Match date: 12 June 2014

The opening match of the 2014 World Cup. One of the world’s greatest sporting spectacles and all that.

Brazil, having won the Confederations Cup and being the home nation, are many pundits favourites to win their sixth World Cup. Scolari did not surprise many with his 23-man squad, but his starting XI, along with the team’s performance, were questionable. The back four was as expected, but the midfield three in Brasil’s 4-2-3-1 was weak, especially with Neymar, rather than Oscar, in support of Fred.

Croatia, who finished second to Belgium in their qualifying group, are a technically good side with physicality. Their strongest asset is their midfield three in their 4-2-3-1. Kovac came out prior to the match saying that Croatia would not ‘park the bus’ and they certainly didn’t, looking the better side for good portions of the match.

Midfield Battle

Croatia had arguably the better midfield three in terms of talent. Modric is coming off the best season of his career and helped Real Madrid win the Champions League. Rakitic similarly had perhaps the best season of his career and was the most influential player in Sevilla’s Europa League-winning campaign. The youngest of the trio is Mateo Kovacic, just 20 years old, who plays for Inter Milan. Previously at Dinamo Zagreb, he has played both defensive midfielder and attacking midfielder at club level and is part of another bright generation moving through Croatia, which includes Alen Halilovic. Up against these three were Luiz Gustavo, Paulinho, and Neymar and it made for an open midfield.

Luiz Gustavo was disciplined in his play, he consistently split David Luiz and Thiago Silva, who switched sides throughout the match, and completed all of his passes in the first half. Paulinho’s inclusion in the side over the likes of Fernandinho was interesting considering that he hadn’t played much in the last half of the season under Tim Sherwood for Tottenham. It was also interesting that Neymar played at the top of the Brazil triangle rather than Oscar, who did so at Chelsea for most of the season and has much better work rate than Neymar on the defensive side of the ball, but Scolari knew that with Croatia having a lack of a true defensive midfielder, Neymar should have been able to have a large influence on the match with the amount of space he had at times.

While Paulinho and Luiz Gustavo failed to have much of an impact on the match, aside from the latter’s ability to recycle the ball for his side, the Croatian midfielders and Neymar were able to find space and use it effectively. Below, you can see how much space opened up between the lines. Brazil were defending in a midblock, hoping to win the ball back and counter, as they are essentially a counter attacking team and scored their third goal from a counter attack. Rakitic is on the ball right on the halfway line, with Neymar and Fred allowing him to have time rather than pressing him. Neymar’s inclusion in the midfield three means that he will have to press opponent’s deepest midfielder as they play stronger teams in the next rounds. Further up the pitch, however, you can see another large gap between Brazil’s back four and midfield which Kovacic is checking away from to provide Rakitic with an option.

This latter space caused problems for Brazil when Croatia attacked. Kovacic, Modric, and Rakitic were all able to find spaces behind the midfield to pick up the ball and early on, Kovacic was almost playing as a second striker with Gustavo’s positioning allowing the space to open up.

On the other side, as poor as Neymar was for large portions of the match, he used the space in front of the Croatia back four well on counter attacks, bypassing Modric and, especially, Rakitic rather easily on numerous occasions.

Going Forward

As much as the midfield battle should have dictated the match, it came down to crossing. Brazil found it hard to get by the Croatians when they defended in their midblock after the Marcelo own goal and far too many times, they relied on a long diagonal ball from David Luiz to Dani Alves on the right flank. Alves and Oscar were Brazil’s most influential players in the final third, and both were able to get crosses in with relative ease.

The penalty for Brazil came from a cross to Fred, who was not fouled, but the crosses seemed to cause Croatia problems throughout. Oscar had a chance that was well saved after a pull back from Neymar. Luiz had a good chance with about ten minutes from time after another cross.

Whereas Oscar’s crosses came from his ability to beat his full back and then get a cross in, Croatia were able to exploit the space left by Dani Alves and Marcelo as they counter attacked in the wide areas. Kovacic was clever moving into the flanks on counter attacks in support of Olic in particular. Olic, of course, provided the cross for the Marcelo own goal and had a chance of his own, but headed wide. Croatia had a goal disallowed on another cross because of Olic’s foul on Cesar, but it was another area where Brazil looked weak.

Conclusion

A fairly good match up to start the World Cup. Brazil looked relatively poor and are lucky to have gotten a penalty, which caused Croatia to get forward allowing Brazil to counter attack late on to get their third goal.

While Neymar was on the fringes for much of the match, Oscar was the best player and added the creativity to Brazil’s attack that Neymar should have done from his central role. Further forward, Fred was barely involved and touched the ball just twice in the Croatian penalty area. He was an outlet for Luiz and Silva to play long balls to, but more often those balls were played out to Alves and Marcelo making runs up the sides.

Croatia will be disappointed that they did not get anything out of the game, but if Brazil are considered favourties, then Croatia and Kovac should be pleased with their display. They were the much better side for large parts of the match and their midfield will have a much better forward in Mandzukic to play with as soon as he returns.