Brazil in the World Cup 2010

Brazil will face Ivory Coast on June 20th. That will be the first official match between the countries.

Brazil have  respect for Ivory Coast. When the groups were drawn, all Brazilian journalists agreed that Ivory Coast was the strongest African team in the Cup. Brazilians know that Didier Drogba is a successful player in English Chelsea and deserves attention.

This respect should only increase, after Ivory Coast tied their match with Portugal, and even more after Brazil won North Korea by just 2 x 1.

However, nobody in Brazil expects Brazil to loose this match. Brazil expects to win by a tight margin, but even a tie will be considered a surprise.

Brazil won North Korea by 2 x 1.

The starting line-up, as expected, was Julio Cesar, Maicon, Lucio, Juan and Michel Bastos; Gilberto Silva, Felipe Melo, Elano and Kaka; Robinho and Luis Fabiano.

Brazilian fans and media were deceived. Everyone expected an overwhelming victory.

During the game, when the score was 2 x 0, coach Dunga attempted to make the team more offensive; however, the tactic backfired and Brazil conceded a goal instead.

In an interview right after the match, Dunga declared that he was happy with the performance of the team in the second half, and that the important was to win the match (rather than to have an spectacular performance).

A remarkable fact of this game was the Korean player crying copiously at the moment that the National Anthem was being performed. In 1966, the only World Cup that North Korea had played before, the English refused to perform the Korean Anthem (because of this, in 1966, the National Anthems were performed only at the first and last games); so, this was the first time ever that the North Korean National Anthem was performed during a FIFA World Cup.

Back in November 2009, we published a post called who’s favourite to win the World Cup 2010.

Well, the ball started rolling today. Below, the more current odds, according to traditional online brokers.

In London: Ladbrokes.

Spain is still top favorite and Brazil is second (but both are paying higher – meaning their favoritism is smaller); Argentina was fourth, now is third (is Messi causing a good impression among betters?); England was third, and fell to fourth, below Argentina; another switch over was Holland passing Germany and Italy (Germans lost Ballack, and betters seemingly didn’t like the Italian roster); the USA Team odds were 66/1, and are now at 67/1.

In the USA: William Hill.

Again, some minor changes. Brazil and Spain were tied, now Spain is leading at 4/1 and Brazil is second at 5/1; also among Americans, Argentina became more favorite than England; and also among Americans, Holland has now more chances of being champion than Germany and Italy.

In one month time, we shall see how well betters could predict the winner of World Cup 2010.

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We already know the roster of the 23 Brazilian players who will be in South Africa.

Dunga didn’t announce the list of the 11 players who will start playing the first match against North Korea, but it is not difficult to tell that they will be:

Julio Cesar, Maicon, Lucio, Juan and Michel Bastos; Gilberto Silva, Felipe Melo, Elano and Kaka; Robinho and Luis Fabiano.

This is the team which has been training together since Brazil arrived in South Africa.

This is almost exactly the same lineup which started the last friendly match against Ireland, with the sole difference of Elano in place of Ramirez (Elano has more experience, and is one of the experts in free kicks).

This is nearly the same lineup which started the match against Argentina in the Qualifying, in September 2009; the only difference is that Juan was injured then, and Luisão was his substitute.

This is nearly the same lineup of the team which finished the last match of the Confederation Cup, in June 2009; the only difference (besides Juan vs. Luisão) is Daniel Alves in place of Michel Bastos (actually, this is probably the only doubt in Dunga’s mind).

That’s it. Dung always said that there will be no surprises: he would go with the team which has been prepared since 2007. So far, he kept to his promises, and there are no reasons to believe he will change now.