2014 FIFA World Cup: Group A (BRA/CRO/MEX/CMR)

[treiz]

Incredible stat

[tweet]https://twitter.com/BenSmithBBC/status/481200407436619776[/tweet]

[BRUNiNHO91]

Fernandhino is going to make brazil a much better team in the knockouts

A traffic cone in place of Paulinho would make Brazil much better in the knockouts. Dude has been playing with the energy of a 78 year old woman with arthritis.

Can someone tell me what happened to Neymar? Says he left with injury?

Nothing serious. He was running, got tackled from behind and kind of 'locked' his knee as he planted his foot on the ground. Was down for a couple of seconds but got up and walked out of the field normally. Substitution was most likely due to avoiding a yellow card more than anything else.

[MaliBrah]

Fernandhino is going to make brazil a much better team in the knockouts

A traffic cone in place of Paulinho would make Brazil much better in the knockouts. Dude has been playing with the energy of a 78 year old woman with arthritis. .

yeah man he's been awful , not sure what has happened. Fernandhino is the superior player and looked much better out there for brazil when he came on. Hulk should probably be facing the axe as well.

[BRUNiNHO91]

Fernandhino is going to make brazil a much better team in the knockouts

A traffic cone in place of Paulinho would make Brazil much better in the knockouts. Dude has been playing with the energy of a 78 year old woman with arthritis. .

yeah man he's been awful , not sure what has happened. Fernandhino is the superior player and looked much better out there for brazil when he came on. Hulk should probably be facing the axe as well.

Certainly. You could go with Fernandinho, Hernanes or Ramires in his place and easily get better production. The mistake here is we are treating this guy as if he was still the same player from the confederations cup last year but he's not. If I'm not mistaken he finished the season on the bench for Tottenham, so it's no surprise he's been awful. As for Hulk, I don't mind him because I don't think Felipao trusts Willian enough to start him even though he's the best option IMO. Bernard is simply not good enough to even be on the squad, he's just too fragile and weak to battle defenders in the world cup. If Felipao benches Hulk he most likely goes the Ramires route like he did against Mexico and it changes too much of the offensive scheme we have. It takes Oscar away from the middle, kills the creativity in the mid field and you end up with that disaster of an offensive performance from the Mexico game(although Ochoa was MOTM and Mexico played a great game). Keeping Hulk in at least keeps the rest of the guys where they are meant to be. Daniel Alves is a guy that Brazilian fans are just about ready to throw off the nearest cliff. Fred is on life support after his goal today but he's been God awful also. Truth is Neymar is saving our behinds along with Thiago and David Luiz, everybody else has sucked and we really don't have any bench options to change anything. Should have taken Coutinho and Lucas from PSG.

[treiz]

Don't understand why Scolari doesn't trust Willian, he's clearly the superior overall player than Hulk and he proved it at the end of the season. Plus playing him, Oscar and Neymar could add a lot of fluidity to the team as they are all comfortable playing the 3 positions behind the striker.