It hardly needs saying that the five times World Champions will be the hot favourites to make it six and pick up the title they last won twelve years ago. Every game will be a home match as Brazil first look to overcome their relative modest opposition in Group A and progress to the final in Rio.
Brazil had fallen down the rankings and Scolari returned as manager in 2013. The first match for the new manager was against England in February which Brazil lost 2-1 at Wembley and by June 6th 2013 they were ranked 22nd in the world, their lowest rank ever. For the 2013 Confederations Cup in the summer of 2013 the objective was to defend their title which they did, comfortably beating reigning World and European champions Spain in the final with a 3-0 win. What a difference a year makes!
As hosts for the 2014 World Cup Brazil automatically qualified and since the friendly defeat to England Brazil have lost only one further match to Switzerland by a 1-0 margin and have won every match since September in a 7 match winning streak and if wasn’t for losing to Switzerland it could be 14 wins in a row.
Brazil have 2 further friendly matches against Panama on June 3rd and Serbia on June 6th before their first match of the World Cup against Croatia on June 12th followed by matches against Mexico on the 17th and then Cameroon on the 23rd. The current squad contains a number of players familiar to those who follow the Premier League such as David Luiz, Fernandinho, Oscar, Willian, Ramires, Leiva and Paulinho with the twenty-two-year-old Neymar being the man that most people in Brazil pin their hopes on taking Brazil to a sixth title as the biggest talent in the squad.
Source: DSG
