Brazil v England

aindriu80

2-1. Fair play to the Ingerland.

Amirani

Some comeback from England.

Nuri Sahin

Hahahaha, Rooney 2-1

ollie1

What a goal by Rooney

Mr.Nice Guy

Rhys Essien wrote: »

This game is there for England if they grab the bull by the horns.No suprise that Brazil are 19 in the rankings.Also,I have England backed to win.

Fair play to you. Looking good at the moment!

GTR63

Even Ireland are better than that shower.
How can Coutinho not make that squad?

Beefy78

Football's Coming Home, etc, etc

Rekop dog

Stand off him all day and he'll do that.

Not really deserved but Brazil so short up front that it was always likely. Neymar has been so wasteful.

Professional Griefer

Thats a great volley

aindriu80

OMG :O

Amirani

Fantastic technique on that volley.

DenMan

2-2

England asleep!

Nuri Sahin

Superb from Paulinho

Beefy78

Nice finish. Nice to see an entertaining friendly which both teams clearly want to win.

Pedalstool

Never understood the whole fanfare around Neymar.

Fowler87

Great goals last 20 mins. Best of the lot

Amirani

Reminiscent of Zidane against Leverkusen in terms of how Paulinho took that.

mike65

Excitement!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Neymar has hardly troubled the commentators this half.

Red Crow

Yet another poor performance for Brazil from Neymar

Mr.Nice Guy

Yes. Bernard's on. Seize the chance, fella.

Oat23

How I'd love Neymar to score after a mazy run right now..:D

Amirani

Shame there's no extra time, it's been an enjoyable second half.

JaMarcus Hustle

Jersey looks ridiculous on Bernard, it looks like a dress.

Beefy78

I wish you lot would stop going on abut how poor Neymar has been. He's bound to score now.

aindriu80

I wouldn't be surprised if Brasil got the winner in the lasts few minutes. Awesome volley

NIMAN

Neither of these 2 teams will be challenging for the WC next year.

Amirani

NIMAN wrote: »

Neither of these 2 teams will be challenging for the WC next year.

You can say that again.

Rhys Essien

Mr.Nice Guy wrote: »

Fair play to you. Looking good at the moment!

I had both teams to score and England to win and the fcukers do that to me.

Rayne Wooney

If I'm being honest, I've seen Neymar play in 15+ games now and he's been average at best in each one. I'm not seeing it with him.

He'll probably go goal crazy at Barca now next season after me saying this.

mike65

England win!

Oat23

Dante missed the German cup final yesterday to sit on the bench today. A bit disappointing that he wasn't given a run after the season he has had.

Headshot

Its probably one of the weakest Brazil teams in my life time. Silva is only the world class player in that team but they do have some some great young talent but right now their older players are far from good enough and there's big IF's on alot of that young talent especially Neymar who hasnt been good for quite awhile now

Fowler87

NIMAN wrote: »

Neither of these 2 teams will be challenging for the WC next year.

Brazil will but have alot of improving to do.

Amirani

Rayne Wooney wrote: »

If I'm being honest, I've seen Neymar play in 15+ games now and he's been average at best in each one. I'm not seeing it with him.

Any time I've seen him in Serie A he's looked the best player on the pitch. Whether he can do it at Barca to the same degree is another question.

blueser

NIMAN wrote: »

Neither of these 2 teams will be challenging for the WC next year.

''And in breaking news; scientists have today made two startling discoveries. Firstly; bears do indeed s**t in the woods. And secondly; water is indeed wet.''

Hulk Hands

blueser wrote: »

''And in breaking news; scientists have today made two startling discoveries. Firstly; bears do indeed s**t in the woods. And secondly; water is indeed wet.''

And yet Brazil are the current favourites, so it's hardly obvious to say they won't challenge when the majority clearly expect them to

Lennonist

blueser wrote: »

''And in breaking news; scientists have today made two startling discoveries. Firstly; bears do indeed s**t in the woods. And secondly; water is indeed wet.''

Brazil will be challenging one way or the other. They've still got a year to get their act together and with the competition on home soil I'd say they will make it to the semi finals at the very least.

Big Pussy Bonpensiero

I don't see how anyone can write Brazil off just yet. They have a good defence, or rather 4/5 good defenders, a very strong midfield and a few very decent attackers. Neymar will more than likely improve immensely by next season, he'll be training day in day out with some of the best and most intelligent players in the world, and regardless of his ability now, he clearly has potential by the bucket loads. If he and a few others really perform at next summers tournament they could go a long way.
Obviously, Spain and Germany are in a league of their own (on paper anyway), but like the Italians, if Brazil click they are capable of taking out at least one of those 2. Unlikely, but still enough of a chance that writing them off is rash, imo.

Beefy78

It's a knock-out cup competition and Brazil are at home, where they have an incredible record. Anyone writing them off a year in advance is foolish in the extreme.

GTR63

Dante, Silva and.... Who are the other 2 or 3 good defenders they were fairly shakey when England went after them. In midfield you have Oscar and Hernandes then a boatload of defensive midfielders of varying quality can hardly be described as very good that. The top 3 is Neymar who has a huge season ahead under the microscope at Barca, Hulk who is good but has not done a lot at the highest level and the Centre forward gap of Fred or Damiao.
I bet if you showed a Brazil fan the results running up to this 4 years ago they wouldn't believe it.

Rekop dog

Thing is they've had very good defenders for years (particularly at centre back) but haven't defended well at all on the whole for some time now. Almost like when they turn up for the national side they start to believe the stereotype about Brazilians defenses. On paper Thiago Silva/Dante is seriously formidable and if they start to form the cohesive partnership they're very much capable of they could make themselves hard to beat and take some of the pressure off the underwhelming attackers in the side. Can't see them winning though, squad just doesn't have the character or mentality of Brazil squads of the past, not to mind the ability.

Andersonisgod

I have to say some of the criticism of Neymar's performance tonight is head-scratching. I honestly think some people expect him to score at the end of a crazy dribble everytime he plays. No other player on the planet is judged to that standard. He had a very good first half, picked up lots of clever positions, played a couple of lovely passes down the sides of the English defence, a constant threat and was slightly unlucky not to score twice, a menace throughout and the fulcrum of the Brazilian attack. Not as impressive a second half as changes disrupted the flow and pattern of the game.

Honestly the amount of senseless criticism he received on this thread is crazy and entirely unjustified.

Wilberto

So, England drew with Brazil. Does this mean that Ireland are now as good as Brazil??!! :P

kryogen

Andersonisgod wrote: »

I have to say some of the criticism of Neymar's performance tonight is head-scratching. I honestly think some people expect him to score at the end of a crazy dribble everytime he plays. No other player on the planet is judged to that standard. He had a very good first half, picked up lots of clever positions, played a couple of lovely passes down the sides of the English defence, a constant threat and was slightly unlucky not to score twice, a menace throughout and the fulcrum of the Brazilian attack. Not as impressive a second half as changes disrupted the flow and pattern of the game.

Honestly the amount of senseless criticism he received on this thread is crazy and entirely unjustified.

Ronaldo is judged to that standard, Messi is judged to that standard, Rooney to an extent is held to a ridiculously high standard, Bale will get it now..... Not bad company to be in I guess

Big year for Neymar now, delighted he has finally made the switch, he left it a year or two longer then I would have liked but training and playing with and against better players every week will hopefully push him on again, the league should suit him also, only problem is his team will have the ball a little too much I firmly believe its mainly mental with him anyway, if he improves his attitude and works hard he could be amazing. If not he will be another Brazilian wonderkid flop.

For the world cup next year, Brazil have got some decent players and home advantage, I would not be putting my money on them right now but they are in with a shout, they just need to get a cohesive unit and play to their strengths

NIMAN

kryogen wrote: »

Big year for Neymar now, delighted he has finally made the switch, he left it a year or two longer then I would have liked but training and playing with and against better players every week will hopefully push him on again, the league should suit him also, only problem is his team will have the ball a little too much I firmly believe its mainly mental with him anyway, if he improves his attitude and works hard he could be amazing. If not he will be another Brazilian wonderkid flop.

Is he not 21?

Surely moving to Barca at 19 would have been a bad decision?

kryogen

NIMAN wrote: »

Is he not 21?

Surely moving to Barca at 19 would have been a bad decision?

Why?

It was not a bad decision for Ronaldo to head to Europe young, didn't hurt Messi much either?

Anybody who watches Brazilian football would probably agree with my assessment that his development has stalled in the last year certainly and I think he needed to play at a higher standard and push himself on to be better

Andersonisgod

kryogen wrote: »

Ronaldo is judged to that standard, Messi is judged to that standard, Rooney to an extent is held to a ridiculously high standard, Bale will get it now..... Not bad company to be in I guess

Big year for Neymar now, delighted he has finally made the switch, he left it a year or two longer then I would have liked but training and playing with and against better players every week will hopefully push him on again, the league should suit him also, only problem is his team will have the ball a little too much I firmly believe its mainly mental with him anyway, if he improves his attitude and works hard he could be amazing. If not he will be another Brazilian wonderkid flop.

For the world cup next year, Brazil have got some decent players and home advantage, I would not be putting my money on them right now but they are in with a shout, they just need to get a cohesive unit and play to their strengths

Absolutely and I think Neymar deserves to be judged to the same standard as those players. However I think if Messi, Ronaldo or Bale put in that exact same performance as Neymar (first half in particular) I don;t think anybody would be any criticism. Overall it was a good performance, particularly a very good first half. Would it go down as one of Messi or Ronaldo's best games ever? Of course not but it would go down as a good game.

It also has to be taken into consideration that Neymar wasn't playing in a team of the quality that Ronaldo or Messi usually play with. Also that it was a friendly, against an English side with set up to defend.

I agree that training with Barcelona, learning from model professionals like Xavi, Iniesta and Messi, learning to play the Barca way will improve him both on and off the pitch. I also think he maybe could have gone a year earlier but it's better that he has gone now rather than next summer as was originally planned.

kryogen

Definitely, he outgrew the league at least a year ago, the longer he stayed the more damage he was doing imho