Brazil in the quarter-finals, preserving strength for…the Netherlands

Brazil had a mini party against Chile in the Ellis Park Stadium of Johannesburg, easily winning the game by 3-0 and going full speed in the World Cup 2010 quarter-finals stage to meet with the Netherlands. Brazil started the match strong, completely shutting down Chile on the field that was not allowed to play their familiar game that consists of constant pressing, excellent movement without the ball, and mass defence/offence by all players.

The first good chances to score for Brazil were powerful shot from Gilberto Silva (8′), Kaká (9′), and Ramires (15′), but goalkeeper Claudio Bravo was there to deny the goal. On the other side Chile had a very serious problem reaching the penalty area of the opponent, and tried to surprise Brazil with a couple of long shots by Humberto Suazo and Jean Beausejour. In 27′ a clear penalty against Lúcio was not given to Brazil, but just 7 minutes later the five-time World Cup Champions finally scored their first goal of the game with a close header by Juan.

Just four minutes later and almost before the celebrations of the Brazilian players were over, Luís Fabiano scored a second one after a textbook counter attack for the Seleção: Robinho started on top, gave an excellent pass to Kaká that passed the ball nicely to Fabiano who had no problem beating Bravo in a face-to-face play.

During half-time coach Marcelo Bielsa tried to shuffle the deck a little bit for Chile and made two substitutions, but Brazil was clearly a class above in yesterday’s match up. And in 59′ after a fantastic personal play by Ramires in the midfield area, that went all the way before passing the ball to Robinho for 3-0, the game was pretty much over. Chile had no more pressure and missed a couple of great chances with Humberto Suazo in 75′ (blocked by Júlio César), and 78′ (shot bounced on the field and hit the post).