Team Focus: Neymar Reliant Brazil Still Showing Problems of Old

Brazil’s Copa America group match against Peru may ultimately have produced the result that had been widely anticipated, but it’s fair to say nobody was expecting the game to play out quite like it did. Dunga’s Brazil was supposed to be dogged and cautious, to have shorn the wildness that ultimately undid Luiz Felipe Scolari’s side at the World Cup, but the game in Temuco, in the first half in particular, was raggedly end-to-end.

Brazil had won 10 friendlies in a row since Dunga took over at the end of the World Cup – one more than they had under Scolari in the build-up to that tournament. That seemed room for cautious optimism, but after two minutes, very familiar old failings had surfaced. David Luiz seemed to have done the hard part, shepherding Paolo Guerrero off the ball, but then he nudged the ball oddly across goal. It may be that if Jefferson had kept out of the way, David Luiz would have belted the ball clear with his right foot, but the goalkeeper prodded it uncertainly towards Dani Alves, who was wrong-footed, allowing Christian Cueva gleefully to belt the ball in.

The response was almost instant, Neymar drifting unmarked between the two Peru centre-backs to head in a Dani Alves cross after five minutes. There then followed 15 minutes of almost constant pressure in which Peru looked defensively hapless. They somehow survived, though, and while Brazil had the better of the rest of the game for the last 70 minutes, Peru were trading blows with them. Just when it looked as though Peru had got the draw, though, Neymar played an astonishing pass, finding a gap in a thicket of defenders to set Douglas Costa through. He was in so much space he almost seemed embarrassed as he jabbed the ball past Pedro Gallese.

After Colombia’s defeat earlier in the day, the win left Brazil top of the group, but the nature of the performance raises far more questions than the result answers. Peru are ranked 61st in the world and have been in wretched form; if they can cause Brazil as many problems – they had eight shots in the game, three on target – then a better side – a Colombia, Argentina or Chile – could do real damage.

It wasn’t just the openness at the back that was a concern, though; it was how dependent the team was in Neymar and, to a lesser extent, Dani Alves, who wasn’t even in the squad until Danilo was injured last week. Of the 16 shots Brazil attempted, six were from Neymar. He played four of 12 key passes (and Dani Alves another four). He had 89 touches; no other forward or midfielder had more than Willian’s 68. Neymar completed five dribbles; Willian completed two, nobody else more than one. He put in four crosses; Dani Alves put in four, Filipe Luis three, nobody else more than one.

Brazil are Neymar-dependent to a staggering degree. It’s not quite like watching Liberia when George Weah played for them, but it’s not as far off as it ought to be, every player simply looking to give the ball to the one great star. What’s difficult to know is the degree to which that is to do with Neymar’s demand to be centre stage and the level to which it’s a result of the inadequacy of others.

The strange incident just before half-time when Neymar got booked for wiping away the referee’s foam at a free-kick he was about to take, shoving away Flipe Luis and Elias, suggested just how dominant a figure he demands to be. Either way, it’s not a healthy situation. This Brazil seem to have all the defensive shakiness they showed at the World Cup and, if anything, to be even more focused on their one great star. That’s not a recipe for success.

Will Brazil win the Copa America or is there too much of a burden for Neymar to carry? Let us know in the comments below