the midfield has nice attacking pieces, from Lazio product Sergej Milinkovic-Savic to Southhampton’s Dusan Tadic. Still, the defense features three starters in their mid-30s, and in a group with significant attacking chops, that could be a recipe for disaster, especially given the goalkeeper, Partizan’s Vladmir Stojkovic, is nothing to write home about.
Neil W. Blackmon co-founded TYAC. Follow him on Twitter @nwblackmon.