Julio Cesar made two critical saves, Neymar scored the key
penalty in the shootout and Gonzalo Jara hit the post on the last attempt from
the spot to give the hosts the win.
''My teammates are giving me a lot of strength on the field
so I give my best,'' Julio Cesar said after the match. ''We're just three steps
away and I hope to give another interview with Brazil partying.''
The host nation will be breathing a sigh of relief tonight
after they managed to elude their South American rivals despite a labored and
poor performance at the Estadio Mineirao that suggested the golden boys have
lost a great deal of their luster. Nonetheless, Brazil will face Colombia on
July 4 in Fortaleza.
Chile came into the game with a grim record. They had not
won in their last eleven visits to Brazil. Every time these two sides had met
in a World Cup, Brazil had been the ones to send them packing. Brazilian
newspapers were so confident of Saturday’s outcome that one boldly printed the
flight times from Belo Horizonte to La Paz on its front page, a none-too-subtle
jab. That hubris would prove costly.
Yet, from the outset, the game looked as if it would indeed
go to script. Neymar looked dashing and dangerous, making scorching runs right
at a Chilean defense that isn’t exactly prime-time. Two of them -- Gary Medel
and Francisco Silva -- were on teams that were relegated last season; a third
(Jara) is clinging on at Nottingham Forest, a mid-tier second division club in
England. So when Brazil opened their account after just 18 minutes of play, it
was if this one would be decided by the half.
Eugenio Mena needlessly handled the ball to set up a
free-kick that keeper Claudio Bravo then needlessly punched instead of
catching. On the ensuing corner, Neymar flighted the ball in to the far post
and Jara appeared to kick the ball into his own net, around the lurking David
Luiz. David Luiz, who had never scored a goal for Brazil, was eager to claim
it, but the replays suggested he was the beneficiary of an accident.
Neymar looked simply too hot to handle, running onto long
outlets from Oscar, and perhaps had he a little more help from the still
punchless Hulk and Fred, this game would have had a far different scoreline.
Instead, Fred kept sailing his chances into the cheap seats -- and Hulk would
prove to be at the center of a grave mistake for the hosts.
Off a simple throw-in from Marcelo, Hulk casually sidefooted
the ball back, a routine play he has done thousands of times. But this time,
the ball flew off and into the path of Alexis Sanchez, and he raced at Julio
Cesar’s net, picked out the far corner, and slotted it home. The QPR keeper, on
loan to Major League Soccer's Toronto FC, demonstrated why he is not wanted at
the Premier League side on the play, diving far too late and looking clumsy to
boot -- but credit Alexis for his fine placement.
Brazil’s attackers responded well, with Neymar at the center
of everything. First he picked out Fred, only to see his partner badly scuff
his take; then Dani Alves forced Bravo into a stop with a dipping shot from
long-range. But Brazil’s defense looked comedic, with Luis Gustavo nearly
coughing up another goal at the death of the half, allowing Alexis to run on
again, slip in Charles Aranguiz and if not for a yeoman black by David Luiz,
Brazil would have been in real trouble.
The second half was a very different story. Chile, building
off their near-chance at the death of the first, slowly began to take the game
over. They slowed it down, fouling tactically, and in so doing, largely removed
Neymar from the game. It wasn’t until late in the half that Bravo was forced
into making saves, and when the full-time whistle went, Chile were firmly on
the front foot.
The major talking point came just shy of the hour mark, when
Hulk thought he had earned redemption, slamming home a goal off a beauty of a
cross by Oscar. He had not. Howard Webb made a brave call, waving off the goal
for handball -- and replays suggested he was quite right to do so. Hulk
appeared to collect the cross with his shoulder, but then used his arm to push
the ball onto his right foot.
The call had the crowd seething, but there was no arguing --
and so "Big Phil" Scolari went to his bench, throwing on Manchester
City washout Jo for Fred, to boos from the crowd.
Chile added to the nerves, with Aranguiz uncorking a clean
strike that Cesar did very well to bat away on the hour. It was the best stop
of the game, but also a sign of how fragile Brazil’s back four truly are. Vidal
and Gutierrez slotted the ball right through them with Alexis to set up the
chance, and they were unlucky not to see that ruffle the net.
Extra-time was a similar slog, with Brazil looking utterly
devoid of ideas against a stout Chilean defense. As the crowd jeered and
whistled you felt that the entire nation was on a knife’s edge. Then when
Mauricio Pinilla hit the crossbar in the 119th minute, an entire continent
gasped.
The shootout saw a far more assured Cesar. He stopped
Pinilla and Alexis, admittedly on weak attempts. But it wasn’t until Jara hit
the post that they could breathe easy. Brazil’s road gets no easier.
"I gave an interview four years ago and I cried (when
Holland eliminated Brazil)," Julio Cesar told Sportv. "I was very sad
but now I am crying because I am happy. Only God and my family know what I went
through and I still do. I hope to give more interviews like this, this is my
dream."
On the evidence, few teams will be scared of them from
hereon out.
Courtsy:foxsports
