Brazil Advances in World Cup

After some initial controversy, the 2022 World Cup in Qatar has now been going on for over a week. The teams are just now finishing up their second game in the Group Stage with one more game remaining to see who advances to the next round. France became the first team to punch their ticket to the Round of 16 this weekend. The defending champions finally have some company as Brazil clinched their spot with a 1-0 win over Switzerland earlier this morning.

Brazil entered the prestigious tournament as the top ranked team in the world. It has been 20 years since the World Cup’s most successful team has hoisted the trophy, so there is a lot of pressure on this Brazil team. The team cruised to an easy 2-0 win over Serbia on Thanksgiving, but the team knew they would have a much tougher time pulling out a win over Switzerland.

From the early going, it looked like the Swiss had no intentions of trying to score on the elite defense of Brazil. Switzerland’s best hopes of a positive result hinged on forcing an ugly scoreless draw. The cowardly tactics worked throughout the first half as the game remained scoreless despite Brazil getting off several shots.

Without much pressure on their back end, Brazil decided to bring in several extra offensive players late in the second half. These tactical changes eventually paid off in the 83rd minute of the game when Casemiro put in a beautiful shot in the top right corner of the net. This late goal proved to be enough as the Brazilians walked away victorious while playing without their star forward Neymar.

Brazil will return to action on Friday afternoon with a match against Cameroon. With no result needed from this game, the World Cup favorites will likely give several of their key players some extra rest. Brazil will not find out who they play in the Round of 16 until games are completed on Friday. Despite the loss this morning, Switzerland can still lock up a spot in the next round with a win over Serbia on Friday.