World Cup Preview: #7 Brazil
Previewing Brazil's chances at the World Cup
Continuing my preview of the 48 World Cup teams today, we are taking a deeper look at Brazil.
Brazil is the only team in the world to have appeared at every World Cup since 1930. They are five-time champions, but their last title came in 2002. Since then, they have only made it past the quarterfinals one time. Carlo Ancelotti has been brought in to fix the problems with the Brazilian National Team to try and return them to glory this summer.
For those who do not know, I have my own International Ratings, which I have built over the years, and you can find them here.
At the end of this series, I will post my final rankings before the World Cup begins. In addition, I will be simulating the World Cup, which will likely be released the week before the tournament starts.
I will go in reverse order of my rankings, starting with my lowest-rated team and working up to my top-ranked team.
This will simply be a breakdown of each team. I will save my analysis for how they match up with each team for my group previews, which will come out a little closer to the week of the World Cup.
In case you missed it, check out my previous previews:
How did they get here?
South American qualifying, without a doubt, is the most difficult of any of the confederations. With only 10 countries, everyone has to go to everyone else twice, and the road conditions are among the most difficult you will see in the world.
World Cup qualifying started all the way back in September of 2023, even before Copa America, so it’s an incredibly long road of 18 matches just to get to the World Cup.
The top six teams at the end of qualifying automatically go to the World Cup, and the seventh-place team goes to the inter-confederation playoffs.
Brazil did not have the most impressive qualifying campaign because, at the beginning, they lost three straight matches and were sitting outside the top six. They rebounded to finish with 28 points, but six losses and finishing tied on points with Paraguay is almost unheard of for a team of their stature.
Brazil Stats
All data is from footystats.org & FotMob
Brazil’s results since the 2022 World Cup have been poor by their standards. With that being said, I think it needs to be mentioned that the managerial changes they have gone through.
Their federation typically wants managers from South America, and they tried three different ones before settling on Carlo Ancelotti. Brazil's offensive numbers throughout qualifying really weren’t that impressive.
All data is from FotMob
Ancelotti was in charge for Brazil’s final four qualifying matches, but only creating 5.4 expected goals against Ecuador, Paraguay, Chile, and Bolivia really doesn’t show much improvement.
While there are concerns about Brazil’s offense, they have one of the best defenses in this tournament. Their last match against Bolivia was meaningless because they had already qualified for the World Cup. In the other 17 matches, Brazil allowed only a total of 12.14 expected goals.
Brazil Key Players
All data is from transfermarkt.com
This Brazilian side certainly has loads of talent; there is no denying that. However, compared to some of the elite teams of past years, they don’t strike the same fear they used to.
Ancelotti made it clear that he is prioritizing experience over youth at this World Cup, as Brazil’s average age is 29.2 years, one of the highest in the tournament.
There are plenty of options in attack, but the main man is Vinicius Jr. He’s one of the best 1v1 dribblers on the planet, and a lot of Brazil’s attack is trying to get him isolated against the fullback out wide.
He had a really good season for Real Madrid, scoring 21 goals and dishing out 10 assists.
image via Scout Lab
He may not be their best player, but the role he plays for Brazil will be pivotal to their chances of going deep.
Bruno Guimarães missed a stretch of the season for Newcastle, but during World Cup qualifying, only Marquinhos played more minutes than him. He provides a creative threat through the middle of the pitch and is also a pure ball-winner.
His ability to create through the middle opens up space out wide for both Vinicius Jr. and Raphinha.
Brazil Tactics
Carlo Ancelotti is famous for his tactical-less style of management. It was very successful during his time at Real Madrid, and he’s carried that over to the Brazilian National Team.
He has kept things pretty simple and given his players the freedom, rather than keeping them in a strictly positional system.
He has also stuck to Brazil’s heritage, with a strong emphasis on putting the ball on the floor and playing through teams with many short passes.
You’ll see them in deep build-up, dropping six or seven players in deep to overload the opposition, creating passing triangles to play quick passes through them.
So, if their opponent is defending in a 4-4-2, like Paraguay is here, Brazil has a 7 v 6 in the first phase of build-up, so all they need to do is quickly pass the ball to find the free man, and then they’ve created a quick transition opportunity on their opposition’s back line.
The problem with this style of play is that when the opposition sits back in a really compact, low block, there is suddenly no space to play short passes through them.
When that happens, you will often see Brazil funnel the ball out wide to allow their wingers to go 1 v 1, or they will try to pull teams out wide by creating passing triangles like this to play through them.
So, for Brazil in this tournament, most teams aren’t going to press them, so it’s really going to come down to how effective their wingers are in 1v1s.